Another college graduate is being denied a diploma after speaking out for Palestinian rights. Palestinian American Sereen Haddad has been organizing at Virginia Commonwealth University with Students for Justice in Palestine. The group’s actions have been repeatedly targeted and repressed by VCU administration, including banning the use of sidewalk chalk to write messages on campus. This is Sereen Haddad.

Sereen Haddad: ”VCU claims to uplift marginalized voices, unless those voices call out genocide. And they claim to celebrate diversity, until that diversity challenges the status quo. And they claim to teach critical thinking, but punish those who think critically about empire, occupation and ethnic cleansing. VCU wants me to choose silence over justice and comfort over courage and a diploma over my people. I have lost over 200 family members in this ongoing genocide just in the last year and a half.”

Sereen’s father is Palestinian American doctor and leader Tariq Haddad, who last year refused to meet with then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the Biden administration’s support of Israel’s assault on Gaza. Click here to see our interview with Dr. Haddad.