UCFPD, Student Conduct Charge Anti-Jewish Student After Massive Pressure
Charges follow immense public pressure campaign demanding even enforcement of the law
The massive pressure campaign against anti-Jewish discrimination spearheaded by UCF Jewish students appears to have finally resulted in charges against a single anti-Jewish student at UCF.
A single student, who has been claimed by UCF Students for a Democratic Society - a prominent member of the neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and pro-Palestinian student group coalition at UCF - has been brought before Student Conduct, according to a joint statement issued by SDS and UCF Young Democratic Socialists of America. The organizations also stated that the police intend to file criminal mischief charges against the student, just as they did to Jewish students last semester.
In response to the charges, UCF SDS and YDSA have adopted a new media strategy: taking Jewish claims of repression on campus, adopting them as their own, and betting that they will be viewed as more trustworthy than the Jews at UCF. The current antisemitic climate across the United States suggests they will be successful at portraying themselves as the victims of Jewish oppression, which is an ancient antisemitic canard.
Among the highlights of their statement are that:
“This selective enforcement reveals the political motivations of the administration’s response” - despite the fact that UCF PD and UCF’s adminstrative have been proven to protect anti-Jewish individuals and organizations on campus;
“The double standards being levied… are transparently a form of retaliation against us in response to our repeated pro-Palestine agitations” - despite the fact that UCF PD and UCF’s Administration have allowed these “agitations” to proceed without incident, while simultaneously suppressing Jewish activity on campus;
Claiming that SDS is being subject to “political repression” - despite SDS’s allies in UCF’s police force and administration actively and demonstrably repressing Jewish voices speaking in support of Jews around the world.
Based on the statement, it appears the student in question received a warning on January 29th from the UCF Police Department, and upon repeating the incident was charged with criminal mischief. This is, at long last, consistent with how UCF’s Jewish students were treated when posting flyers of the hostages in Gaza in November of last year.
It should be made clear that this single instance of the law being enforced against an anti-Jewish individual came after more than 5 months of the Jewish community asking why the law was being enforced exclusively against Jews. The charges coincide with an increase in momentum for the campaign to end Jew hatred at UCF, and we assume that UCF PD’s decision to charge one and only one individual with a crime - despite multiple individuals and student groups perpetuating extreme hatred, antisemitism, and threats of violence against Jews at UCF - is intended to deflect attention from the substantiated charges of anti-Jewish discrimination by UCF PD and UCF’s Administration.
The full statement reads as follows:
Hands Off the Student Movement!
UCFSDS Statement on Political Repression
End Repression Against Pro-Palestine Activism!
On April 1st, UCF Students for a Democratic Society was informed that the Office of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity was moving forward with charging one of its members with several violations of student conduct in addition to filing legal charges for criminal mischief, in response to pro-Palestine activism.
The charges only reference flyers being posted around the UCF campus containing pro-Palestine messages and advertising our organization’s weekly meetings. This compounded on a previous accusation on January 29th, also in relation to these flyers.
UCF Students for a Democratic Society denies these accusations and condemns them as blatantly being politically motivated attacks on our membership. UCF’s Student Conduct and Academic Integrity (SCAI) office has been reluctant to communicate the status of these charges at all, only releasing information on the second set of conduct violataions after already moving forward with criminal charges.
On April 17th, a Preliminary Conference was held between SCAI and the charged student to discuss the nature of these violations. From the onset of the meting, SCAI insisted that these violations are not about the content of the flyers, but over the fact that they were posted onto lamp posts, which SCAI claims is completely prohibited for everyone.
Yet, walking around UCF campus reveals many flyers posted onto many light posts, especially around Memory Mall. To limit flyers to only buildings and bulletin boards restricts students’ ability to freely express themselves on a public university, and there are in fact a wide variety of flyers posted around campus, many posted by students not even affiliated with any registered student organization. This selective enforcement reveals the political motivations of the administration’s response.
Students for a Democratic Society considers this administrative response to simple, unobstructive flyering around the UCF campus to by hypocritical as conservative pundits like the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh flock to UCF to lecture on the dangers of “gender ideology,” and conservative protest groups like the anti-abortion Grantham Collection are allowed to beseige the student population with images of aborted fetuses as they attempt to enter the UCF Library.
Neither of these groups have any representation among the UCF student population, yet they are given free reign of the campus to do as they please under the guise of UCF’s first amendment obligations as a publicly funded university.
Why are we, full-time students actively attending UCF, not even awarded the privilege of taping a flyer to a lamp post?
The double standards being levied against Students for a Democratic Society are transparently a form of retaliation against us in response to our repeated pro-Palestine agitations, including our demand that UCF release the records of its Strategic Investment Program and begin divesting itself from Israel, the genocidal Zionist project, and the American defense contractors that aid them in it. Unfortunately for the university, this will not dissuade us from continuing to struggle for a more democratic, more progressive society.
Stay tuned for further actions.
We will keep you updated as the story develops.