ASU suspends club over pro-Palestinian social media post. Why students are protesting
Perry VandellCorrections & Clarifications: Details about a social media post that led to the suspension of MECHA de ASU were incomplete in a previous version of the article. The article has been updated.
Arizona State University suspended the student group MECHA de ASU after a Feb. 12 social media post that featured police body camera video in Arizona and called for the deaths of certain groups. Now, other student organizations are rallying to protest ASU's decision.
Roughly two dozen people gathered on the lawn outside the student services building at ASU's Tempe campus on Thursday to protest the suspension.
Pearse Kelly, a member of the group Students Against Apartheid who knows members of MECHA de ASU, told The Arizona Republic that he believed ASU suspended MECHA de ASU days after the club posted video of police brutality on its Instagram page. The post was not visible on the group's page as of Thursday.
A screenshot of MECHA's post shared with The Republic showed what appeared to be violent messaging.
"Death to the boer," the post read. "Death to the Pilgrim. Death to the zionist. Death to the settler."
Kelly said the school told MECHA de ASU it would have an update on its investigation into the post within five business days but that the club hasn't received any word from the school as of Thursday.
"We link the suspension and investigation of MECHA to greater suppression of pro-Palestinian voices and organizations on campuses at ASU," Kelly said.
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Kelly cited the school's last-minute decision to cancel a speaking event in November last year featuring U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American woman elected to Congress. Kelly also called on ASU to divest from various companies such as defense contractors Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.
"ASU has an active role in supporting that genocide through its programs, through its internships and through its contracts with Zionist institutions or Zionist companies," Kelly said. "So, we see that the next step is to restore the status of the organization for MECHA on campus."
Kelly said he understands that the suspension means MECHA members are barred from organizing events or being together on or off campus. Kelly said ASU claimed it suspended MECHA de ASU for inciting violence against certain groups, but he believed the organization merely called for the end of violent ideologies that promote hate speech and threatened students on campus.
"We're trying to keep our students safe who are coming from oppressed backgrounds, including being Palestinian," Kelly said.
An ASU spokesperson confirmed that MECHA de ASU was suspended but didn't specify what infraction the organization allegedly made.
"MECHA de ASU remains under interim suspension while the university continues to investigate possible violations of the Student Code of Conduct," the school said. "Procedures for the Student Code of Conduct detail all the relevant time periods within the process. A time frame for ASU to decide on appeals is not provided within the procedures."
MECHA de ASU's mission statement states, "Mechistas must take it upon themselves to organize and politicize our communities to build power to enact liberatory politics. This means not only combating the legacies of colonization such as capitalism and white supremacy, but creating a movement that centers Black, Indigenous, Queer, Trans, and Femme people."