10/4/26

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

Two years have passed since a group of Ohio University employees came together to form Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine. We did so out of a shared conviction that silence in the face of atrocity is not neutrality—it is complicity. That conviction has only deepened as the past year has brought new horrors, new evidence, and new reasons for moral clarity about the plight of the Palestinian people.

The illegal and horrendous violence against Palestinians has not ended. It has evolved.

With the military, financial, and diplomatic backing of the United States, Israel has now killed more than 73,669 Palestinians and injured over 174,625. These numbers continue to climb. Children account for nearly one-third of the dead—over 20,000 murdered, with more than 44,000 injured . At least 5,031 children under the age of five, including over 1,000 infants, have been killed. These are not abstractions. They are the documented toll of a campaign that the world's highest courts have refused to ignore.

The ceasefire that took effect in October 2025 was never a true cessation of hostilities. In the months since, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, Israeli forces have killed an additional 1,375 Palestinians and injured 4,686. The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry has concluded that the ceasefire has "effectively solidified Israel's continuous occupation of Gaza" and that "children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire."

In June 2026, the UN released a report whose findings are almost unspeakable. Titled "The essence of childhood has been destroyed": Israel's deliberate targeting of Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 7 October 2023, the commission found "on reasonable grounds that the Israeli security forces have intentionally directed lethal force against children as such," amounting to the war crime of willful killing and the crime against humanity of extermination. The report documents children shot by snipers and quadcopters, dying slowly while soldiers watched. It documents drone strikes on children playing soccer. It documents sexual violence against children as "a tactic of war." Gaza now has the highest concentration of child amputees in the world.

Nor is this violence confined to Gaza. Since September 2026, Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank has surged to record highs—coordinated assaults on villages like Jalud and Yasuf, attacks on olive harvesters in Beita and Osarin, and at least 30 Palestinians killed by settlers in 2026 alone, with more than 2,500 displaced. Among those killed by settlers or Israeli forces are nine American citizens—yet in September 2026 the U.S. Senate rejected a resolution (S.Res. 852) that would have merely required a State Department report on their deaths, in a 47–53 vote.

Ohio University has not been silent in the face of this genocide. But its actions have been the wrong ones.

While students, faculty, staff, and the Athens community have called for peace, transparency, and accountability, the university has spent the past year doing the following:

OU arrested its own students. On April 16, 2026, during a peaceful protest on campus, two students were handcuffed and charged with criminal trespass for demanding that the university address its over-compliance with Senate Bill 1, its dismissal of a student referendum passed by 86% of voters, its refusal to commit to "no ICE on campus" policies, and its lawsuit against the faculty union.

OU removed OU FSJP member Professor Tom Hayes from teaching. After Hayes was detained by the Israeli military while participating in a humanitarian flotilla attempting to deliver aid to Gaza, the university removed him from his course—while he was still being held in an Israeli prison without charges. Students and faculty condemned the removal as retaliation for his activism and a violation of free speech.

OU dismissed a democratic student referendum. In Spring 2026, 86% of voting students demanded transparency in OU Foundation investments and an end to new investments in Israel Bonds until their credit ratings were restored. The administration dismissed the referendum, misrepresented its demands, and invoked Ohio law to justify inaction.

OU filed a lawsuit against its own faculty union. After 71% of faculty voted to organize as the United Academics of Ohio University, the administration challenged the election, sued SERB, and continues to delay a fair contract over one year into negotiations.

In response to these atrocities and in our ongoing commitment to justice in Palestine, OU FSJP reaffirms the principles that have guided us since our founding:

• We condemn Israel's violence against Palestinians—violence the International Court of Justice has described as a plausible genocide and that the UN Commission of Inquiry has now confirmed constitutes genocide through the deliberate targeting of children.

• 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 efforts by the U.S. and others to suppress and outlaw support for Palestinians.

• We 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—and all 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 continuing silence on this crisis. The 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"—only after charges of genocide had been brought in the International Court of Justice. 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.

But the university is not silent when it comes to punishing its own community members. It arrested students. It removed a professor. It filed a lawsuit against its faculty. It dismissed a democratic referendum. It is willing to speak—but only to enforce silence.

We find OU's inaction amounts to complicity and hypocrisy.

• OU has a College of Business, and OU invests in businesses while refusing to be transparent about which businesses it invests in and whether it is profiting from military companies and corporate polluters.

• OU has a College of Health Sciences and a College of Medicine, and the UN reports that Gaza now has the highest concentration of child amputees in the world while the Israeli military continues to target neonatal and maternity care centers .

• OU has a School of Journalism, and over 200 journalists have been targeted and killed in Gaza.

• OU is an educational institution, and Israel has systematically dismantled children's ability to learn, targeting schools and universities to sabotage "the intellectual and social foundations of Palestinian society itself."

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. A UN commission has now concluded that the targeting of children is a deliberate strategy to destroy the future of the Palestinian people. This is not speculation. This is documented evidence. This is international law.

We urge Ohio University, President Gonzalez, and our fellow faculty to join us in our struggle for justice in Palestine.

On behalf of the collective of OU FSJP,

Thomas Hayes

Associate Professor of Instruction Emeritus,  School of Film

Sarah E. Jones

Associate Professor, Scripps College of Communication

Eric LeMay
Associate Professor, College of Arts and Sciences

Joseph McLaughlin

Associate Professor, College of Arts and Sciences