The following is a statement passed by the Academic Freedom Committee of the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union.

Washington, March 10— President Trump warned Monday that this weekend’s arrest of prominent Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil by federal immigration authorities is the first “of many to come” amid his administration’s crackdown on students and alleged “agitators” protesting Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza (CBS News).

On the same Monday, while journalists, educators, and many other Americans were still reeling from this ominous attack on the First Amendment and immigrant rights, New Brunswick Provost Saundra Tomlinson-Clarke emailed a “Campus Safety Update” to all New Brunswick faculty: ”We have been made aware that a day of action on college campuses is being planned for tomorrow by the National Students for Justice in Palestine. We are not aware of an organized action on our campus, but out of an abundance of caution, we want to make you aware of the steps we are taking to keep our campus safe.” We are dismayed that the Provost issued this unjustified warning and felt compelled to “increase[…] security at key buildings.”

This message is patently offensive and Islamophobic, implying that protests in support of Palestine are inherently violent and require added security. 

We do not fear our students, but rather we fear for their safety, especially for those students who protest the genocide in Palestine. We condemn the Islamophobic suggestion that an SJP rally would be presumptively unsafe, which plays into the false narrative that Rutgers has a “pervasive climate of antisemitism.” 

Instead, we insist that the Rutgers administration uphold its stated “mission and values” to “defend the rights of all Rutgers community members to speak freely,” that they ensure the safety of all students, and in this time of peril, that they stand up for this public institution of higher education against the truly dangerous attacks coming from Washington.