Duke restores status to pro-Palestinian group after controversial cartoon post
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Duke restored SJP’s status and an April 24 email announced the restoration.
- Office of Institutional Equity found no violation regarding the political cartoon.
- The university directed the group to keep the post remain permanently removed.
Duke University has restored the status of its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine following a monthlong disciplinary freeze of the group’s standing as a registered student organization.
Last month, the group posted a 1970s political cartoon on Instagram that depicted a pig labeled “Zionism” holding up a Star of David and embracing another pig labelled “U.S. Imperialism.” Ben Adams, Duke’s senior associate dean of students, informed the group’s leadership that his office received multiple reports indicating the post amounted to harassment in violation of university policy.
SJP cooperated with Adams’ request to take the post down. But pending an assessment, Duke restricted the group’s status, meaning it couldn’t host events or request funding from the school.
Now, that assessment has concluded, and Duke’s Office of Institutional Equity found that no policy violation occurred.
“Based on our review, SJP’s interim Duke Group Restriction has been lifted, and the organization has been restored to full status,” Adams wrote in an April 24 email reviewed by The News & Observer.
“At the same time, Student Affairs acknowledges and fully supports OIE’s determination and ongoing supportive measures related to the Instagram post,” Adams continued.
The cartoon, originally drawn by Emory Douglas and published by the Black Panther Party, must remain permanently deleted for the group to remain in good standing.
“Duke University takes seriously all reports of discrimination and harassment, including antisemitism, and we review reports in line with university policy,” a university spokesperson said in a statement. “When Student Affairs and the Office for Institutional Equity received complaints about SJP’s Instagram post, the Dean of Students implemented interim, non-disciplinary measures restricting funding for the group and requested the organization remove the post while the matter was assessed. Once our assessments were complete and with the post removed, Student Affairs restored SJP’s Duke group status.”
For SJP, the restoration is a win, but the group says its trust in the university has diminished.
“While SJP has been restored, Duke’s pattern of administrative overreach did not begin and does not end with us ... It is part of a broader pattern of this administration silencing, sidelining, and suppressing its own students when faced with outside pressure,” a statement from the group reads.
“Duke’s treatment of SJP is not an isolated incident. It is evidence of an administration willing to bypass its own written policies, ignore due process, and act without accountability when it believes it can do so without consequence. Rather than standing by its students, Duke capitulated to outside pressure at their expense.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, took notice of the situation at Duke. When FIRE attorney Jessie Appleby learned the SJP chapter had been reinstated, she was gratified but not entirely assuaged.
“FIRE is pleased that Duke reinstated SJP, but the group never should have been suspended over the cartoon in the first place,” wrote Appleby. “And the investigation into SJP will have ripple effects. Students might fear speaking up given that Duke has shown willingness to investigate and punish unpopular speech.”
In an earlier statement, Appleby wrote: “A flyer featuring a 1970 political cartoon commenting on the relationship between the U.S. and Israel used to promote a campus event about recent U.S.-Israeli military actions, which does not target any students at Duke, cannot possibly qualify as so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive as to deprive anyone of the educational opportunities or benefits Duke provides.”
Efforts to reach Jewish Life at Duke for comment were not immediately successful Wednesday.
