8/25/25

 To our university, local, national, and international communities,

One year ago, a group of concerned employees of Ohio University formed Ohio University Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (OU FSJP) to support the Palestinian people as they suffer from the horrific and illegal violence enacted by the state of Israel, violence supported by the United States. Since then, the plight of Palestinians has become more dire and the actions of Israel and the United States have become more atrocious and condemnable. 

The scope of this violence is staggering. With the military, financial, and diplomatic support of the United States, the state of Israel has killed over 61,000 Palestinians and displaced approximately 1.9 million of them, all while destroying the infrastructure of Gaza—houses, roads, hospitals, schools, utilities, and agricultural land. Currently, 2.1 million Palestinians are on the verge of mass starvation as the result of a man-made and completely preventable famine imposed by the Israeli army, which created a blockade around Gaza and is illegally depriving Palestinians of humanitarian aid.  

In response to these atrocities and in our ongoing commitment for justice in Palestine, OU FSJP reaffirms our original principles of unity:

·      We condemn Israel’s violence against Palestinians, which the International Court of Justice has described as a plausible genocide according to the 1948 Geneva Convention and B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, has unequivocally described as genocide.

·      We condemn the U.S. military, diplomatic, and financial backing of Israel’s aggressions in violation of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act and the Leahy Law.  

·      We condemn the efforts of the U.S. to suppress and outlaw support for Palestinians.

·      We continue to advocate for Palestinian rights through education, defending free speech on Palestine and opposing Israel’s attacks on Palestinian schools and universities.

·      We endorse the nonviolent BDS movement to pressure Israel to comply with international law, end its occupation, and respect Palestinian rights.

·      We support student groups like OU SJP and their rights to free speech and peaceful protest for Palestinian liberation and we oppose retaliation against activists.

·      We reject all racism (anti-Arab, antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Blackness), oppression, and discrimination based on identity or ability.

·      We reject the conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel and we follow Jewish Voice for Peace in endorsing the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism.

We also condemn Ohio University’s investments in military companies that directly profit from the death of Palestinians, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Siemens. The President and Board of Trustees have been directly informed by our students about these investments and have refused to meet with them to discuss possible strategies that would allow the university, in the words of our students, to “divest from death.”

We also condemn Ohio University’s silence on this crisis, noting that the current administration created a policy of not issuing “statements on matters of social or political interest that do not have direct impact on university governance or operations” in February of 2024, only after charges of genocide had been brought in the International Court of Justice against Israel for its violence against the Palestinian people. In effect, our university has created a policy of self-silencing that it hides behind rather than acting in accordance with its own professed values.   

We find OU’s inaction amounts to complicity and hypocrisy. OU has a College of Business, and OU invests in businesses—such Boeing, RTX Corporation, Siemens, and Lockheed Martin—that directly profit from mass murder. OU has a College of Health Sciences and a College of Medicine, and over a thousand doctors and health care workers have been killed in Gaza and all of Gaza’s hospitals have been targeted and most destroyed. OU has a School of Journalism, and over two-hundred journalists have been targeted and killed in Gaza. OU is an educational institution, and all of the universities and over eighty percent of schools in Gaza have been targeted and destroyed, along with archives, museums, and cultural sites. More than 16,000 students and 900 teachers have been killed, while over 780,000 students are unable to attend school. 

Without actively voicing support for Palestinian lives, OU cannot uphold its own mission:

To hold the door open to higher education so that all those eager to solve humanity's most urgent challenges might enter to learn, connecting them with experiences and discovery that will help them think critically, care deeply, lead boldly, and ultimately depart to serve.

The ongoing genocide in Gaza and the forced starvation of the Palestinian people is one of the most urgent moral issues of our lifetime. We urge Ohio University, President Gonzales, and our fellow faculty to join us in this undertaking and in our struggle for justice in Palestine.

On behalf of the collective of OU FSJP,

Thomas Hayes

Associate Professor of Instruction School of Film

Dr. Eric LeMay

Associate Professor of English

Dr. Joseph McLaughlin

Associate Professor of English

Dr. Julie White

Professor of Political Science