Georgetown University will host the annual Palestine Solidarity Movement conference this weekend. The event generated heated campus controversy in October 2004 when it was held at Duke.
Nadeem Muaddi, spokesperson for the PSM, said Students for Justice in Palestine, a group at Georgetown, was selected to host the fifth annual PSM Conference from among a number of universities across the United States.
"We couldn't really resist," Muaddi said. "It's Washington D.C., and bringing the issue of divestment to our nation's capital shows how prominent the idea of divestment has become."
The PSM, an umbrella organization, is interested in achieving divestment from Israel, among other goals.
Muaddi defined the objective as "dis-investment" from institutions that fund Israel. He said the PSM is asking universities to not invest in companies that help to give money to Israel.
The focus of the PSM conference this year will shift from the topic of "why divestment?" discussed in past conferences to "how to achieve divestment."
Muaddi hopes the Georgetown conference will attract between 500 and 600 attendants-similar to the number of participants at Duke. "The Duke conference was the best one that we had so far.... We hope that Georgetown will be even better," he said.
Erik Smulson, assistant vice president for communications at Georgetown, said the decision to allow the SJP to host the conference at Georgetown was in line with university's policy governing events.
"Georgetown student groups and faculty have the right to invite speakers and conferences to campus in accordance with Georgetown University's speech and expression policy," Smulson wrote in an e-mail. "The ability of members of the university community to invite speakers or host events does not imply university endorsement of the speakers or their views."
Administrators at Duke used similar language when explaining University policy to critics who opposed PSM's conference in Durham.
Georgetown University President John DeGioia said that while Georgetown supported divestment from South Africa in the 1980s, it would not support divestment from Israel today, according to an online press release that quoted his statements at a faculty town hall meeting.
"I do not support divestment from Israel," DeGioia said. "It is clear there are a wide range of opinions on the conflict in the Middle East and that the appropriate way for Georgetown University to address the situation is through dialogue, research and intellectual discovery."
Rann Bar-on, a member of Hiwar-the student organization that brought the PSM conference to Duke-and the local spokesperson for the PSM conference in 2004, praised the cooperation between Duke officials and organizers. The third-year graduate student in mathematics said the University even went so far as to spend $75,000 on security for what turned out to be only 12 counterprotesters.
John Burness, senior vice president for public affairs and government relations, would not confirm how much Duke spent on security for the weekend, stating that the University never publically disclosed the figure. But Burness said there were 23 protesters in total.
Muaddi said he is not certain what to expect in terms of protester presence this weekend. "A lot of people [last year] said that they would come down in busloads, and a group of 50 people came down to protest," he added.
Burness said part of the reason Duke attracted fewer protesters than the hundreds that showed up at past conferences was because the University publicly asserted its willingness to spend any amount necessary on security.
Both Smulson and Georgetown's website only make general comments about security plans for the upcoming weekend.
"We'll have appropriate security measures in place throughout the conference, and Georgetown faculty and administrators will monitor the conference closely to ensure that both conferees and protesters are complying with Georgetown's speech and expression policy," Smulson explained.
Moises Mendoza, editor-in-chief of Georgetown's campus newspaper, The Hoya, said Georgetown students "seem pretty apathetic" about the conference.
"The main people who are writing in to the paper are the people who are on the extremes," said Mendoza.
The Hoya recently refused to publish advertisements concerning the conference submitted by the Jewish Defense League, a organization that plans to protest the PSM this weekend. On its website, the JDL said, "The Jewish Defense League will be at Georgetown University in full force."
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