Addressing Campus SJP Problems, Part 2: Denial at the University of Rochester

a blind eye for sjp — Image generated by AI

While some university administrations give in to their SJP protesters, and others fight back, the University of Rochester (UofR) in upstate New York simply denies that SJP exists on its campus.

I learned about this baffling approach to the SJP problem after I wrote in May about a protest at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), where I teach, that was exacerbated by the SJP chapter at the nearby UofR.

The next day, I received this email (quoted in its entirety) from the UofR:

"Dear AJ

I just read your piece 'How One University Dealt With Pro-Hamas Protesters' and wanted to request a correction. The University of Rochester does not have a SJP chapter.

Sara Miller | Spokesperson
University Marketing and Communications | University of Rochester"

I knew that the UofR did in fact have an SJP chapter.

SJP @ UofR logo via Facebook

I saw with my own eyes many people at the protest on my campus identify themselves as UofR SJP members, including one of the speakers. I have read about the antics of "the University of Rochester Students for Justice in Palestine" and "the University of Rochester SJP Chapter" in local news outlets and in national outlets like Inside HigherEd and Mondoweiss. The SJP.UR Instagram page triumphantly announced on April 24, 2025 that it was "accepting executive applications for the 2025-2026 academic year!"

Screenshot of Instagram post by SJP.UR April 24, 2025.

This didn't add up.

Having read two weeks earlier that Yale University had "de-recognized" its SJP chapter, I responded to the message (again, quoted in its entirety):

"Thanks for contacting me Ms. Miller.

Did the University of Rochester recently "de-recognize" the SJP chapter?

There were quite a few people at RIT on November 13, 2023, who claimed to be the UofR SJP. Also, SJP.UR has a very active social media presence. Is it possible that SJP.UR was never an officially-recognized chapter (similar to what RIT faces now), just a group of people abusing the UofR brand?"

Her reply came back minutes later (again quoted in its entirety):

Did the University of Rochester recently "de-recognize" the SJP chapter? No

Is it possible that SJP.UR was never an officially-recognized chapter (similar to what RIT faces now), just a group of people abusing the UofR brand? Yes.

I was ready to amend my article if I had made a mistake, but knew I hadn't. So I asked for a quotable statement, such as "There has never been an officially-recognized Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at the University of Rochester," but Sara Miller demurred, responding, "I'm not interested in pursuing at this moment anything beyond the clarification in your article."

Before I had a chance to respond, I received another email, this time from a high-ranking official at the Rochester Institute of Technology, my employer, informing me that someone at the UofR had contacted him with the same request. The matter suddenly took on new urgency.

As I assembled the evidence to prove that no correction was necessary, I discovered some shocking new details about the UofR's SJP problem that refute Sara Miller's claims.

Recognized student clubs at the UofR maintain a presence on the University of Rochester Campus Club Connection (CCC) website. No SJP presence can be found there today, but archived pages from 2021 and 2022 prove that there was an officially-recognized chapter.

A May 24, 2021, partial capture of the Leadership Team page shows the club "Advisor" was Lydia Crews, whose LinkedIn page identifies her as "Assistant Director Wilson Commons Student Activities at University of Rochester."

In another archived page, dated December 23, 2021, the greeting states: "We are one of 250+ SJP around the country with the support of National SJP."

The Wayback Machine is not necessary to access the University of Rochester's Wilson Commons Student Activities website listing all "derecognized" organizations. It shows, contrary to Sara Miller's claim, that the UofR's SJP chapter was founded in 2020 and "derecognized" on February 1, 2023.

Even after it was "derecognized," the chapter continued sponsoring events on campus. The UofR's student newspaper, the Campus Times, on November 21, 2023, mentions that "An event in the Interfaith Chapel titled 'Understanding and Healing: the Palestinian genocide' was hosted on Oct. 20 by UR's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)" and other groups.

Curiously, the administration continued to communicate with its "derecognized" SJP chapter about acceptable conduct at campus protests, as is shown in UofR President Sarah C. Mangelsdorf's November 20, 2023, statement. One sentence in particular stands out:

"University leaders alerted SJP that their use of one specific slogan is understood by many as a call for physically harming Jewish people, all over the world, because of their religious or cultural identity."

So why did the UofR make such a fatuous request of me and the Rochester Institute of Technology?

I've ruled out ignorance.

Sara Miller has been employed by UofR as spokesperson since 2012. She was promoted to Assistant Vice President and Spokesperson in 2017, and then to Associate Vice President of Public Relations and Spokesperson in 2024. Surely, she knows the history of SJP on campus. She may also know why the SJP chapter was "derecognized" in February 2023.

I haven't ruled out incompetence or desperation.

In January 2025, after the UofR expelled 4 students for distributing hundreds of posters depicting Jewish administration members and trustees as "Wanted" for genocide, an article in the Rochester Beacon by Justin O'Connor referred extensively to "UR's Students for Justice in Palestine chapter," quoted the "UR SJP's statement," and featured Sara Miller's comments.

I doubt that Sara Miller asked for a "correction" to this article. The Rochester Beacon's Justin O'Connor, who calls himself a "Young and gritty journalist" on his LinkedIn profile, is a UofR graduate who was the "Education Chair" of the University of Rochester's SJP chapter according to another archived page, dated April 4, 2022. Surely Sara Miller must have known that.

In spite of the devious way that the UofR tried to make me rewrite history, and when I wouldn't oblige, tried to leverage my employer into making me do so (they should have known better), I sympathize with the school's trustees and even with President Mangelsdorf. I believe they're trying to wrest control from their anti-Israel student protesters and avoid a Department of Education Title VI investigation.

But it's also possible that the administration desperately wants to cover up past policy failures. Its interaction with me suggests an ongoing public relations failure.

Perhaps denying the University of Rochester Students for Justice in Palestine chapter makes it easier for the administration to deny the University of Rochester Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapter, which poses even thornier problems.

In my more magnanimous moments, I imagine a frustrated President Mangelsdorf, like an exasperated Henry II of England – who asked his court "Will No One Rid Me of this Meddlesome priest?" – asking her own court to rid her of her campus SJP problem. Henry's loyal knights took the hint, and soon Thomas Beckett was no more. Did Mangelsdorf's knight, Associate Vice President of Public Relations and Spokesperson, go rogue and decide that I was the problem? Or was the communication more direct?

Either way, putting the squeeze on me will not rid the University of Rochester of its meddlesome Students for Justice in Palestine.

Chief IPT Political Correspondent A.J. Caschetta is a principal lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a fellow at Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum where he is also a Milstein fellow.

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