University of Pittsburgh
PITTSBURGH – The suspension of a pro-Palestine student group at the University of Pittsburgh is over, thanks to a federal judge who says the American Civil Liberties Union is likely to succeed in its lawsuit.
Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan last week granted Students for Justice in Palestine at Pitt’s request for a preliminary injunction against the suspension of it as a student group. SJP-Pitt and the ACLU filed suit in April, a month after an indefinite suspension was imposed.
SJP-Pitt has been a registered student organization since at least 2009 but was mostly dormant until 2023 when it increased its advocacy efforts, which condemn Israel's military operations in Gaza and the United States' refusal to stop them. It hosted educational events, initiated demonstrations it says were peaceful and took to social media.
“The public interest will be served by increasing the level of association and speech on campus,” Ranjan wrote.
“Pitt makes a good point that there is a public interest in the integrity of conduct hearings at a public university. Indeed, to the Court’s eye, this was unquestionably Pitt’s driving force behind the original charge and suspension, not any sort of animus towards SJP and its viewpoint.
“But… the public interest in the integrity of the conduct hearing must be furthered by a more refined and tailored rule.”
Last year, the University of Pittsburgh put an alert on an internal database that tells users to subject SJP-Pitt to heightened scrutiny. Other groups dedicated to the conflict did not receive the alert, the suit says.
Groups on campus supporting Israel have organized counter demonstrations, and the group Betar USA posted on Instagram that it was recruiting in Pittsburgh. Its message said it would give recruits a beeper which SJP-Pitt viewed as "a thinly veiled death threat" because of the attack carried out by Israel with exploding pagers.
Last fall, Pitt relocated an SJP-Pitt demonstration, using the phrase "event in a non-reservable space," though SJP-Pitt says it fails to define "event."
The group sought to hold an event it called "Anti-Zionist Kabbalat Shabbat," which Pitt officials sought to rename "Non-Zionist Shabbat." Though SJP-Pitt thought it would work with Pitt on what to call it, Pitt instead canceled it in January, the suit says.
Things came to a head later when SJP-Pitt organized a letter with more than 70 other university clubs and community organizations that protested the treatment of SJP-Pitt. In March, it was placed on suspension.
Judge Ranjan decided SJP-Pitt’s speech is protected and the suspension didn’t pass a “strict scrutiny” test. He declined to impose sanctions on Pitt over evidence issues.
“One last thing,” he wrote. “The Court encourages the parties to put their disputes, including what remains of this case to rest.”
