This week Lara and Michael sit down with student activist Soha Khatib, a senior at UIC and board member at Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) her University. We discuss the events that led up to her and her classmates teaming up with Palestine Legal file a civil rights lawsuit against the University for their disparate treatment of Palestinian students. She explains how she and other members of SJP were barred from entering an informational Zoom meeting for a study abroad program inside 48. While flyering to raise awareness that the school was organizing a study abroad program in the apartheid state, she explains the university staff called the cops and one police officer grabbed a female student by her hijab. She also dives deep into the aftermath including subsequent meetings with study-abroad personnel and the climate for Palestinian activists on campus at UIC. The episode speaks to the overall connections between oppressive state forces like the police, zionist think tanks, and higher education institutions in the United States and the culture of repression of Palestinian students on US campuses.

Article discussed on this episode : https://palestinelegal.org/news/uic-t...

A Palestinian-American Lawyer & Jewish-American comedian break down the latest Palestine-related news with commentary & interviews every week.

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00:00 Intro
04:50 The story
06:43 How it started
11:36 What they were talking about on zoom
14:41 First interaction with the administration
18:12 SJP challenges anti-Palestinian racism at UIC
21:48 Israel funding educational institutions in the US
22:59 Cops called on students for flyering
28:40 This is a civil rights violation
31:20 Culture of dehumanization of Palestinians by UIC
33:33 Campus vibe
36:01 When professors try to suppress student voices
42:40 Chicago police were trained by the IOF
45:40 Outro