FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media contact: Dan Williams January 13, 2025 303-442-6514
dan.williams@hbcboulder.com
Students Sue the University of Colorado Claiming Free Speech and Due Process Violations Arising From a Pro-Palestine Protest
Boulder, Colo. – Today Hutchinson Black and Cook, LLC, on behalf of two University of Colorado (“CU”) student-members of Students for Justice in Palestine, filed a First Amendment lawsuit concerning the University’s retaliation against the students for participating in a peaceful pro-Palestine protest on October 3, 2024. The protest took place outside and inside a university job fair hosting military contractors. Although the student-protesters complied when told to leave the job fair and did not prevent it from going forward, CU nevertheless immediately ordered an interim campus exclusion against two of the students, Max Inman and Mari Rosenfeld. The exclusion barred the students from campus except to attend classes, which prevented them from engaging in further First Amendment-protected activity on campus for nearly two months. CU took this action without a hearing or opportunity to appeal.
The lawsuit brings five claims under the Constitution and state law:
CU’s policies and restrictions on free speech violate the First Amendment by prohibiting or impeding pro-Palestine protests on campus.
University administrators retaliated against Mr. Inman and Ms. Rosenfeld for their speech by imposing an indefinite interim exclusion from campus.
The University’s indefinite interim exclusion prevented the students from engaging in on-campus protests for nearly two months, thus depriving them of their right to freedom of speech.
The University imposed the campus exclusion without providing the students a hearing or opportunity to appeal, which violated the students’ 14th Amendment right to due process.
The University violated a Colorado statute that protects expressive speech on university campuses by denying the student-protesters the right to use campus facilities for free-speech purposes.
The University’s discipline of Mr. Inman and Ms. Rosenfeld follows a pattern of similar retaliation against pro-Palestine protestors across the country.
“CU rolls out the red carpet for arms manufacturers whose munitions are shipped to an apartheid state overseas to slaughter innocent families. As students at CU Boulder, we have a duty to not stand idly by and act like that’s acceptable. Especially as a Jewish student at an institution that claims to value diversity of perspectives, my voice deserves to be heard when speaking about how Israel’s actions dishonor the Jewish people. This lawsuit tells CU that they cannot repress this student movement for a Free Palestine,” said Ms. Rosenfeld.
“The United States is arming and abetting genocide of Palestinians by Israel, and we as Americans, both here in Colorado as well as on other college campuses and communities across the nation, cannot be threatened into silence while our country flouts international law and kills people en masse,” said Mr. Inman.