Todd Saliman
President, University of Colorado
officeofthepresident@cu.edu
Justin Schwartz
Chancellor, CU-Boulder
chancellor@colorado.edu
Russell Moore
Provost, CU-Boulder
rmoore@colorado.edu
Dear President Saliman, Chancellor Schwartz, and Provost Moore:
We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our grave concern about the University of Colorado-Boulder’s apparent failure to meaningfully respond to a physical assault committed on campus against students advocating for Palestinian rights. More broadly, we are deeply troubled by the university’s creation of a learning environment that has left pro-Palestine community members vulnerable to attack. CU Boulder’s actions threaten the physical safety of its students, faculty and staff who advocate for Palestinian rights, as well as their rights to free speech and association under the First Amendment.
MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the prestigious International Journal of Middle East Studies and has nearly 2,800 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and outside of North America.
On 2 April 2025, three CU-Boulder students peacefully disrupted a university course titled, “Designing for Defense.” According to a fall 2024 syllabus for the course, the class trains students in “develop[ing]” and “deploy[ing] solutions” for the Department of Defense (DOD) and Intelligence Community. As reflected in video footage from that incident, one of the students initially approached the front of the classroom to read a written statement. The video, which mixes footage taken from the back of the class by the other two students, shows the course instructor – an adjunct professor employed by the university – ordering the first student, in the front, to leave. Instead of giving the students a meaningful opportunity to exit, the instructor quickly escalated the situation by grabbing the written statement held by the first student and rushing the two students standing in the back.
Another person, who was reportedly a “professional classroom mentor” but not a university employee, is shown in the video violently tearing off a scarf worn by one of the students at the back of the room, causing the student to fall to the ground. While the course instructor also appeared to grab the same student, it is unclear whether he assaulted the student himself. What does seem clear from the video is that the instructor did nothing to stop the professional mentor from using physical violence against the student. After completing his assault, the professional mentor left the classroom and threatened the third Palestine student, who had exited into the hall and had been videoing the other student’s assault, saying “you want some too?”
As the video demonstrates, the professional mentor continued to be physically violent towards the students outside the classroom, even after all three students had exited the room. The mentor again grabbed one student by their scarf, this time so hard they were thrown into the air and effectively strangled. He also assaulted the third student by grabbing their phone as they were recording the mentor’s actions against the other student. By the time the incident had ended, the professional mentor had thus assaulted all three students in some way.
Though we do not condone the students’ decision to disrupt the course, we find the actions of the course instructor and professional mentor shocking. Instead of affording the protesting students time to exit the room or requesting the assistance of campus safety officers, the instructor and professional mentor chose to engage in multiple physical assaults against the students. As the video indicates, the three students who were attacked presented no physical danger or threat to anyone in the classroom. As such, the actions of both the instructor and professional mentor were both disproportionate to the disruption caused by the students and potentially criminal in nature.
Unfortunately, instead of publicly condemning the use of physical force against its students, the CU-Boulder administration issued a public statement on 3 April 2025 that failed to adequately address what had actually happened the previous day. Regrettably, this flawed response seems consistent with a troubling reality at CU-Boulder. The administration appears to be pursuing a policy of draconian enforcement of campus rules against pro-Palestine students that has fostered a culture of impunity against those students and compromised their safety. The students assaulted on 2 April 2025 reportedly interpret the university’s response as a threat to punish them for the incident and have therefore refrained, thus far, from pursuing criminal charges against their assailants.
We see these fears as reasonable in light of other recent actions by your administration. Since at least the fall of 2024, the CU-Boulder administration has been enforcing its campus rules against pro-Palestine student activists in a harsh, disproportionate and selective manner. Currently, the university is being sued by two CU-Boulder students who were subjected to excessive interim sanctions for purportedly engaging in rule violations that appear minor on their face. The administration has also reportedly suspended the university’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine for other, relatively minor rule violations. By contrast, the university appears to have taken no action against either the adjunct professor or the professional mentor, despite the video evidence against them. To the best of our knowledge, the adjunct instructor has continued to teach the Designing for Defense course even though he may have violated CU-Boulder’s policy on “student classroom and course-related behavior,” which obliges faculty to maintain “an appropriate learning environment” and tasks them with the “professional responsibility to treat students with understanding, dignity, and respect….”
Your administration’s approach – to harshly sanction certain students and student groups while taking no substantive action against those physically assaulting or threatening students on campus – flouts your responsibility to foster a safe campus environment. Moreover, CU Boulder’s draconian and excessive enforcement of university rules against individuals and groups advocating for Palestinian rights is inconsistent with its First Amendment obligation to respect the free speech and associational rights of all students. It also violates the university’s Protected Class Non-Discrimination Policy, which prohibits discrimination and harassment based on a person’s political affiliation and philosophy.
In these fraught times, college and university leaders have a heightened responsibility to protect the freedom of speech and academic freedom of all members of their communities. As MESA’s Board of Directors put it in a statement dated 18 December 2023: “We call on university leaders and administrations to affirmatively assert and protect the rights to academic freedom and freedom of speech on their campuses.” That statement went on to quote from an earlier board statement: “We reaffirm that there can be no compromise of the right and ability of students, faculty, and staff at universities across North America (and elsewhere) to express their viewpoints free of harassment, intimidation, and threats to their livelihoods and safety.”
We therefore call on CU-Boulder to conduct a comprehensive, impartial and transparent investigation of the 2 April 2025 incident and hold to account the CU employee and professional mentor who assaulted CU students. We also call on your administration to end its apparent practice of targeting and disproportionately sanctioning pro-Palestine students and student groups. Finally, we urge the university to clearly state its commitment to engage henceforth in reasonable and well-considered enforcement of university rules in ways that protect rather than infringe upon the free speech and associational rights of its students, faculty and staff.
We look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Aslı Ü. Bâli
MESA President
Professor, Yale Law School
Laurie A. Brand
Chair, Committee on Academic Freedom
Professor Emerita, University of Southern California
Chair, Committee on Academic Freedom
Professor Emerita, University of Southern California
Documents & Links
- US20250428
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