By Anna Dang and 65 other MLK Spirit Award Recipients | –
( Michigan Daily ) – We, the undersigned, are alumni recipients of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Spirit Award at the University of Michigan.
In January of this year, the University awarded recent alum Salma Hamamy the MLK Spirit Award in recognition of her steadfast activism promoting Indigenous sovereignty and Palestinian liberation — activism that included calling for the University to divest from weapons manufacturers. The University also awarded the MLK Spirit Award to the student group Hamamy led as president, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality. Five months later, in May, Provost Laurie McCauley sent a letter to Hamamy’s personal home stating, “With the full support of the Board of Regents and President Ono, I am writing to notify you that your award has been revoked effective immediately,” based on an Instagram story post from her personal social media account. In the letter, Provost McCauley characterized Hamamy’s post as “inconsistent with the University’s values.” This letter was dated May 21, 2024 — the same day that campus police violently removed the University’s Gaza solidarity encampment from the Diag. Whether intentional or not, it planted the decision firmly within the context of a broader attempt to suppress the burgeoning anti-war student movement.
To our knowledge, never before in the 18-year history of this award have university administrators interfered with — let alone nullified — the careful deliberation and unanimous decision of the Central Campus MLK Spirit Award Selection Committee, a diverse, 13-member body representing the full breadth of central campus undergraduate and graduate programs. Administrators did not consult the Committee. Allowing administrators and the politically influenced University Board of Regents to overturn a tradition led by students, faculty and staff sets a dangerous precedent that threatens the integrity and prestige of this historic award.
Had the administrators taken the time to speak with Hamamy directly, they would have learned the following, which she shared with us recently:
In her letter, McCauley suggested that the board revoked the award because of posts Hamamy shared on her Instagram story. In an interview with a Detroit News journalist, University spokesperson Colleen Mastony suggested that administrators revoked the award from Hamamy because she endorsed “violence and murder.” We note that Hamamy’s post shared disturbing surfaced footage of Israeli drones summarily executing displaced Palestinians seeking refuge. Her caption effectively called for the abolition of Zionism and damnation of those who support the crimes of the Israeli state. There is a painful irony in the University claiming Hamamy’s actions run “directly counter to the values of our university” all while administrators stand complicit in the illegal occupation of Palestinian land, the apartheid of Palestinian society and the genocide of the Palestinian people — an ongoing genocide that has killed Hamamy’s own family members.
We do not see Hamamy’s condemnation of Zionism as supporting violence. Instead, it is a call for an end to a political ideology that denies Palestinians their rights to land, self-determination and their very livelihood. Surely we can understand how in this moment, when grave atrocities are being committed against Palestinians month after month, that a member of that community would feel immense anguish, anger and grief — a mix of emotions that those of us who are not Palestinian cannot fully understand. Can Palestinians not rebuke those that kill their families? Must they observe the ongoing and grotesque mass murder of their people with decorum? Are they not human, too? If University President Santa Ono and the board were concerned by comments made by Hamamy in which she condemned the racial supremacy and deadly political ideology of Zionism and those who uphold it — which commits grave crimes against her community day after day — she should have been provided with an opportunity to be heard.
We were awarded the MLK Spirit Award precisely because of our work to advance social, racial and economic justice in the spirit of the esteemed Dr. King and his explicit struggle against militarism, white supremacy and economic oppression. Palestinian liberation activism is no exception to that. What standing does a university that defames and silences its students engaged in the righteous struggle for Palestinian self-determination have in arbitrating which students deserve social justice awards? What moral authority does a university that overrides the collective decision of a committee it had established — ironically, to engage in a deliberative process in order to choose who to award — have in coopting the message of Dr. King, a message that is surely at odds with an ideological system of apartheid that results in the starvation, torture and land theft of Palestinians?
The University has long presented itself as a leading institution for social justice. Alumni activists’ images, names, work and voices are frequently showcased to prospective students and donors, and student activists are fully aware of the norms established by the University’s valorization of this tradition. Ono and the Board of Regents’ authoritarian, unjust and calculated decision to capitulate and rescind Hamamy’s award — likely due to unchecked external political and financial pressure — contradicts the values we espouse as advocates for social justice. The University’s administration instigated this unprecedented legacy of prejudiced interference, and we refuse to take part in it. Therefore, we renounce our respective awards and, effective immediately, we withdraw our consent for the University to use our names, images and work for its websites, promotional materials or donor appeals. We also decline to participate, within our capacity, in events or programs hosted by the University until Hamamy’s award is rightfully reinstated and an apology is issued to her.
Hamamy is an exemplar of the social justice advocacy that the University has to offer. She has inspired us over the last year with her courageous leadership and principled movement building. We unequivocally affirm the growing alumni call for the University to immediately divest from any and all companies profiting off Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza. We fully support and uplift Hamamy’s conscientious hopes for “a world where colonial, racist and violent ideologies are abolished.” We hope the U-M community will mirror her courage in this call to action for a liberated Palestine and an end to the longstanding genocide against the Palestinian people.
Anna Dang is a U-M Alumni and MLK Spirit Award Recipient. The above op-ed is signed and endorsed by 65 MLK Spirit Award Recipients. Their names can be found here.
Via Michigan Daily
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