The group recently released a pro-Hamas recruitment video, which the school says it referred to Virginia’s AG
George Mason University, whose president has been in the national spotlight over race-based hiring practices that the Trump administration says violate federal civil rights law, has reinstated its Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter, which it suspended last year after police found guns, ammunition, and terrorist paraphernalia at its leaders’ home.
The group teased its return in a radical recruitment video it released on Sunday, one day before fall classes kicked off at the university. Though SJP did not reveal its reinstatement in the video, its suspension terms allowed it to re-register as a student organization for the fall 2025 semester. A George Mason spokesman confirmed that SJP is now a “registered student organization.”
“The student organization Students for Justice in Palestine served out its university-imposed suspension after having been found responsible for violating university policy,” the spokesman John Hollis told the Washington Free Beacon. “The organization has since regained status as a registered student organization and, like all registered student organizations, is subject to all university and student conduct policies.”
The group’s return comes at a difficult time for George Mason, which faces an active federal probe into anti-Semitism on its campus. Should the school fail to combat anti-Semitic unrest from SJP this fall, it could bring increased federal pressure. Indeed, SJP is already causing George Mason administrators headaches—in the group’s recruitment video, a speaker concealed with a keffiyeh and a voice modifier says the “spirit of resistance will not be quenched until we see full liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea” and says SJP has “a moral obligation to carry on the legacy of our noble people, our steadfast prisoners, and our honorable martyrs,” the Free Beacon reported.
Hollis said George Mason is aware of the video and has referred it to Virginia attorney general Jason Miyares’s office. He also said school officials will meet with SJP in an attempt to deter violations of school policy.
“The university has been made aware of the newly posted SJP video and is requesting an evaluation from the Virginia AG’s office on whether the video is protected speech,” said Hollis. “University officials are meeting with the student organization to reinforce university policy and communicate a zero-tolerance enforcement approach.”
SJP’s recruitment video is scored with a song that praises former Hamas commander Mohammed Deif whose “stars illuminate our sky,” according to a translation provided to the Free Beacon. It also says an Israeli checkpoint officer’s “blood is permitted, all his blood is kosher.” The song’s producer, “Wasp nest,” is a reference to the Jenin Brigades, a terrorist group coalition that includes Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
David Bernstein, a George Mason professor of constitutional law, told the Free Beacon that SJP’s video is “deliberately vague,” making it “ambiguous” whether it qualifies as protected speech.
“[G]iven that the video can be reasonably seen as endorsing and encouraging violence, breaking school rules, and breaking the law, if I were the AG I would tell GMU that it should require SJP to post a new video clarifying that it intends to follow all university rules, adhere to the law (including not wearing masks in public, which is against state law), and not engage in or encourage violence by its members,” Bernstein said. “And if it refuses to do so, the group should be suspended, this time permanently.”
He noted that several aspects of the video could be interpreted as an endorsement of terrorism, such as the speaker’s outfit and their endorsement of “resistance.” Bernstein said that’s an especially important consideration given that one George Mason student was arrested for terrorism and that police found terrorist propaganda at the home of two of SJP’s leaders, Jena and Noor Chanaa.
Police raided the Chanaa home last November as part of an investigation into SJP’s role in defacing George Mason’s student center with messages of “intifada” last September. Officers found guns, scores of ammunition, signs that read “death to Jews” and “death to America,” and Hamas and Hezbollah paraphernalia, the Free Beacon reported.
Soon after, the FBI arrested Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan, a George Mason student and Egyptian national, for planning a terrorist attack on the Israeli consulate in Manhattan.
This isn’t the first time George Mason has deferred to the Virginia attorney general on how to handle its SJP chapter. George Mason president Gregory Washington refused to publicly condemn the student group’s use of the phrase “from the river to the sea” because Virginia’s top cop told him it was protected speech, the Free Beacon reported. That marked a significant departure from Washington’s past outspoken behavior, such as denouncing Islamophobia after a shooting in Vermont, which occurred some 500 miles from George Mason’s campus and did not result in hate crime charges.
“As we acknowledge and address the fear that our students are experiencing, it is important to denounce all forms of Islamophobia present in our community,” Washington wrote in a November 2023 campus-wide email. George Mason’s decision to reinstate its SJP chapter could provoke the Trump administration, which has already launched several investigations into the university’s handling of campus anti-Semitism and alleged discriminatory hiring and promotion practices.
In addition to the anti-Semitism probe, the Trump administration has also investigated racial discrimination in George Mason’s tenure and hiring processes. The Department of Education released the results of that probe on Friday, finding that Washington “waged a university-wide campaign to implement unlawful DEI policies that intentionally discriminate on the basis of race” and put the university in violation of civil rights law. It proposed a resolution agreement that involved Washington issuing a personal apology and committing to non-discrimination policy, among other requirements.
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