The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania on Tuesday sued the University of Pittsburgh in federal court alleging the school violated the First Amendment by targeting a student organization advocating for Palestine.
The university in March placed Students for Justice in Palestine at Pitt on an indefinite, interim suspension in what the ACLU described as retaliation for the club’s criticisms of the school.
According to the free-speech lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh, the suspension came after the student group organized an open letter with more than 70 university-affiliated clubs and community organizations that protested the university’s “harassment” of the club.
“The First Amendment requires that public universities respect students’ right to engage in vigorous debate about important issues of the day,” Witold “Vic” Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in a statement. “Pitt’s suspension of the club’s status and other interference with peaceful advocacy is unconstitutional retaliation.”
Students for Justice in Palestine at Pitt has been a registered organization at the university since 2009 but became more active after the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 and the subsequent conflict.
It has organized and promoted various demonstrations and educational events on and off campus, the ACLU said, and used social media to raise awareness about the plight of the Palestinian people.
But the ACLU said Pitt singled out the group over the past year and “systematically interfered with and censored peaceful, First- Amendment-protected political expression.”
The ACLU alleges the university has forced Students for Justice in Palestine at Pitt to hold events off campus, disciplined the group over a silent event in a school library and suspended the club for its letter criticizing Pitt leadership.
“Advocating for an end to the slaughter of the Palestinian people requires that we be able to speak openly and without fear of retaliation, particularly when that advocacy demands critical examination of the complicity of our own institutions,” Students for Justice in Palestine at Pitt wrote in a statement.
“Rather than uphold this right equally for all student groups, the University of Pittsburgh has crudely weaponized a vague, drawn-out and internally inconsistent disciplinary process as a cover to suppress our speech, in flagrant violation of our constitutional protections.”
The ACLU’s lawsuit is asking the court to declare Pitt violated the group’s First Amendment rights, order the university to lift the club’s suspension and end disciplinary actions.
A representative for Pitt did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit, which names as defendants the university, Chancellor Joan Gabel and other top university officials.
Pro-Israel group responds
The lawsuit alleges Pitt included in an internal database an alert urging heightened scrutiny of the organization. Other groups, including student clubs advocating on the Middle Eastern conflict, were not flagged, the ACLU claimed.
That includes organizations that were linked, according to the ACLU, to verbal attacks on Students for Justice in Palestine at Pitt.
In early October, the lawsuit said, Students Supporting Israel shared a petition urging the school to ban Students for Justice in Palestine at Pitt from the Oakland campus.
The ACLU cited as another example allegations that a student on the board of Student Coalition for Israel at Pitt left a note with several expletives on a car belonging to a former board member of Students for Justice in Palestine at Pitt.
Matan Rieger, president of the Students Supporting Israel group, said the organization has promoted the petition aiming to ban Students for Justice in Palestine at Pitt because they believe the pro- Palestinian group’s rallies include “hate speech.”
Rieger cited as examples the popular chants, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” “Globalize the intifada,” and “Intifada revolution.”
Rieger, a 21-year-old mechanical engineering student at the university, said he does not believe Pitt violated the pro-Palestine group’s free speech rights.
He contended the organization did not abide by school policies governing where it could host events.
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His pro-Israel group, he said, was once removed from a university property when it launched a rally in response to a protest Students for Justice in Palestine at Pitt had. Both groups, he said, were told to leave because they hadn’t reserved the lawn space they were using.
“There are plenty of other organizations that have had spaces revoked, even on a last-minute basis,” Rieger said.
Disparate treatment alleged
The lawsuit contends the university initiated disciplinary action against Students for Justice in Palestine at Pitt over a passive protest Dec. 9 at a university library.
Members of the group wore keffiyehs, draped Palestinian flags and displayed small political signs on laptops and backpacks while quietly studying at the library, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit claims Pitt police — who the ACLU said rarely patrol inside the library — monitored the group’s activities in the library. The ACLU said students participating complied with requests from university officials to reposition a whiteboard they were using and remove political signs from the university’s tables.
Students left the library after Pitt police threatened arrest participants if they did not provide identification, the lawsuit said.
According to the ACLU, Pitt officials also repeatedly forced the group to move its events to less desirable locations or spots where they’d be farther from the students and officials to whom they were directing their messages.
In September, Pitt police forced about 100 demonstrators to move off campus to city-owned Schenley Plaza, a move the ACLU said removed them from where Pitt students and faculty typically gather.
The next month, university police told about 50 people at a rally the group co-sponsored to move from outside the William Pitt Student Union to an off-campus area across the street at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum.
The next day, an educational “teach-in” the group promoted was moved off campus to Schenley Plaza.
Pitt previously allowed other demonstrations at the same locations where they barred the pro- Palestine events, the lawsuit claimed.