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University of Maryland student activists on Tuesday made good on their threat to sue the university after administrators blocked demonstrations on campus planned for the Oct. 7 anniversary of the bloody Hamas attack on Israel, which has led to a wider war in Gaza.
The group University of Maryland Students for Justice in Palestine filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, seeking an injunction that would bar the university from canceling the event. The lawsuit, which asserts that the student groups’ First Amendment rights have been violated, specifically targets the University System of Maryland Board of Regents, the University of Maryland at College Park and Darryll J. Pines, the university president.
The university refused to comment on the lawsuit Tuesday, instead referring reporters to a statement that administrators issued on Sept. 1 outlining their decision to block the Oct. 7 rally.
The controversy began when Students for Justice in Palestine and another student group, Jewish Voices for Peace, got university permission to hold a vigil on Oct. 7 on the campus’ McKeldin Mall to recognize lives lost in the previous year, especially the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
But other Jewish student organizations and other individuals, both in College Park and off campus, called on the university to cancel the vigil, arguing that it would create undue suffering among Jewish students. Administrators canceled the event and announced that all campus activities on that day would be restricted to university-sponsored events. The University System of Maryland quickly issued a similar policy for all of the system’s campuses for Oct. 7.
In the Sept. 1 letter, Pines said that while there was “no immediate and active threat” associated with the Oct. 7 event, it was being canceled “out of an abundance of caution.”
“We concluded to host only university-sponsored events that promote reflection on this day. All other expressive events will be held prior to October 7, and then resume on October 8 in accordance with time, place and manner considerations of the First Amendment,” Pines’ letter said.
The lawsuit says that’s unconstitutional.
“The First Amendment does not allow campus officials to establish free- expression-black-out days, even on occasions that may be emotional or politically polarizing,” says the lawsuit, which was filed by attorneys from the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C., and Palestine Legal in New York.
The lawsuit further maintains that by canceling the event, “the Government censors speech — based on viewpoint, on content, and the identity of the speaker — on a matter of vital public discourse and concern. It has no legally adequate reason to do so.”
The 19-page lawsuit offers an extensive history of campus activism and protest, both nationally and at the University of Maryland and outlines what student activists had planned for Oct. 7.
In addition to seeking to lift the university’s ban on the activities that had been scheduled, the suit seeks a declaration from a judge that the ban was unconstitutional; seeks an unspecified damage award from the university for violating the students’ First Amendment rights; demands that the student groups are reimbursed by the university for their attorneys’ fees; and requests “additional relief as the interests of justice may require.”
– William J. Ford contributed to this report.
