University of Cincinnati Students for Justice in Palestine Chapter Announces It Faces Suspension
CINCINNATI – The University of Cincinnati (UC) chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) announced on July 12 that it is facing disciplinary action over its April 21 protest of an on-campus event focused on the Abraham Accords. The chapter is now soliciting testimony and video to fight the sanction through the website of YUSRA, a Cincinnati nonprofit co-founded by the same non-student activist who led the chants that day.
SJP states that UC alleges the chapter failed to register the protest, ignored an official’s request to lower its megaphone, disrupted the conference with noise, and obstructed an entrance. SJP denies all four, arguing outdoor gatherings under 5,000 people don’t require registration, that the volume request was never a formal directive, and that attendees reported no delays getting in or out. The chapter calls the sanction retaliation against its majority Arab and Muslim board.
The allegations stem from the final day of “Shifting Paradigms, New Horizons: The Abraham Accords, U.S.–Israel Relations, and the Future of the Middle East,” a three-day conference hosted by UC and supported by the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati, Academic Engagement Network and AJC Cincinnati. Organized under the leadership of UC history professor Mark Raider, the conference brought together diplomats, scholars and public officials to examine the Abraham Accords and the future of regional diplomacy.
On the conference’s final day, 100 to 150 protesters gathered outside, after spending the morning outside a UC Board of Trustees meeting. They initially assembled yards from the conference entrance with signs, speakers and a microphone.
Roughly 15 to 20 protesters then tried to register as attendees. After discussion of who could legally be excluded, students were let in and nonstudents turned back. Several who entered told organizers they hadn’t yet formed opinions on the conflict; none acknowledged opposing the event.
Once inside, students photographed attendees and made eye contact with a man outside conferring with protest leadership through the windows. As former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin began speaking, demonstrators outside moved closer to the glass doors – while inside, protesters stood one after another to interrupt over roughly 20 minutes.
Each time police escorted an interrupter from the auditorium, the crowd gathered around the building’s exits cheered. The first attendees to leave were escorted out as protesters shouted expletives and threats; the rest were held out of sight until officers had cleared the exits.
The April 21 demonstration was driven and largely attended by outside activists rather than UC’s own students. Laila Shaikh, a 2025 graduate who founded the campus SJP chapter, appeared to direct the disruption while wearing a “Long Live the Intifada” shirt. Shouting through a megaphone loud enough to be heard indoors, she led activists in a chant calling for Zionists’ deaths: “Free Palestine until all the Zionists are f**ing dead.” Shaikh has since co-founded a local nonprofit, YUSRA, with a former CAIR Ohio executive. SJP’s campaign to fight the suspension links directly to YUSRA’s website, where the group has posted a pre-drafted email template along with contact information for the Board of Trustees, the Provost’s Office and the President’s Office.
Shaikh wasn’t the only outside voice. Northern Kentucky activist Mohammad Ahmad, a regular at Norse SJP and Northern Kentucky 4 Palestine events, told the crowd, “How many more videos of Israeli terrorists filming themselves blowing up an entire house, killing an entire family of Palestinians, sniping babies for target practice, carpet bombing an entire concentration camp, looting homes and destroying them like my grandfather’s cousin’s house, desecrating Masjid Al Aqsa, persecuting Christians…we will not stop until UC is fully divested from Zionism. And until the Zionist project in Palestine collapses, which is inevitable and will happen within our lifetime.”
A banner reading “The screams of Palestinian mothers will haunt us,” displayed at the April 21 protest, had appeared a year earlier at a Fort Thomas demonstration organized by Northern Kentucky for Palestine. The April 21 protest announcement was also published collaboratively on Instagram by SJP UC, Northern Kentucky for Palestine, Cincinnati Socialists, Cincinnati Palestine Solidarity Coalition and UC Young Democratic Socialists of America – four of which are non-student activist groups.
The university did not respond to more than 20 telephone calls and emails from The American Israelite over two weeks, and SJP has not released its disciplinary notice. Conference leaders and participants contacted by the newspaper said they had no knowledge of or participation in the potential disciplinary action.
The American Israelite will continue following this developing story.
