I'm worried about my friend in Gaza. His baby Yasin is only two and a half months old — too young to comprehend, much less articulate the horrors surrounding him. University students in the U.S. are facing repression because they dare to care about babies like Yasin and their parents suffering through genocide. Universities like Columbia are silencing students and capitulating to fascism. Meanwhile, Harvard and University of New Hampshire (UNH) platform war criminals like the former Biden administration U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk by hiring them as professors while suppressing students’ dissent. War criminals need to face justice! Instead, Harvard and UNH are rewarding their careers.  

 👉 Send a letter to Harvard and UNH: Revoke Professorships for War Criminals!

War criminals Sullivan and McGurk are not only morally corrupt, they’re unqualified to teach our students. Not much can rival the Biden administration’s catastrophic handling of Israel’s genocide campaign on Gaza. Sullivan and McGurk violated both domestic and international law by facilitating weapons transfers to Israel despite irrefutable evidence of Israel’s war crimes. In contrast, our students have used their intellect and conscience to challenge a genocide in their names, with their tax dollars. They learned the role universities play in funding genocide and spoke out to stop the erasure of an entire people. Meanwhile, Sullivan and McGurk represent the opposite: evil men driven by greed and power, architects of the mass destruction their decisions enable. Just last week, we delivered a petition signed by over 4,200 of you to the International Criminal Court office in New York, urging them to investigate the Biden administration for aiding and abetting Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. If our students can learn anything from Sullivan and McGurk, it’s how to be unstrategic, genocidal leaders with no regard for human rights or the law. 

The recently targeted and martyred journalist Hossam Shabat said, “If our voice is killed, then be our voice.” He was a college student when the genocide began, and in those few words, he made our collective responsibility clear. As journalists in Gaza have been killed, university students have been rising up in solidarity. Now, they’re facing unrelenting repression, so we must speak for them. We must speak against the genocide and condemn universities for silencing students who expose their role in it. I cannot stress enough how important it is for us to make it unbearable for them to silence us. There are no institutions coming to save us — demanding accountability is our duty. 

 👉 Tell Harvard and UNH: War Criminals OFF Campus!

My heart races every time my friend in Gaza takes a little too long to answer me. He sends me voice messages, and I hear what sounds like hell in the background while he tells me he’s grateful for everything and asks me how I'm doing. The people of Gaza refuse to be erased. While the most powerful militaries in the world try to destroy Gaza and its people, we have an incredible responsibility to not be intimidated out of speaking against these horrors. If we lose all hope, they’ve already won. To honor Hossam’s legacy and secure Yasin’s future, we need to have hope. 

 👉 Don't miss out:

• Read: Mahmoud Khalil's Arrest is the Start of a New Red Scare
• National Action: Join us in DC on April 5!
• Join our next MPM community hour on 4/14!
• Sign up to organize and engage locally!
• Order pink keffiyehs from the West Bank!

Until Liberation,

Nour and the entire CODEPINK team

PS: If you're interested in joining us to deliver these letters to Harvard and UNH, send us an email! [email protected]