8 Pittsburgh students beat repression, 1 still fighting

Pittsburgh, PA – In a partial victory for students, Carnegie Mellon University dropped its case against eight students charged with discrimination and harassment. The students were charged after painting a series of anti-Zionist messages on the university’s designated “free speech fence.”

While the exonerated students and other activists recognize this as a step towards victory, a ninth student involved in the original case, Rosalyn Toth, is now facing additional charges, including the threat of expulsion.

Aster Lufkin, one of the exonerated students, said, “Our free speech victory is important, but we still have work ahead of us. The university is still persecuting Rosalyn. And, ultimately, securing our right to speak out about Palestine is step zero to organize for divestment and other truly impactful ways of supporting Palestinian liberation.”

Toth spoke with Fight Back! News about her ongoing struggle with university administration. “CMU is trying to break me. It unilaterally cut my housing contract a week before move-in, which has put me in an unstable housing situation, citing a third charge it added on a whim. It denied my request for permission to schedule times for dining on campus property, preventing me from using financial aid to afford food, after months of documentation of my limited access. I can barely study and my physical health is deteriorating. It is using those as bargaining chips to pressure me to take their deal.”

The exoneration of eight students comes after activists around the city rallied behind the fence painters, with the support of the groups Palestine Legal and Jewish Voice for Peace. Shortly after the charges were levied against the students, a joint letter from activist organizations, including the American Association of University Professors, Coalition for Higher Education, Concerned Jewish Faculty and Staff, Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, Palestine Legal, the Sunrise Movement, and Jewish Voice for Peace, called on the university to clear the students from all charges.

In August, the charged students worked with the International Solidarity Committee of Pittsburgh (ISCPIT) to lead a call-in action during move-in week. ISCPIT leader Dot Bodwell spoke about her experience tabling near CMU campus during the call-in, “We managed to speak face-to-face with over 120 CMU students and quickly found out the student body does care about this; they don’t want to face repercussions for political speech in these moments when they are first learning and figuring out their politics.”

Marigold Cameron, chair of ISCPIT’s actions subcommittee, went into further detail about the significance of the recent development. “This decision from the administration shows the value of raising our voices to confront repression. The targeted students didn’t hide or go for a quiet legal defense; they showed up at activist meetings, spoke at protests, and helped us organize our call-in where students and community members alike flooded CMU’s voicemail with messages of discontent. It is thanks to pursuing this activist work alongside the defense by Palestine Legal that nearly all of the students are free.”

“The decision also shows the absurd arbitrariness of CMU’s position, by letting only some of the students off the hook despite the original charges being the same,” Cameron added. “Administration is in for a rude awakening if they think we are leaving Rosalyn behind.”

In July of this year, Carnegie Mellon began investigations into the students, barring many of them from campus on the grounds that their anti-Zionist, pro-Palestine statements painted on the fence constituted “threatening,” and “antisemitic” speech, and therefore violated campus anti-discrimination rules.

An earlier Fight Back! News article reported that ten students were facing repression. At this time, one of the original fence painters is no longer being represented within the same defense as the nine others and does not wish for any aspects of their case to be made public.

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