• Rachel Hellman ©️ Seven Days
• Protestors on Thursday afternoon

More than 100 students and community members gathered on the steps in front of the University of Vermont green on Tuesday afternoon to protest the cancellation of a lecture featuring a Palestinian writer.

"Suresh, Suresh, you can't hide. You won't censor Palestine," the people gathered in front UVM president Suresh Garimella's office chanted.

Mohammed El-Kurd, a Palestinian poet and correspondent for the Nation, had been scheduled to speak on Thursday evening at UVM’s Davis Center about “representation and misrepresentation of Palestinians in the U.S.,” according to an event description. El-Kurd writes primarily about dispossession in Jerusalem and colonization in Palestine.

The event was organized over a year ago by the Will Miller Social Justice Lecture Series, named for the late philosophy professor and activist. It brings speakers to UVM to provide "radical analyses of social, ecological and political concerns," according to willmiller.org.

Leading up to the event, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences assured organizers that the university’s policy on academic freedom would be respected and the event would not be canceled, organizers said. But on Saturday, the university’s Division of Safety & Compliance told organizers that it had safety concerns.

In an email that organizers shared with Seven Days, the division said: “It is our judgment, based on global, national, and local events, that we cannot adequately provide safety and security for this event as it is currently planned. The university has attempted to work with you to reschedule the event for a later date but you were unable or unwilling to reschedule.”

“It’s a real loss for the university community that the speaker isn’t going to be allowed to present in person,” said Anne Petermann, board member for the Will Miller Social Justice Lecture Series. “The idea that [the event] is unsafe is just a very convenient excuse, basically.”

In response to the cancellation, the Champlain Valley Democratic Socialists of America organized an online letter-writing campaign. As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 1,800 letters supporting El-Kurd had been sent to Garimella.

Across the country, college campuses have become flash points for protests over the war in Israel and Gaza.

• Rachel Hellman ©️ Seven Days
• Protestors in front of Suresh Garimella's house.

Protestors chanted "Let him speak!" as they marched first to the president's office, where Garimella did not appear, and then to his private home on College Street. No one answered the door.

"We knew, unfortunately, that our demands would fall on deaf ears," one student speaker said through a megaphone. "But we are here united as a student body — as a university community — to say, 'No, we will not stand for censorship. We will stand with Palestine.'"