The Palestine Taboo: Race, Islamophobia, and Free Speech (Episode 50)

The true test of a democracy is the extent to which civil rights in law are enforced in practice for the most vulnerable groups in society. As members of Congress demanded mass arrest and expulsion of college students exercising their free speech right to dissent against U.S. foreign policy in Gaza and the West Bank, the racial fault lines in American democracy were yet again laid bare.
Similarly, university presidents are buckling to external political pressure to violate academic freedom of Muslim and Arab faculty targeted by external anti-Muslim and pro-Israeli groups and politicians. In this episode, Distinguished Law Professor Sahar Aziz examines how Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism intersect to produce systematic assaults on the civil rights of racialized communities.
These concerted efforts to quash the nonviolent Palestine Solidarity Movement set dangerous rights-infringing precedents that are now being weaponized against immigrant rights advocates and supporters of diversity, equity and inclusion.  The same conservative groups and politicians who complain about the erosion of free speech in America are now spearheading the policing of viewpoints and speech expressed by progressive students and faculty on college campuses.
Listen to Professor Aziz as she explains the origins and harmful consequences of the Palestine Taboo on all American’s free speech and political freedoms, which is the basis of her forthcoming book on the topic.
#Israel #Palestine #Gaza #Genocide #PalestineTaboo #FreeSpeech #AcademicFreedom
Suggested Readings
Sahar Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom (2022)
Mitchell Plitnick and Sahar Aziz, Presumptively Antisemitic: Islamophobic Tropes in the Palestine Israel Discourse (2023)
Sahar Aziz, Racing Religion in the Palestine Israel Discourse, AJIL Unbound , Volume 118 , 2024 , pp. 118 – 123.