BOULDER, Colo. — On Oct. 7, Hamas fired about 2,000 rockets at Israel. Then Hamas invaded, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 200 people hostage. Israeli authorities continue to investigate claims Hamas committed sexual assaults.
According to the University of Colorado Boulder's Ethnic Studies department, something different happened that day.
THE STATEMENT: 'An unprecedented genocidal attack'
"Starting October 7...We witness another unprecedented genocidal attack on the Palestinian people," a statement once published on the department's university website read.
The department published its statement on Oct. 22, on the public university's website, with no individuals signing their names. The statement said, "We also reject the language of 'terrorism' used by the US and Israel to justify the Israeli state killing machine."
The statement does not contain the word "Hamas," but it uses the terms "decolonization" and "settler colonial violence," while expressing support for boycotting, divesting, and sanctioning Israel.
THE CHANCELLOR: 'Free expression can be very uncomfortable...'
After the statement, CU Boulder Chancellor Phil DiStefano published a statement supporting free speech, while also saying the university will not condone antisemitism. He never specifically labeled the department's statement antisemitic, until he sat down with 9NEWS this week.
"My personal opinion is, was that it was antisemitic," DiStefano said.
A CU spokesperson said the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance investigated the statement, and found that it did not violate their policies, because it was constitutionally protected speech.
Even though the chancellor said he believes the department used its public university's website to disseminate antisemitism, he believes they have the right to do so.
"Yes, I believe that, you know, through academic freedom they're able to make that statement," he said.
When 9NEWS initially requested an interview with DiStefano, his office declined. They recently changed their mind.
He said he did an interview to express that he wants all students, faculty, and staff at CU to feel safe, while creating an environment for competing ideas to exist without fear of reprisal, and if there are threats that they will be investigated.
THE RESPONSE: 'The Fascists don't want to stand up and bear witness...'
After the statement was published, the department received an influx of messages. 9NEWS obtained the department chair's emails from a public record request. Emails show people within the department referred to the responses as "hate" mail.
9NEWS found people expressing disappointment.
"Kinda offensive and filled with hate speech," one person said in a voice message.
"I find your statement uneducated at best," another person wrote.
"I wish the members of CU’s Ethnic Studies Department could take a more academic approach to their statement—meaning I wish they would consider the history..." another person wrote.
Ethnic Studies Department Chair Arturo Aldama told his coworkers to work remotely, and "Get into lockdown mode.." Some classes that were in-person became virtual. Aldama opened a case with CUPD, despite a spokesperson saying the department never received a threat.
Some professors disregarded the feedback.
"The fascists don't want to stand up and bear witness," an Ethnic Studies assistant professor emailed some of his colleagues.
There is a petition with almost 4,000 signatures labeling the department's statement antisemitic.
Responding to accusations of antisemitism, an associate Ethnic Studies professor emailed, "Those that would accuse us of doing so lack the capacity for critical thought or are simply aligned with fascist ideologies."
"I believe on calling out what we know to be true: We are getting additional harassment as non-white people and that is not ok," an Ethnic Studies professor wrote in an email.
"Personally, I will never never never (4 times) understand why critiques of US backed settler colonial violence by the state is always seen as anti-Semitism," an Ethnic Studies associate professor emailed.
About a week after publishing the statement, the department decided to replace it with this new statement.
Some professors did not want to replace the statement, but ultimately they decided to do so.
"I think this would be a great way to proceed as we are protecting ourselves and not losing sight of our political commitments and morality," an Ethnic Studies assistant professor emailed.
The removal resulted in a second statement from the chancellor.
9NEWS tried to contact multiple people in the Ethnic Studies department via email, phone calls, and a handwritten note. None responded to our questions.
Here is the full statement Ethnic Studies published on Oct. 22nd:
Revised Palestine Support Statement 10.22.2023
This statement was first released in May 2021 when the Israeli state had escalated its violence against Palestinians. Unfortunately, starting October 7, 2023, over two years later we witness another unprecedented genocidal attack on the Palestinian people, an intentional collective punishment and forced displacement with unprecedented levels of air bombings on civilians. This statement affirms our unwavering and continued commitment to a free Palestine. We stand with our Palestinian students, faculty, staff, and broader community to demand an immediate ceasefire, as we continue to support complete liberation, de-occupation, decarceration, and decolonization of Palestine.
