While reading over the VP of Student Affair's letter regarding the misogynist email circulating across campus, I was reminded of an occasion on November 23, 2010, when I encountered Michael L. Jackson for the first and only time. That afternoon, I was protesting near Tommy Trojan with four of my friends who are also members of Students for Justice in Palestine. Protesting because I believed that the event was complicit in white-washing Israeli war crimes. I still vividly remember the moment when Michael L. Jackson held his business card out in front of me to say these exact words: "when somebody like me tells you to move, you move."
Before then, I was told that it was within our right to protest near Tommy so long as we were peaceful and silent. The five of us stood next to each other, holding up a signs, following the rules. Then, fifteen minutes in, what looked like six DPS officers clustered around our group and immediately began yelling. They told us forcefully to "Move! Move! You have to move! We're only gonna tell you this three times, you have to leave!" shouting over and over, even threatening to arrest us. They harassed us and yelled at our group for about ten minutes while my friends and I tried to remain in place, reiterating that we were standing in a free speech zone, were not going to move, and that they were violating our rights by insisting we do. But no matter what we said in our own defense, the officers still told us to movve. I could hardly speak up without getting cut off by their shouting, and it was clear from the beginning that they were going to try their hardest to make us leave.
When that effort, alone, wasn't enough, a man in a suit appeared, approached my friends and I to tell us, once again, to leave or to move to the other side of Trousdale. He was Michael L. Jackson, VP of Student Affairs, who I didn't recognize at first. He then asked my friend Alix and I for our first and last names and student IDs. Members of SC Students for Israel and USC College Democrats, who hosted the event were either holding up their iPhones, trying to get footage, or sitting silently on the sidelines. Hurt and angry by Michael L. Jackson's betrayal, my response to him as he held his card out in front of me was: "your position doesn't matter to me." The two DPS officers standing directly behind him began laughing as soon as they heard this and Jackson looked back at me totally stunned. Shortly after, he and the officers left the scene and we continued on with the rest of our demonstration.
By no means was this confrontation an isolated incident in which Arab, Muslim, or Pro-Palestinian students have felt discriminated against or outright intimidated at USC. In 2008, guest speaker David Horowitz fanned the flames of Islamophobia accusing the USC Muslim Student Union of having ties to terrorist organizations, with no proof whatsoever. In 2009, I sat through a visiting professor's lecture who came to the final conclusion that when it comes to Israel's policies with the Palestinians, morality is irrelevant. He recieved a round of applause. Every once in a while, I hear my closest friends reveal that they've been called "rag-head," "towel-head," and told to go back to "their country." Such incidents are reported each time to the proper officials, but largely go unnoticed by our broader community.
I was banned from attending Horowitz's lecture, through an email that told me I was a threat to the safety of the speaker and all those in attendance, for reasons never explained. Soon after, I was encouraged to feel grateful about an open letter issued to the USC community written by Michael L. Jackson. In it, he acknowledges the obvious fact that the USC Muslim Student Union is not a terrorist organization with "ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas," as Horowitz had proclaimed. He also wrote that the MSU is an outstanding student organization which deserves to also be treated, just as any other, with respect. His letter was kindly and carefully written, hailed by many as a "courageous move." In all honesty, though, I still believe that it was the absolute least he could do. The organization responsible for inviting David Horowitz, USC College Republicans, and Horowitz himself were left unmentioned in the letter, referred to merely as, "a speaker at a non-university sponsored event." The MSU received no apology from either end, begging the question: to what extent was anyone held responsible and to what extent were injuries ever repaired?
Another such incident occurred earlier this year, during a "Los Angeles Campaign Kick off and Petition Circulator Training to Qualify the Israel Divestment Initiative for the California Ballot", that took place Sunday, Sept. 19 in THH. I did not organize the event, but offered to reserve a room at USC for a number of Los Angeles activists under SJP's name. Everyone in attendance was a non-student, much older than I was, except for one other female USC student. She is not a member of SJP, I knew that she did not support the campaign, but I never asked her to leave. What I did say to her, instead, is that if she had any questions, she should feel free to ask me. Then, mintues into the meeting, an organizer from Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid stopped everything upon recognizing high-profile, pro-Israel advocates, Roz Rothstein and Gary Ratner, sitting in the back. She became upset, started yelling, told them that they needed to leave, and made others in the room uncomfortable. Instead of joining in on the shouting match, I called DPS, the only resource available on the weekend. Contrary to what was later reported, I never "ordered the two attendees to leave the building." I called DPS not because I was discriminating against people who do or do not support our campaign, but in order to get the proper assistance necessary to reconcile the matter. I was the only representative of SJP present at this meeting, and since my actions never reflected any intention to discriminate based on political beliefs, the allegation that SJP committed discrimination is wholly unfair.
The first reporter to publicize the incident, for Annenburg TV News, is a relative of the one female student who attended. Not surprisingly, his relative is never mentioned in the article. Instead, he refers to her vaguely as "a student," later claiming that it was someone else he interviewed, totally impossible given that she and I were the only two students in the room. The incident was typically framed as a group of pro-Palestinians discriminating against pro-Israelis. What was never mentioned or reported is that the woman who began shouting is Israeli, while still a frequent advocate against Israel's illegal occupation. Once DPS officers arrived to the scene, they asked Roz Rothstein and Gary Ratner to step outside of the room and talked to the two of them privately. I was inside the room when Ratner and Rothstein left and was not asked for my input. In a later interview, Rothstein attempted to smear SJP and all attendees calling us an "intolerant group that discriminated against people who they assumed didn't share their views," something I absolutely did not do. In fact, a few of the adults in attendance expressed to me afterwards that they were unhappy with what happened and believed that Ratner and Rothstein should have been allowed to stay, so long as they were not disruptive. In a statement issued regarding the incident, DPS Capt. David Carlisle said that he intended to conduct training for how officers should deal with these type of situations, in order to prevent them from happening again. I found out, in November, that the training was unsuccessful.
I am confronted by DPS officers at nearly every protest for Palestine or for democracy in the Middle East on our campus. It's almost as if, here at USC, we follow one basic formula: "when the Arabs are protesting, call the police." SJP members are constantly vilified, called a variety of nasty, colorful names for saying the simple thing which evidently despises so many: that Palestinians are human beings who deserve a life of dignity.
It is deeply troubling when administrative officials do not abide by our University's code of ethics. SJP has received no form of apology either from Michael L. Jackson or the Department of Public Safety. While busy urging the rest of our Trojan family to respect the rights and dignity of all people, Michael L. Jackson has been guilty of violating them. As I wrap up my last semester at USC, and prepare to graduate, what seems most clear to me is that the rights of all students on our campus are not protected, and that not everyone here feels safe.
The only explanation I can come to, as to why Michael L. Jackson felt that he could get away with saying what he did, as to why the reporter could so easily twist a story and cover up plain facts, and as to why David Horowitz so boldly championed bigotry is that when it comes down to it, it's usually going to be a matter of my word versus all of theirs, and who is going to believe the Arab Muslim girl?
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
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