When seniors Aria Bossone and Eva Garces-Foley began planning the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies' annual Student Peace Conference, they landed on a theme of “United Paths for Peace.” Seeking an intersectional, collaborative outlook on peace-building, they quickly settled upon Eman Abdelhadi, a professor at the University of Chicago and grassroots organizer, and Jason Wesaw, a Potawatomi artist, to present the keynote addresses at the conference.
This plan was halted six days before the conference, when Bossone and Garces-Foley received an email informing them that Abdelhadi’s invitation to speak had been rescinded.
Abdelhadi received a similar email from the Keough School's dean, Mary Gallagher, citing an inability for the event to adhere with a campus security policy that requires a police presence at all events regarding Israel and Palestine as the reason for the cancellation.
She decided to publish the contents of this email alongside a written response titled “‘Do Not Participate’: The Absurd Excuse Notre Dame Gave Me When They Canceled My Talk” in “In These Times” magazine, in which she accused the University of censorship.
Planning of the conference
Bossone and Garces-Foley explained that the eight month planning process for the conference began during the first week of the semester. Their decision to frame the conference, which is in its third decade, with a central theme of united paths stemmed from what they described as an inherently interdisciplinary subject.
The co-chairs determined who they would invite to be their keynote speakers over winter break. Both Abdelhadi and Wesaw were recommended to them by staff, as Abdelhadi spent time as a fellow at Notre Dame and Wesaw's work has been featured in the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art. They were excited that Abdelhadi and Wesaw would be representing collaboration across different backgrounds — Abdelhadi as an academic and grassroots organizer of Palestinian solidarity and Wesaw as a cultivator of peace who labels himself as “not a scholar.”
“[Wesaw] is very deep within his community, the Potawatomi community, locally as an artist and peacemaker. We loved his view on life and relationship building, and we wanted that to inform our keynote session. For Dr. Abdelhadi, her research intersections were really cool, between religion, gender identity and migration,” said Bossone.
Both were sent email invitations to speak in January and quickly accepted these offers.
Garces-Foley shared that they began to discuss with both keynote speakers what they'd like to share during January.
She later added that up until roughly two and a half weeks before her address, they had not spoken to Abdelhadi about what specifically she wanted to talk about, but were aware of her work on gender migration and identity in relation to her Palestinian heritage and her organizing with Palestinian solidarity movements.
When Abdelhadi shared that she wanted to give a talk on pro-Palestine organizing at college campuses, she worked with Garces-Foley and Bossone to ensure they would have a safe space for constructive dialogue.
Bossone shared that they then communicated the topic of her lecture with Ari Woodworth, the event coordinator at the Kroc Institute, who went through the due process of giving the title and description to the University provost, John McGreevy.
“Ari expressed to us that she's been doing this for years ... she said not to worry about this. She has the process down to a T; she knows exactly how this goes,” Bossone said.
According to Garces-Foley, they were told by Woodworth that they could assure Abdelhadi that “there will not be an issue.”
Six days before the conference, Garces–Foley and Bossone received an email from Asher Kaufman, director of the Kroc Institute, informing them that Mary Gallagher, the dean of the Keough School of Global Affairs, and McGreevy had made the joint decision to rescind the invitation. The email cited the campus policy requiring security at events discussing Israel and Palestine and maintained that due to the Blue-Gold game and Holy Half Marathon happening at the same time as the conference, the University would be unable to provide security details for the event on short notice.
Notre Dame has additionally been requiring Notre Dame IDs and checking backpacks at Israel-Palestine events throughout the year.
Garces-Foley acknowledged that those two campus events were out of their control, but said, "there were many holes left in their reasoning, and we were left out of the decision making process entirely."
The co-chairs shared that they were left with three questions: was it offered for her to talk on different topics, for her to talk virtually or offered for the Kroc Institute to hire security?
“Because we were left out of the decision making, we never really got an answer as to why it was just a total cancellation and why there wasn't a fight to have some other alternative,” Garces-Foley said. “Six days prior to have to completely pivot a keynote speech was a lot.”
Bossone noted that they were alerted at almost the same time as Abdelhadi, leaving them “blindsided.”
“We felt that it was pretty sad and disrespectful to us and our work over the past eight months,” she said. “[the University's decision] in our belief does not promote the values of this institution and academic freedom.”
Garces-Foley noted that the security protocol prompts an assumption that events regarding Palestine and Israel couldn't be held without security and labeled the protocol as unclear.
“To be able to have constructive conversations is a pillar of academic expression, so the fact that they would say no, there needs to be security and we can't provide security so we're just not going to have it, was indicative of a deeper issue of academic censorship existing in this current trend in this country,” Garces-Foley said. “To see the University capitulate to that fear of what happens if we have these talks on campus and then therefore censor this keynote was disappointing.”
Garces-Foley later noted that the move to cancel an academic discussion and Kroc Institute event was unprecedented.
“It also sets a dangerous precedent that if you know the topic of discussion is something fearful for the University, maybe an unpopular opinion, the University can just cancel it and not allow these things to be discussed,” she said.
She added, “At a deeper level, it's an example of censorship of academic freedom. How is the University going to respond in this national moment of attack on higher education?”
