Hamas-linked, Terror-supporting Student Group Recieves Award from Catholic University
Saint Xavier University's annual Scarlet and Gray Awards honors "outstanding student leaders, organizations, and achievements in service and extracurricular involvements."
Saint Xavier University (SXU), located in Chicago, is a (supposedly) Roman Catholic institution that founded in 1846 by the Sisters of Mercy. In late April, SXU held its annual Scarlet and Gray Awards, though for some reason, the university only officially reported the winners on its websites yesterday. Upon looking at the list of winners, two things stood out in particular: SXU’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter (SJP) recieved the awards for RSO Program of the Year and RSO of the Year. This, despite SJP not appearing on the school’s list of registered student organizations.
The issue here isn’t that a Catholic University awarded a non-Catholic group; the issue is that the group in question has a well-documented history of supporting Palestinian terrorism (and that’s to say nothing of SXU SJP’s parent group, National SJP, which maintains ties to Hamas and has hosted terrorists at its events).
SXU SJP has never been shy about its terror support. A former member of SXU SJP, Samer Alhato, has claimed to regularly finance Hamas. Though it appears inactive, the top post (from 2015) on the chapter’s Tumblr page is a poster of the PFLP terrorist organization (see below).
Naturally, SXU SJP’s terror support has been on full display since October 7th. In its first post following the Hamas-led October 7th massacre, SXU SJP posted on Instagram that there’s “been a resistance movement sweeping across Gaza and parts of Palestine.” On October 13th, the group appeared to justify the massacre as a response to “Israeli illegal settler colonialism.”
In January, SXU SJP held an event glorifying the First Intifada, a violent Palestinian uprising during which hundreds of Israelis were murdered. It also launched a “Resistance week” (i.e. terrorism week) to “stand in solidarity with our brothers & sisters in Palestine who have taught us what courage is through their powerful resistance.”
In one particularly illuminating video from early November, SXU SJP marches through campus chanting pro-terror slogans including:
“Resistance is justified when people are occupied” (6-minute mark)
“Palestine is our demand, no peace on stolen land” (8-minute mark)
“There is only one solution intifada revolution” (13-minute mark)
“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” (15-minute mark)
How does this align with SXU's presumably Catholic "core values" or demonstrate "outstanding contributions to the University community," which are supposedly the criteria used by the university to determine award recipients? And who made up the awards committee that made this decision?
Whatever the answers may be, it’s pretty despicable for the university to award SJP with anything. Instead of awarding them, Saint Xavier should, at the very least, rescind SJP’s registration as an official university student group.