Denver Police monitor a group of pro-Palestinian protesters before the Denver Pride Parade on Sunday, June 23, 2024. Having sniper-trained police in our neighborhoods to protect us and our homes was not anything we thought we would see when we were elected to the University of Colorado Board of Regents – an unpaid elected position.
The agitators leading these protests say that the regents have not listened to or responded to them. They have been protesting on our campus since October, sharing their demands with multiple parties. They have come to CU Board of Regents meetings to speak in public sessions. They have emailed us. Criticism of Israel and/or of Hamas is acceptable and protected speech, and as regents, we encourage deep and complex debates about difficult topics because that is the role of an American university.The decades-old Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement these protesters are part of, however, aims to dismantle the Jewish state and end the right to Jewish self-determination.
They were chanting “Globalize the Intifada” and “Resistance by any means necessary” – both racist calls for the murder and displacement of Jews throughout the world – in front of our homes. This is especially deplorable in front of the Spiegels’ home, an American Jewish family who are descendants of Holocaust survivors.