[Disclaimer: All members of VSJP who are quoted in this article will be referred to anonymously out of concern for their safety.]
On Dec. 2, Vassar College administrators informed members of Vassar’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (VSJP) that their upcoming teach-in on the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) would be canceled due to concerns about the PFLP’s status as a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO), as well as objections and threats that administrators received regarding the event.
In an email to members of VSJP’s executive board obtained by The Miscellany News, Vassar Director of Student Activities and Associate Director of Campus Activities Will Rush explained that the administration’s concerns originated from the promotional materials created to advertise the event, which had been posted online. Rush wrote: “The event flyer and social media posts were brought to my attention yesterday, and I wanted to connect as soon as possible. Given that the United States has designated PFLP to be a foreign terrorist organization as of 1997, there are concerns about this event. Therefore, I am asking that you cancel this event – including removing any promotional materials that associate the College with this event.”
In an Instagram post which has since been taken down from VSJP’s account, VSJP wrote: “Check out this teach in on the PFLP (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) titled ‘They Will Certainly Be Victorious: On Palestine, Pan-Arabism, and the Popular Front’ on Tuesday, December 9! We will discuss how the Palestinian resistance group’s historic example can inform our organizing today.” The event would have been led by a graduate student from a nearby university with expertise on the PFLP.
The PFLP is a Marxist-Leninist political group founded in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War and 1948 Nakba with the goal of liberating Palestine through armed struggle. Israel began an illegal military occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank following the Six-Day War, marking Israel’s control over all of historic Palestine. The United States, European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Japan designated the PFLP a foreign terrorist organization due to its hijacking of four planes on Sept. 6, 1970, and the assassination of Israel’s far-right Minister of Tourism, Rehavam Ze’evi following Israel’s assassination of the PFLP Secretary-General Abu Ali Mustafa. In the PFLP’s 1969 founding document, the organization wrote: “The only weapon left to the masses in order to restore history and progress and truly defeat enemies and potential enemies in the long run is revolutionary violence in confronting Zionist violence and reaction. There is no other option in front of the masses of the Arab nation–they face a fierce enemy who wants them to surrender unconditionally.” Historian Francesco Leopardi has argued that for decades, the PFLP was widely popular and a major contributor to the Palestinian struggle. A member of VSJP wrote, “We intended to contextualize the PFLP in the historical circumstances of Israeli violence and displacement following the Nakba and the 1967 war. And so the PFLP, like many other national liberation groups in and outside of Palestine, were responding to a colonial situation. We hold that anti-colonial resistance is inevitable under occupation.”
Rush explained in his email to the VSJP executive board members, “In this case, because it is unlawful to knowingly provide any support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization, there is a level of institutional and student risk that prevents us from being able to permit the event to move forward.” Rush is referring to 18 U.S.C. 2339B, a law which prohibits individuals from providing material support to terrorist organizations. While the text of 18 U.S.C. 2339B specifically refers to fundraising on behalf of a terrorist organization, the College’s General Counsel Shay Humphrey wrote to The Miscellany News, “According to the Antiterrorism Act, providing ‘material support’ means providing any money, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, communications equipment, facilities, personnel, transportation, or other physical assets to an FTO. Any association with an FTO can raise an allegation of providing material support and due process rights of citizens and non-citizens are extremely curtailed when a terrorism charge is made.”
Members of VSJP dispute Rush’s characterization of the event, arguing that their organization was not providing material support for a terrorist organization. “Material support means, according to US law, having a direct channel of money or resources between us and the supposed ‘terrorist’ group itself or having someone from the group come in and us paying them for the event,” said a member of VSJP who received Rush’s email. “That’s what is illegal. We are not at all affiliated [with the PFLP].” The member of VSJP continued, “It’s just murky. It’s just people interpreting it to be [supporting the PFLP]. But their interpretations of it doesn’t mean that it’s true.”
Humphrey wrote, “The promotional materials for the VSJP event did not make clear what was happening at the event, so there were concerns raised about whether it could lead to allegations of a violation of this law… We did not know anything else about the event other than what was on the promotional materials. We did learn more about the event after meeting with VSJP and clarified that any event marketing should be explicit about the educational nature of the event.”
In an email to a Miscellany News reporter, a member of VSJP who was involved in drafting the post wrote, “To my knowledge the intention of the event was to learn about the history of the PFLP. All of our teach-in’s are not only purely educational, but also critical—meaning we don’t glorify or blindly support the activities of any movement or group we study. At the same time I believe it would be naive to learn about a Palestinian resistance group without discussing how we can critically learn from it as a group dedicated to Palestinian liberation.” Another VSJP member commented, “Anything politically involved will have discourse attached and if the school wants to allow for those political dialogues, it has to be able to facilitate events that go into these issues in the future.”
On Dec. 3, members of VSJP met with Rush, a member of the Vassar Student Association (VSA) and Humphrey. “When we got to the meeting, there was sort of this assumption that had been made that by talking about the PFLP, by bringing in a speaker, that we were somehow contributing to material support,” said a member of VSJP who was present at the meeting. Representatives of VSJP who were present at the meeting alleged that they tried to reach an agreement with administrators which would have allowed the teach-in to take place, but that administrators did not accept such suggestions.
