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Amid crackdown on Gaza protests at US art schools, Art Institute of Chicago students withdraw from genocide

Pabio November 5, 2024

On October 24, some 200 students, faculty and staff at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), associated with the city’s famed Art Institute, walked out of class to protest the Israeli mass murder in Gaza. The demonstrators denounced the ongoing genocide and the complicity of the art school and museum.

According to ARTnews“Signs carried phrases such as “WHEN ISRAEL BOMBS, SAIC PROFITS” and “AIC STAFF SUPPORTS SAIC STUDENTS.”

School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Photo by Alanscottwalker / CC PAR 3.0)

Students for the Liberation of Palestine (SPL), which organized the action, claimed in an Instagram post that the art school “supports and profits from war criminals and profiteers.”

SPL referred to the fact that there could be “no ethical education” at an institution “funded by the Crown family”. The reference is to the descendants of Chicago financier Henry Crown, whose total worth now stands at some $14.7 billion, reports Forbes review. The original Crown “started a building materials company in 1919, which merged with General Dynamics in 1959. The family still owns 10% of General Dynamics” (Forbes) one of the largest arms manufacturers in the world and, underlines the SPL, “an arms supplier to the Israeli army”.

The anti-genocide group continued

There is no free speech, radical artistic expression, and progressive education as long as a member of the Crown family sits on our board of directors and holds more power than any student or faculty member.

Israel’s genocidal campaign continues in Gaza; land theft and settler violence in the West Bank increases; and now the Zionist entity is expanding its murderous attacks and terrorist regimes to Lebanon, Yemen and Syria.

The large Chicago protest occurred amid a widespread crackdown on the right to protest and free speech at art schools across the United States. Many of these institutions witnessed major protests last spring against Israel’s war of extermination, including the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD); Pratt Institute, Cooper Union, School of Visual Arts, Parsons School of Design and Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York; the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Santa Clarita, California and the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles; Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia; SAIC in Chicago and Cranbrook Academy of Art in suburban Detroit.

The recent protest at SAIC followed “a widely publicized pro-Palestinian protest at the school in May that led to the mass arrest of approximately 70 students,” according to ARTnews. Subsequently, “a group of 40 museum employees sent an open letter to museum president James Rondeau expressing solidarity with the protesters. The letter called on the museum to end “financial support for the Palestinian genocide, whether direct or indirect.”

Remarkably, following a November 2023 walkout in Gaza, “the school administration sent an internal email to students alleging that the protest “disturbed the balance.”ARTnews)

This notion, that university administrations are ready and willing to accept protests as long as they do not “disturb the balance,” is currently codified in the attack on genocide protest and free speech in general.

RISD workers on strike in April 2023 (Photo by Kenneth C. Zirkel / CC PAR 4.0)

The purpose of any serious protest is precisely to disrupt the balance, in this case to draw the attention of a given campus and the general public to the commission of an abominable crime, the homicidal “final solution” of the Palestinian question in Gaza and the West Bank.

THE ArtJournal reports that in mid-September, hundreds of students gathered at FIT, Parsons, the School of Visual Arts, and New York University “while large contingents of police looked on of New York.

The same article notes that

Many protesters will face new obstacles and consequences on campus this fall. In particular, some of the top art schools in the United States have updated their policies on protests, tightening restrictions and strengthening sanctions ahead of the new mandate.

At FIT, part of the State University of New York (SUNY), the administration in August issued a lengthy series of “temporary standards and guidelines,” couched in police-bureaucratic language, seriously restricting political demonstrations. Like the ArtJournal noted, the new policies

include a long list of places where demonstrations are explicitly prohibited and a complete ban on encampments and “night protests” – the latter “will be considered an intrusion and treated as such”.

The list of do’s and don’ts mainly includes not to do. The places in which the demonstrations can’t happen extends over six paragraphs (a.-f.) and includes “Classrooms, seminar rooms, auditoriums or meeting rooms.”

The section in which the administration announces that it will “monitor all assemblies in designated public areas of grounds and buildings and prevent participants from engaging in any of the following activities…” spans nine paragraphs and includes a bewildering array of campus policies that student protesters cannot contravene.

Of course, and above all, it is forbidden to disrupt the balance, or, as the FIT prefers to phrase it, “it is not permitted to disrupt the functioning of the college”. Any objective reader of the guidelines is likely to conclude that the FIT administration is frightened and hostile to opposition to the status quo and, in particular, intends to suppress protests against Israeli massacres.

FIT 27th Street Campus in Manhattan (Photo by Beyond My Ken / CC PAR 4.0)

The AT SAIC itself, the latest edition of its student handbook, updated September 4, sets out similarly repressive guidelines for protests, obviously intended to discourage such activities. Once again, the language used is worthy of a police or intelligence service. The tone of disapproval is striking. Everything must be done to help the administration-bureaucracy to restrict or, if possible, eliminate the protest:

The 280 Pit is the only space on campus where students are permitted to hold a demonstration or group protest. To facilitate advanced event planning, students should reserve space in advance by completing this form. This form must be submitted at least three business days before the start of the event. Where possible, students and/or student groups should provide additional notice, ideally two weeks or more, to best facilitate planning. (!) Space is not considered reserved until official notification is sent to the student organizer. Once notified of an approved demonstration, the student organizer will be assigned a point of contact to assist in managing the event.

THE ArtJournal cited a SAIC student’s legitimate comment: “These new policies are trying to take away our right to protest, and I will not stand for it…The administration should be ashamed of itself.” »

At Providence RISD as well, the administration also suddenly “updated” its policies, effective September 16. The art school’s policy on “campus protests and demonstrations” now states that a “protest, rally, or demonstration shall not interfere with the missions, processes, procedures, or functions of the College.” As in other schools, the guidelines place a lot of emphasis on what students can not to do. “Although the College encourages the free exchange of ideas, the College may limit the duration, location, and manner of events.”

The clear intent of the pages and pages of restrictions (and ominous warnings about “remedial action” (!) for those who violate school policy) at RISD, as at other art schools, is to discourage left-wing opposition and stifle dissent, all this verbiage backed by the threat of police batons and handcuffs. Indeed, police arrested dozens of anti-genocide protesters at FIT last May and, as noted above, 68 protesters at SAIC.

Like the ArtJournal concludes gently,

As the war in Gaza enters its second year, students at several U.S. arts universities are already facing more serious consequences if they decide to organize — or continue to organize — protests in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Le-verdict

Le-verdict

Amid crackdown on Gaza protests at US art schools, Art Institute of Chicago students withdraw from genocide

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Amid crackdown on Gaza protests at US art schools, Art Institute of Chicago students withdraw from genocide

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