After protesters chant ‘from the river to the sea,’ Temple law school warns about disrupting class

Temple University law school held a four-hour Zoom meeting with students last week and issued a statement Sunday clarifying that although free speech is permitted and supported on campus, conduct that disrupts a classroom is not.

The message follows an episode in a first-year law class on civil procedure last Wednesday, when some students held a walkout with Penn and Drexel in solidarity with Palestinians.

Students intending to participate in the walkout asked their assistant professor, Edith Beersden, if they could make a statement. She asked them not to include inflammatory comments and then reviewed the statement in advance to be sure, said law dean Rachel Rebouché.

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But one student went off script and said, “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free,” a sentiment that some have used as a rallying cry for the destruction of Israel. Another student shouted the phrase, and then others — not all — joined in the chant as they filed out of the room to join the protest.

Students in the class said some protesters “stared down” Jewish students in the back of the room.

“We were horrified,” said one of the students, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution. Beerdsen, the professor, declined to comment.

As episodes of antisemitism rise on U.S. college campuses amid the war between Israel and Hamas, administrators locally and nationally are wrestling with how to respond.

At the University of Pennsylvania, there have been three antisemitic episodes this semester, most recently “The Jews R Nazis” written on a building adjacent to the Alpha Epsilon Pi chapter house; Penn police are investigating, according to the Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper. Officials for the Jewish Federation of Philadelphia on Monday called on Penn President Liz Magill in a letter to condemn the antisemitic graffiti “to show Jewish students that you are committed to ensuring their safety and well-being, especially at a time when it is being threatened nationwide.”

Cornell University over the weekend sent police to guard a Jewish center and a kosher dining hall after calls to kill Jews on campus were posted on an internet discussion board, according to the published reports. The university’s police department is investigating and has notified the FBI.

“The incident targeting Cornell’s Jewish community is utterly revolting,” Chuck Schumer, a Democrat and majority leader of the U.S. Senate, said on the floor Monday. “Across the country on campuses and public spaces, the ancient poison of antisemitism has found new life.”

» READ MORE: Penn, Drexel, and Temple students demand recognition of Gaza from universities amid fears of doxing and retaliation

President Joe Biden’s administration announced steps Monday to combat the rise in antisemitism, noting that the education department’s Office of Civil Rights will expedite the process for dealing with discrimination complaints.

In the meantime, more than half of Jewish students who responded to a recent Hillel International survey said that since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, they feel scared on campus.

Law school students interviewed at Temple who did not want to be identified because they feared for their safety said they were unnerved by the classroom episode last week and its aftermath and want more action from the school, including consequences for the students who participated in the chant.

Rebouché, the dean, declined to comment on discipline but she said the school is talking to everyone involved.

“What we’ve done to this point is confidential,” she said. “But we have intervened.”

She noted that some students in the class who participated in the walkout were also upset, not realizing the chant would be used. Some sat down and didn’t participate as a result, she said.

“People were surprised and then felt like their message had been co-opted,” she said.

A second year law student who is a part of the Jewish Law Student Association noted that there were also Jewish students at Temple Law who supported and participated in the walk out. There is much division within the Jewish community at Temple Law over the topic, he said. As for the classroom disruption, he said, that is part of a walk out.

“Part of student protest is putting yourself on the line,” he said. “There will be consequences for meaningful protest activity and that’s understood.”

Temple University’s Students for Justice in Palestine, which helped to organize the protest, did not respond to an email. The walkout included hundreds of people from the three schools.

The law school’s statement didn’t directly reference the episode, which one student faulted. The school should have specifically prohibited that phrase being used in class, the student said.

But Rebouché said the school chose to be “clear about expectations.”

“I think it sends a message to people who were part of last week’s class of what we expect from every law student,” she said.

The statement said that although Temple is committed to free expression, it will not condone speech “that seriously and unreasonably disrupts or interferes with classroom activities” and that students could face consequences. “Inflammatory or hateful rhetoric that disrupts the classroom, for example, is not appropriate,“ the message said.

Students who violate rules, the statement said, could face a bevy of actions, including a warning, reprimand, transcript notation, probation, exclusion from law school or university activities, suspension, revocation of degree, report to bar administration authorities, or permanent expulsion.

Rebouché declined to say whether she thought the classroom episode qualified as a violation of the conduct code.

“This is kind of shifting ground in a sense,” she said. “Tensions are so high and this conflict is so fresh. And it’s in such transition.”

But, she added, “I find it hard to see how chanting that phrase in the classroom furthers any educational purpose at this point in time.”

About 30 to 40 students participated in the Zoom where the episode was discussed, said Donald Harris, the law school’s associate dean for academic affairs.

“I don’t think we got to a place where everybody was happy, but I think we got to a better place than where we started,” he said. “There was consensus on students’ right to express themselves. There also was consensus that those rights are not absolute and that there was pain that was caused.”

In 2018, when former Temple professor Marc Lamont Hill said publicly that he supported “a free Palestine from the river to the sea,” it sparked an uproar. Temple trustees condemned Hill’s comments, though defended his right to free speech. Hill subsequently apologized and said he rejects antisemitism.

The Temple Association of University Professors, the faculty union, defended Hill’s remarks as protected by the principles of free speech. Hill earlier this year left Temple for a job at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center.

A second-year law student who belongs to the Jewish Law Student Association said the law school statement was a step, but that “it may be too late.”

Invoking the phrase “from the river to the sea” is “clear-as-day hate speech,” he said, and Temple isn’t doing enough to protect its students.

In addition to consequences for students who participated in the chant, he and other students want the university to record classes so that students who feel unsafe don’t have to come to campus. They also want a declaration from the university saying that it stands against bigotry or any form of hate, including antisemitism — asserting that the law school’s Sunday statement didn’t go far enough, coming four days after the classroom episode and three weeks after the Hamas attack.

The University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School also is facing criticism for not making a statement about Hamas’ attack and ongoing violence, the Daily Pennsylvanian reported. The newspaper reported that the Jewish Law Student Association and some alumni are frustrated with the decision.

Rebouché said its statement did address bigotry. It stated: “Antisemitic and Islamophobic attacks are on the rise and have reached college campuses. This statement is to make clear that hate, bias, and bigotry have no place at Temple Law School.”

Regarding Jewish students’ safety, she said she knew of only a small group who didn’t want to come to class during the walkout, and professors have accommodated them. She said not all professors record classes, but they have made classes available by Zoom or met with students during office hours to review material.

Rebouché said the episode sparked a learning moment: “Whenever you cede the floor, you can’t predict what is going to be said entirely,” she said.

As for students, they have a duty to professionalism and they must think carefully before choosing words, she said.

“My message has been one of empathy,” she said. “If you know a phrase or word is going to incite deep disruption, division and conflict and you can communicate your message another way, choose another way.”