BUZZ
‘FIRE is prepared to raise this issue directly with its accreditors‘
A national free speech group is calling on the Catholic University of America to allow pro-Israel speakers on campus – or else face an accreditation complaint.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sent a second letter to CUA leadership on Friday, asking it to remove its restrictions on Students Supporting Israel.
The intervention follows a proposal earlier this year for the group to host Israeli homeland security expert Dany Tirza as well as Jewish Republican Rep. Randy Fine of Florida, as The College Fix previously reported.
The university is requiring the club to host a pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel speaker.
While the school says this is part of their policy, that is only supposed to apply when an invited speaker takes a view contrary to the Catholic Church, such as if a club invited a pro-abortion speaker. However, the university did not even apply this policy, allowing the campus Democrats club to host a speaker who supports abortion, according to Student Supporting Israel’s leadership.
The Catholic university in Washington, D.C. allowed an event with an anti-Israel speaker, for example, but did not present the pro-Israel side, FIRE also said.
“We again strongly urge CUA to approve SSI’s event requests and assure students that the university will not condition event approval on student’s willingness to arrange for and host speakers opposed to their own viewpoint,” Program Counsel Jessie Appleby wrote to President Peter Kilpatrick.
The letter came after a university spokesperson sent a brief acknowledgement email on March 31.
“Thank you for reaching out. I wanted to let you know that your letter has been received and that we are taking its contents into consideration,” communications director Karna Lozoya wrote to Appleby.
The national free speech group is ready to file a complaint with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, the accreditor for CUA.
FIRE previously used this tactic against New York University for what the group says was an unfair punishment of pro-Palestinian activists.
Catholic University of America and Students Supporting Israel have been in conflict before.
Last October, officials removed a display of Israeli flags that students set up in memory of the victims of the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack on the Middle Eastern country.
A campus spokesperson told The College Fix that the display was approved “mistakenly,” and it violated the university’s flag policy. The spokesperson said that the student organizers also were informed about the flag policy prior to making their request for the display.
The club disputed this claim.
“It is fundamentally dishonest for the university to hide behind a ‘flag policy’ that they conveniently ignore for other student organizations,” club President Felipa Avila told The Fix at the time. “When a rule is used to silence one viewpoint, it stops being a policy and becomes a pretext for discrimination.”
He said the club had permission for set up the flags.
Editor’s note: The president of Students Supporting Israel, Felipe Avila, previously worked with Matt Lamb at Students for Life Action.
