We, as academics and educators at Washington University in St. Louis, have been watching with concern as students around the country and on our campus have been censored and punished for speaking out on the issue of Palestinian human rights. As educators deeply invested in our students’ ability to learn, ask questions, organize, and grapple with structures of power, we stand against all forms of institutional repression that stymie student efforts to organize around and learn about Palestine and related issues. We must protect the value universities offer as spaces for mobilizing against injustice and critiquing ongoing forms of oppression. 

We have become painfully aware of one such form of injustice and oppression coming from a member of our community. On Oct. 13, Seth Crosby, Assistant Professor of Genetics at WashU, noted on X that “Israel is not targeting humans” and “I believe that rabid animals should be put down.” These words, along with the University’s silence over them, fill us with extreme horror. 

The failure of the Chancellor and the University to condemn Crosby’s genocidal language, equating Palestinians to animals who deserve to be exterminated, sends a message to our Arab and Muslim students and faculty that their lives do not matter. The contrast between the existence of Crosby’s tweets and the repression of Muslim and Arab voices is terrifying. 

We are equally troubled by the University’s failure to provide students with support and protection, resulting in the postponement of the Palestinian vigil for “security concerns,” which is disappointing and will have grave results. It breaches every promise we make as a liberal arts institution. It contradicts the University’s commitment to social justice following the 2014 Ferguson uprising. Students and faculty of color need to feel safe to mourn lost lives; to voice their criticism against war and the demonization of Palestinians; and to stand against the role of our country in fostering violence in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Historically, universities have been an essential space for students to stand in solidarity with anti-colonial, anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-extractivist struggles globally. The doxxing, physical targeting, and online harassment of students at Harvard, NYU, and UPenn stifle the critical learning that universities were made to uphold, while exacting a double standard over which students are worthy of protection. We oppose punitive collaborations between University administrators and off-campus institutions geared towards the repression of student activities, whether these partnerships are with police, businesses, future employers, or individuals invested in harming students.

Taking a stand on Palestine is especially important in a moment when the Israeli state continues its indiscriminate bombing and killing of thousands of civilians, many of them children, and targets homes, hospitals, churches, mosques, orphanages, and universities like our own. These are war crimes. Over the last few days, Israel has called for Palestinians’ forced removal from northern Gaza, a practice of ethnic cleansing that would result in homelessness, mass displacement, and the worst humanitarian crisis since 1948. As scholars and as people, we know that true safety for everyone in the region will not come from the wholesale killing of entire communities, but rather, from addressing the historical causes of conflict: a 75-year colonial occupation, displacement, and economic and military imperialism. 

Alongside Palestinian human-rights groups and concerned Jewish voices, we mourn the lives of Israelis brutally murdered by Hamas. At the same time, we oppose the weaponization of these same tragic deaths in the service of genocide, we stand against the mourning of some deaths as more tragic and worthy of action than others, and we see the value in looking historically at how we got to our present moment. 

Our university must support the voicing of these important connections, ones that often become deliberately caricatured and muddled in the news media. When we stifle some conversations and not others, we normalize such oversimplifications and dehumanize whole populations. Students’ ability to mobilize on our campus around issues of racial, gender, economic, indigenous, and environmental justice is a part of this puzzle. Honoring the rich tradition of student organizing and learning on college campuses — including at WashU — means unequivocally supporting the right of students to speak out around issues of global concern — whether in or beyond Palestine — without retribution.

We call on the university administration to:

1. Provide safe spaces and resources to all our community members, including our Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students, faculty, and staff to mourn collectively without being intimidated or threatened. 
2. Make a clear statement condemning Seth Crosby’s genocidal language to assure our campus community that racist language will not be tolerated and does not have a place at WashU.
3. Support a campus-wide and long-term initiative for students and faculty to educate and organize around issues of racial justice and decolonization.

On behalf of concerned faculty across Arts and Sciences,

Shefali Chandra, Associate Professor

Department of Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies

Department of History 

Asian American Studies

Andrea Friedman, Professor Emeritus

Departments of History 

Department of Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies

Bret Gustafson, Professor

Department of Anthropology

Nancy Y. Reynolds, Associate Professor

Department of History

Department of Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies

Marlon M. Bailey, Professor

Department of African and African American Studies

Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Angela Miller, Professor

Department of Art History and Archaeology