New Brunswick, NJ — Over the past few days, students at both the New Brunswick and Newark campuses of Rutgers University have set up Gaza solidarity encampments, joining their peers at Princeton and Columbia and across the country in demanding their universities to divest and disclose any investments in Israel. Responding to the calls from Palestinian Civil Society, students at Rutgers are no longer standing by and allowing their university to have any material support for the Israeli apartheid state that’s been conducting genocide on the Palestinian people. They represent the unheard call across the country for a new U.S. foreign policy that no longer sides with the oppressor against the oppressed.

We stand with all students in their righteous actions to oppose the genocidal apartheid state of Israel while U.S. universities and institutions enable such atrocities. Uncommitted NJ demands a stop to the violent, authoritarian, and undemocratic repression by police, state, and university authorities on campuses across the country. It is an appalling affront to the first amendment rights of citizens, and it only endangers students, faculty, and community members.

Uncommitted NJ stands with the students and their first amendment rights to voice their opposition to genocide. We demand that the university bargain with the students in good faith to reach a solution toward divestment.

We encourage everyone to join the movement of conscience by casting a vote for Uncommitted in the NJ Democratic Primary on June 4th and by helping the students at Rutgers and at other campuses in providing funds and food and other resources

The Vote Uncommitted New Jersey campaign is a grassroots movement bringing together thousands of New Jerseyans from all backgrounds across the state to demand an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people and the United States’ complicity in it.

Below are the official demands as of the Rutgers Endowment Justice Collective:

1. Divest from any firm or Corporation materially participating in, benefitting from, or
otherwise supporting the state of Israel’s settler colonialism, apartheid, and genocide of
Palestine and the Palestinian people, in accordance with the principles for divestment
listed in University policy 40.2.14.
2. Terminate its partnership with Tel Aviv University including in the HELIX Innovation Hub.
3. Accept at least 10 displaced Gazan students to study at Rutgers University
on scholarship.
4. Provide resources for Palestinian and Arab students in the form of an Arab
Cultural Center on each Rutgers campus.
5. Establish a Memorandum of Understanding to establish a long-term educational and
collaboration partnership with Birzeit University, in accordance with precedent set by William Paterson University
6. Name “Palestine” and ” Palestinians” in all future communications related to Israeli
aggressions In Palestine (as opposed to “Middle East” Gaza region etc.), and release a
statement from the Office of the President acknowledging the ongoing genocide against
Palestinians, its impact on the Palestinian community at our university, and advocating for a ceasefire.
7. Hire senior administrators with cultural competency and knowledge about Arabs,
Palestinians, Muslims, anti-Palestlnian racism, and islamophobia.
8. Hire additional professors specializing in Palestine studies and Middle East studies,
Institute a center for Palestine studies, and establish a path to departmentalization for
Middle East studies.
9. Display the flags of occupied peoples – including but not limited to Palestinians, Kurds,
and Kashmiris – In all areas displaying international flags across the Rutgers campuses.
10. Provide full amnesty for all students, student groups, faculty, and staff penalized for
exercising their first amendment right to protest Rutgers University’s support for Israeli
human rights violations. and voice support for faculty and staff who have been publicly
targeted for exercising their academic freedom.

For more information about Uncommitted NJ, please visit: https://uncommittednj.org/