TULANE: Violation of Mandates
Excerpt from letter sent to Special Rapporteurs by Civil Society (05.22.2024).
Tulane University: This account details violations relevant to the following mandates: the right to freedom of opinion and expression, right to freedom of assembly and association, right to adequate housing, right to education, attacks on human rights defenders, xenophobia and racism, violence against women, arbitrary detention and cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment and torture.
Tulane University has consistently restricted the freedom of opinion and freedom of assembly rights of its students who wish to express pro-Palestinian sentiments since Oct. 7, 2023. In October of 2023, Tulane University Police Department (TUPD) arrested four protesters and charged five for activities related to a non-violent pro-Palestine action. On March 16, 2024, TUPD erroneously arrested Toni Jones, a Black transgender woman organizer with New Orleans for Community Oversight of Police. Video evidence confirms that she was simply standing on the edge of a sidewalk, at a protest exercising their right to free assembly for Palestine. The protest called for Tulane to denounce professor and board member Walter Isaacson, who had assaulted a protester earlier in the week, and for Tulane to divest from its investments in Israel. Students also called for the city to investigate the death of Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, a 17 year-old Palestinian New Orleanian, who was killed when he was shot in the head by the Israeli army near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
The Tulane University student Gaza Solidarity Encampment (GSE) began on April 29, 2024 and lasted for 33 hours. As students were first setting up tents on the Tulane campus, the university immediately sent in police officers on horseback to attempt to dismantle the encampment. Brenna Byrne, a former student at Tulane, told Al Jazeera she saw a police horse’s hooves nearly come down on the head of one student who had been detained on the ground. Afraid the student would be killed, she moved forward to help and saw her own sister also on the ground being arrested, and a police officer kneeling on her head. She was charged with resisting arrest and was barred from accessing her home in a dormitory owned and managed by Tulane University. Five others were also arrested.
By the next day, April 30, 2024, a high-volume noise machine had been erected to drown out the encampment, as students attempted to perform both Jewish and Muslim prayers. A large billboard-sized LED sign had also been erected with a trespassing warning. The encampment continued peacefully throughout the day with teach-ins, facilitated conversations, prayers, songs, music and meals. Silas Gillett, a Jewish sophomore, told Al Jazeera that: “Multiple people came up to us and said they felt more safe that day than they ever had on campus. Tulane is, usually, a very hostile place for Palestinians, Muslims and students of color.”
Late that night, at 3:00 am on May 1, 2024, the university sent in more than 100 Louisiana State Troopers (LST) — a notorious police force that responds directly to the authoritarian-leaning Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry–notably, not Tulane University’s own police nor the New Orleans Police Department. LST arrived in riot gear, carrying automatic weapons, and backed by heavily armored vehicles. “A riot cop pointed a sniper rifle at my head,” Loyola Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) student Juleea Berthelot reported to The Lens. “I was scared for my life.” After storming the encampment, LST arrested 14 students who had been peacefully protesting. Al Jazeera reviewed video showing state police pushing one student to the ground, and reported reviewing their medical records showing they were later diagnosed with a concussion as a result of assault. The student believes they were targeted because they were filming the police at the time. At least one student arrested was a bystander who was not given pre-arrest warnings or the opportunity to disperse.
Campus disciplinary proceedings are pending for dozens of Tulane students and at least seven have been suspended so far for their roles in the encampment. Of those seven, Tulane evicted those who lived on campus. The university also suspended staff that had been supportive at the Office of Gender and Sexual Diversity and other departments. Tulane rescinded the “registered student organization” status of one of the protest’s main organizers, the Tulane Chapter of Students for a Democratic Society.