Palestine is a Feminist Issue:
The Department of Ethnic Studies stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination. Full stop. We loudly condemn the horrific on-going settler violence of the Israeli state occupation and the brutal bombing of innocent Palestinian people in the Gaza strip by its military, going on since October 7, 2023, with no signs of abetting even as families are pushed south and over five thousand Palestinians have been killed. We join the Palestinian call for liberation in every corner of Palestinian lands, adding our voice to the protests that have been taking place across the world, including in Colorado, in support of Indigenous Palestinians' right to life, land, and return.
We support those that call what the state of Israel is doing amounts to war crimes—indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations, collective punishments, withholding water, medical aid, food, fuel and causing a preventable humanitarian catastrophe.
We ask: Is the end game of the Israeli state in its supposed “right to defend itself” to ethnically cleanse Palestinian peoples (with support of the “west”) through constant bombardment driving them southward away from their homes and communities to free up more land for the ongoing Israeli settler colonialist occupations? As of October 22, this is what is happening to Palestinian peoples in Gaza as they flee for safety with a bare modicum of water and food.
We grieve the loss of life everywhere and of everyone, including the many children, elderly, and adults who have perished on both sides. We further acknowledge that historically, Jews have been victims of genocide and continue to be victims of anti-semitic discrimination and violence. At the same time, we caution against false equivalences between the settler colonial violence of disproportionately powerful militarized states on one hand and colonized peoples on the other. The state of Israel's violence against Palestinians in Gaza and other parts of occupied Palestine is not a "conflict" that is equally violent "on both sides." We also reject the language of “terrorism” used by the US and Israel to justify the Israeli state killing machine. We reject such specious and obfuscatory language, and call for anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-carceral, feminist, and abolitionist academics to recognize and name settler colonial violence for what it is: whether in the case of Israeli state violence in Palestine, Indian state violence in Kashmir, or US state violence on Indigenous lands and across all occupied territories. We also call attention to the financial, policing, and military connections between these powerful settler colonial and imperial nation-states and their Islamophobic and anti-Indigenous regimes. More specifically, as scholars based in the US, we must take a critical stance against all the ways the US continues to support the Israeli apartheid state, including military aid amounting to almost 4 billion per year to enable Israel to continue killing Palestinians. We reject Biden’s supplemental request to provide 106 billion where he bundles military aid to Israel, Ukraine and the US/Mexico border. The use of our tax dollars to support these ongoing acts of militarized necropolitical violence in Gaza is unconscionable.
As departments whose work is informed by intersectional, anti-racist, and decolonial feminist, queer, and trans scholarship and activism, we join the scholars and activists of the Palestinian Feminist Collective in affirming Palestine as a feminist issue. We encourage our communities to read, engage, and sign the PFC pledge. In addition, we also endorse this statement by Scholars for Palestinian Freedom. Building on our prior commitments to antiracist feminist perspectives in our scholarship and activism, we amplify the legacy of Black, Indigenous, Arab, Muslim, and Jewish feminist and queer scholars and activists, in support of the long Palestinian struggle for liberation. Finally, we call on our scholarly community to engage and teach the work of feminist scholars in the field of Palestine studies; to counter the silencing of pro-Palestinian voices on and beyond university campuses via disingenuous conflations of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism; to support the Palestinian calls for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction against the Israeli state; and to initiate campus conversations that educate students and campus communities about indigenous struggles for liberation in Palestine, Turtle Island, Hawai'i, Puerto Rico, Guåhan, Kashmir, Tibet, and all occupied and colonized territories.
We also stand in solidarity and amplify the voices of student leaders on campus who are demanding the University of Colorado Boulder to take a stand with Palestinians and not be complicit in their genocide. Further, we demand that the university must ensure the safety of anti-genocide student and community activists on campus. In this time of heightened violence, we must protect those who are fighting against genocide, apartheid, and occupation.
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