The event’s cancellation raised concerns about censorship among some members of VSJP. “I feel that the college wielding their ability to repress critical discussion of certain topics should be concerning not only to the members of VSJP, but also to people in other student groups and academic departments who host intellectually guided discussions about any subjects, figures, or groups that are controversial,” wrote the student involved in drafting VSJP’s post. In response to concerns about violations of students’ rights to free speech, Humphrey wrote: “Any individuals or organizations associated with a designated foreign terrorism organization (FTO) may be criminally prosecuted for providing material support to the FTO. Terrorism-related charges are powerful tools that allow the government to completely avoid an individual’s First Amendment rights, otherwise applicable in criminal prosecutions.”
Members of VSJP alleged that, during Rush and VSJP’s Dec. 3 meeting, the members of Vassar’s administration also cited attention from conservative and Zionist social media accounts and organizations as justification for canceling the event.
On Dec. 1, shortly after VSJP posted the promotional material on Instagram, Israel War Room, a Zionist organization and digital platform with approximately 386,000 followers on X, uploaded a screenshot of VSJP’s post to X, writing: “VSJP at @Vassar is holding a ‘teach in’ glorifying the PFLP — a US-designated terrorist group — and focusing on how VSJP can learn from the terror group’s ‘historic example.’ The PFLP is a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group famous for hijacking passenger planes to ‘free Palestine.’ It has also carried out many other terror attacks and participated in the October 7 massacre.” The post has approximately 30,000 views at the time of publication. Members of VSJP who attended the meeting with Rush on Dec. 3 noted in an interview with The Miscellany News that administrators showed them Israel War Room’s post after they inquired about the threats the College had received about their event.
The post by Israel War Room was reposted by Leo Terrell, Department of Justice (DOJ) Senior Counsel and the chair of the DOJ’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism. Recently, Terrell has led the Trump administration’s efforts against universities accused of supporting antisemitism. In a Dec. 1 post on X, Terrell wrote of the teach-in: “I’ve seen a lot of things, but this is absolutely BONKERS!! @Vassar, what are you doing about this??!” In the post, Terrell tagged prominent Republican politicians, including President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pamela Bondi.
VSJP’s teach-in was ultimately canceled. On Dec. 5, VSJP’s Instagram account posted a statement regarding the decision, writing: “Vassar administration cancels educational event on the history of the Popular Liberation Front for Palestine (PFLP), citing material support for terrorism. We rebuke the college’s complicity with the federal government’s fascist agenda and suppression of anti-imperial education!”
In response to VSJP’s post, Israel War Room posted another screenshot of VSJP’s account, writing: “BREAKING: @Vassar has rightfully shut down an SJP event promoting terrorism and glorifying the PFLP terrorist organization. Support for terrorism must not be tolerated on US college campuses.” Hours later, Terrell reposted Israel War Room’s post, tagging Vassar’s X account, and writing the caption, “Some good news!”
Representatives of VSJP noted to a Miscellany News reporter that administrators showed them three emails that the College received from the Anti-Defamation League, an organization dedicated to combating antisemitism, encouraging the cancellation of the teach-in. The first email wrote: “If Vassar permits a student organization to exist that holds out a terrorist organization, that promotes violence, as an example to emulate, then this calls into question the moral validity of Vassar as an institution. This behavior makes clear that VSJP is an antisemitic organization that promotes violence, and that its continued behavior and presence on campus is dangerous to Vassar’s Jewish students… To Jews, this is no different than a student organization choosing to emulate the Klu Klux Klan or another white supremacy organization.”
The second email shown to members of VSJP noted: “I would also advise the college shield itself from massive liability stemming from allegations it aided and abetted terrorism by reporting to the FBI and ICE any employees and students at VC who are involved with VSJP or any other group advocating for violence against Jews and their homeland, Israel, whether they do so on or off the campus. Last, to shield VC from liability, I would also strongly encourage the college to notify every student applicant who is not a U.S. citizen that VC will not admit to its student body those who do not swear they are unaffiliated with VSJP or any other ‘Palestinian’ advocacy group as well as all other groups promoting anti-American and anti-Western attitudes.”
The final email read: “If you allow VSJP or other pro-Palestine (i.e., pro-Islamist) events to be held on Vassar’s campus, prepare yourself for lawsuits and a boycott of financial support from a large pool of alumni.”
In conversations with The Miscellany News, members of VSJP expressed their shock and outrage over the statements and threats emailed to administrators, but also noted their frustrations with the College’s response to these messages. A member of VSJP said: “It seems they’re much more concerned about public allegations of antisemitism and loss of funding, less so [concerned] for actual students, because they don’t want to protect us from FBI investigations either.” Although there is no concrete evidence that members of VSJP are being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Senate’s committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions launched an investigation into the American Muslims for Palestine organization, a group that some politicians claim helped college students organize and facilitate demonstrations in support of Palestine. The member of VSJP continued: “That does not seem to be their central concern. It’s the public image of the College, which they blame on us. They blame us for putting the College into [the] federal spotlight instead of the fascist federal agenda itself, which is super manipulative.”
“Pushing SJP to cancel this event goes against Vassar’s message of furthering education and pushing students towards critical thinking,” wrote a member of VSJP. “Making certain knowledge off limits only serves to obscure them, and this limit put on knowledge and learning makes students more susceptible to misinformation on all ends. In class, we don’t simply brush past controversial topics or viewpoints; we are encouraged to instead learn about them so we can be more aware of these subjects and their relations as a whole and think about them critically.”
Moving forward, VSJP will continue to hold events on campus. As of publication, the organization has planned two teach-ins for the Spring 2026 semester: one on the history of Palestine and Kashmir and one on the genocide currently taking place in Sudan.