Response from Abdelhadi
In an interview with The Observer, Abdelhadi reflected on the cancellation of her address.
“I felt very upset about it,” she said. “I knew that the students had put a lot of work into this and I put a lot of work into it, and more importantly I felt that in this moment of intensive repression and intensive silencing of Palestinians themselves, this was Notre Dame truly … capitulating to this administration's McCarthyism and doing it at an incredibly dark and painful moment in Palestinian history." ”
She shared that she gave a similar speech at the University of Oregon this winter, at which one police officer was sent to sit in the back after people wrote to the provost saying she shouldn't be allowed to speak. She labeled Notre Dame's security requirement as “extremely abnormal.”
“The irony of all this is that what I was planning on talking about is everything that’s happened with pro-Palestine activism and the way it has threatened the very core of American universities,” Abdelhadi added.
On the policy itself, she shared, “We shouldn’t be in a place where you have to have this policy. I'm an academic, I've been in academic institutions my whole life, and it's not typical that you need to run an event by the dean… [this] is a huge break in the tradition of American universities.”
On her decision to publish the email, Abdelhadi said, “It felt as a matter of principle that I needed to speak out and call this behavior out. It was cowardly, it was insulting and it's very abnormal.” She added that she felt compelled to “name the reality” that “we're not having the actual fight. You're telling me about security, but it’s totally not that.”
Her X post regarding this email and her response has received over 425,000 views.
She shared that she believes the letter has gained traction on social media because the message resonates with people.
“I think these institutions, frankly, shouldn't get away with this era, this needs to be in the historical record of what has happened to me, my people, and this moment in this dark moment in American history where we are tamping down on the spark by an extremely vulnerable and marginalized group of people,” Abdelhadi said.
She noted that while she understands universities frequently receive pushback from the pro-Israeli side, they should have anticipated pushback on this decision as “the majority of the American public stands with the Palestinian people and does not agree with what is going on.”
She noted that this instance was particularly insulting due to the fellowship she completed at Notre Dame.
“They literally paid me to come spend my sabbatical there. I have many friends on the campus. I look fondly upon it. I really can't emphasize enough how out of turn it is according to basic academic etiquette,” Abdelhadi said.
Response from Faculty
Notre Dame's Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine released their own statement via the Instagram pages of Solidarity ND and Student Voice for Palestine with four calls to action: to publicly apologize, to invite Abdelhadi back to campus, to clarify and revise their security policy and to stand up for free speech.
Conference
The conference brought students and faculty from over 20 universities in the U.S. and internationally. Over 50 presenters spoke in person and virtually and over 230 people registered for the conference.
To fill the gap left in the program following the cancellation of Abdelhadi’s speech, Garces-Foley and Bossone planned an alternative faculty roundtable discussion to discuss “democracy, censorship, and academic freedom: how did we get here and where are we going?” They incorporated a statement sent to them by Abdelhadi into the roundtable.
Garces-Foley shared that they've been in communication with Abdelhadi and will continue to have a working relationship with her. “She told us that to some extent, the things her cancellation has exposed and the attention it has garnered are greater than the things she could have said,” Garces-Foley said.
The co-chairs were assured by Kaufman that the student presentations would not be impacted by the cancellation or security measures, and students from Notre Dame and Pace University spoke on an Israel-Palestine panel. A nonviolent activism panel also discussed Palestine, and Bossone presented her peace studies capstone research on the topic at the conference.
Garces-Foley noted the inconsistency in the University's approach to the issue, labeling the “standardization of the protocol” as one of their key concerns.
“Are you going to cancel all Israel-Palestine talks? That's a huge issue in it of itself, but just choosing to cancel one, if the University isn't clear on their policy, they can't get upset at us for not following the protocol that isn't even clarified,” she said.
Regarding the production of the conference, Bossone said, “When we picked the theme of collaboration, we didn't realize how much it would be grasping at this core idea of … having everyone in this space and being able to learn from one another.”
Both co-chairs reflected positively upon Wesaw's address, during which he discussed building relationships and community with people and nature.
University response
In a statement to The Observer, a University spokesperson wrote, “In an effort to both ensure the safety and security of our students, staff, faculty and guests and uphold the principles of freedom of expression on campus, events or lectures that touch on sensitive subjects require planning with the Notre Dame Police Department and other campus partners.”
The Spokesperson continued, “With respect to the lecture in question, the University was unable to provide the necessary security on short notice due to other long-scheduled events that day and apologized to the speaker for the inconvenience.”
Bossone shared that she and Garces-Foley sent an email to Gallagher and McGreevy following the cancellation. They did not hear back from McGreevy, but they met Monday with Gallagher.
During this meeting, she shared, Gallagher expressed the same argument of security concerns and told them the University needed to be informed sooner about the topic of the address, despite stating that the University currently has no clear protocol on the process.
Bossone also noted that they brought forward their three questions regarding the possibility of an alternative topic, a virtual talk, or outside security and “she didn't really have a response as to why those things weren’t possible.” They expressed to her their desire to have been involved in the conversation and their concerns regarding censorship.
Gallagher did not respond to a request for comment.
