Brown University suspends its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine

Brown University suspended its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine after the group led a rally protesting the university’s decision not to divest its endowment from certain companies that support Israel.

Chapter members were told of the suspension on Oct. 24, the group said, nearly a week after their Oct. 18 protest.

The suspension is a “retaliatory, politically-motivated ploy to defame protestors, fracture the student movement, and detract from their complicity in the extermination of the Palestinian people,” the group said in a statement Sunday.

According to members of the group, which belongs to the Brown Divest Coalition, the suspension means that members are prohibited from holding any activities, events, meetings, or posting on social media.

“By prohibiting SJP from holding any events, including our weekly vigils, the administration has debilitated the sole organization on this campus dedicated to holding space for collective grief amidst the indiscriminate slaughter of Gazans carried out by the Zionist regime,” the group said in a statement.

Brown University did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment.

Brown Divest Coalition first led a series of protests in April calling for the university’s governing board to divest. While university officials did review a student proposal outlining why the board should divest from 10 companies, it ultimately decided not to do so.

The university’s governing body voted against the proposal on Oct. 8, with students organizing a protest in response on Oct. 18.

Brown Divest Coalition said that the university’s leadership “has shown us time and again that their investments in genocide take precedent over the dignity of the Palestinian people.”

Brown is one of several colleges and universities that have suspended pro-Palestinian groups amid ongoing protests, including Temple University, Tufts University, Rutgers University, American University and the University of Vermont.

Harvard University has temporarily suspended 25 professors and more than 60 law students from using the school’s flagship library after they held a protest on campus earlier this month.