The Students' Response to Noor Tagouri's "Seeking Common Ground" Event

Penned on February 24th, 2025

"How could the Palestinians be 'genuine partners' in peace talks when they have no country? But how could they have a country when it was taken from them? The Palestinians were never given any choice other than unconditional surrender. All they were offered was death."

- Gilles Deleuze, Spoilers of Peace (1978)

It is with a heavy heart that we deliver this statement: for us, the politically engaged community of SUNY New Paltz, there has been and can be no common ground. As such, we call for a boycott of the Seeking Common Ground event.

Time and again, our administration has not only stifled but punished faculty and students for exercising their right to free speech while simultaneously making lack luster, performative attempts at reconciliation. How many emails has administration sent "clarifying" the nebulous definitions of free speech on our campus? How many times has administration denounced student-led discourse as unsanctioned? How many emails until administration admits that speech is only "free" when they permit it?

We believe in sharing, hearing, and educating each other about the events of May 2nd. We applaud the work of the journalists, writers, and students who have made good faith efforts to cover our work and the injustices (both local and global) to which we respond.

Should you like to educate yourself about the events of May 2nd, we encourage you to read this Zine compiled in the wake of the administration's brutality. We also encourage you to read this statement penned in The Fahari Libertad, perhaps the last bastion of politically conscious student journalism on our campus.

Experiences from May 2nd and the months following have been voiced and well-documented. It is clear the memory of May 2nd weighs on the campus' collective conscience. A pronounced student-led archive, like the ones currently being crafted by students at Columbia and CUNY Graduate center, could remedy the need for and lack of genuine safe spaces wherein May 2nd can be discussed. Should you have a story you would like to share, please feel free to type it up, record a message, or otherwise express yourself and email it to newpaltzstudentsforpalestine@proton.me. We will continue the effort of curating a safe digital area wherein voices can be heard and express themselves accurately, without the need to risk digital safety or physical violence by entering a space wherein police, administration, and harmful Zionists have been actively invited, and without the intent to reproduce or commodify anyone's suffering.

The social media influencer and guest professor who instructed her students to organize this event, Noor Tagouri, has failed the student organizers of SUNY New Paltz. Nowhere has Tagouri failed more than in her decision to record and film this event with her private media company, AYS Media. Tagouri has a demonstrated clear intent to distribute this material online, which she makes explicitly clear in her Appearance Release Form. Students both in and outside of Tagouri's class have asked for the event not to be filmed. Tagouri has refused to comply with this ask. Tagouri's refusal puts all attendees who dare to speak up about the administration's disgusting violence in danger, let alone anyone who dares to speak in support of Palestine.

Filming and documentation have served as valuable tools for spreading information and holding administration accountable for violence visited on students. However, this must always be weighed against the very real dangers of exposure. Tagouri's clumsy deployment has the opposite effect: it endangers students and curtails the possibility of open discussion. Filming without a consideration of its dangers erodes the potential for free discourse. Politically, it constitutes nothing other than a mode of interrogation and surveillance.

Many believe that once the encampment participants were physically and sexually assaulted, arrested, and had our belongings destroyed, the violence against us concluded. This is not the case.

In New Paltz and across the U.S, organizers have been individually identified by videos posted on social media. Once identified, we are posted on databases such as Canary Mission. Many organizers have been doxxed, harassed, lost jobs, and suffered academic and professional consequences as a result of being posted and identified online. The consequences of being filmed are incredibly steep. If Tagouri sought to facilitate a good faith dialogue on this campus, she would turn off the cameras.

Of course, we understand that if the cameras are turned off, Tagouri would be unable to profit from this event by posting clips to her social media and pitching her media company to potential financiers. However, we are of the opinion that the $50,000 Tagouri receives in exchange for teaching a two-credit, one semester course is more than enough. After all, she has conscripted her own students to do the journalistic labor of outreach, research, and so on. In the words of one her students: Tagouri is the director, and her students do the work. We would be remiss not to compare Tagouri's compensation to that of SUNY New Paltz' adjunct faculty, who earn around 7% per class taught of what Noor herself is currently compensated.

The consequences for honest and politically conscious action continue offline as well. Our identities and actions are surveilled by administrators on the SUNY New Paltz campus. When we organize publicly, from the peaceful forum held at the start of the Fall semester discussing May 2nd all the way to the smallest bake sale, we are surveilled. When we distribute flyers and literature discussing Palestine, administrators and police officers interrogate organizers and demand we stop. And with every action, the Office of the President sends out an email warning against unsanctioned events and guiding recipients to the Bias Reporting Form.

When we organize in recognized clubs and comply with administrative bureaucracy, our requests are denied. When we collaborated with Qomunidad to organize an ICE Rally, Qomunidad was punished for a 60-day warning for hosting “unauthorized” events on authorized grounds ostensibly intended for free speech. The ICE rally was held specifically in the campus' designated Free Speech Zone, and still was condemned by administration.

"From Protest to Progress" would have attendees believe that students and faculty have not made an effort to discuss Palestine, the encampment, or administration's suppression upon students and faculty. This is simply not the case. We have strived toward this work before Tagouri arrived with aspirations to turn our community's suffering into a TikTok. The need for spaces conducive to radical honesty on our campus is clear, as evidenced by the condemnation of the ICE rally by administration. Tagouri's event has brought into focus the tragic condition of free speech on our campus. Namely: there is no free speech. If speech is connected to any political action, be it dissent or community care, it is suppressed. On the SUNY New Paltz campus, there are only two forms of speech: "free" speech directly permitted by the administration, and speech that is punished.

This suppression extends beyond just students. When professors teach about Palestine or dare to be critical of administration, they are scolded, chastised, and subject to undue scrutiny by Provost McClure, President Wheeler, and repressive department chairs. Just last week, a long time WGSS professor resigned, citing surveillance, public admonishment, and repeated breaches of the academic freedom they were supposedly entitled to on this campus.

The objective of Tagouri's event is, allegedly, to seek common ground. We ask: to seek common ground with whom, and to what end? What does common ground offer in the form of reparations? This forum cannot offer any avenues towards either material reconciliation or public acknowledgment of the physical and political violence wrought on May 2nd, only performative ones that echo administration's approach. Will the grossly Islamaphobic definitions of hate speech, endorsed by the SUNY New Paltz administration, be used to ground this event? It certainly seems so, since "Common Ground" has been approved and will carry on without official disruption.

Will the university commit itself to divestment? Will admin provide financial compensation to the students whose belongings they destroyed, who required hospitalization as a result of their injuries? These questions won't be answered at Tagouri's event, because administration is refusing to attend due to outstanding litigation against them for those exact damages. In the wake of May 2nd, student organizers and community members distributed nearly $17,000 in funds to cover expenses, including hospital bills and replacements. Administration contributed precisely $0 to those fundraising efforts. After this event, that dollar amount will remain the same.

And what of the protections offered against conflict? Tagouri's company AYS, as sole owner of the intellectual rights to this project, is set to gain in both social clout and monetary compensation from any media produced. It directly serves the profit-interests of AYS to cultivate a culture of warfare amongst our student body, in the pursuit of engaging social media content. Will the Zionists who have provoked, harassed, and crybullied those of us who dared call for divestment be challenged in any way? Or does it better serve the narrative to let their harassment continue?

There is very little basis for finding common ground with Zionists who decry any recognition of Israel's genocide as hate speech. It is impossible to find common ground with those who have unabashedly voiced racist, unfounded, Anti-Arab and Islamaphobic hate speech in public forums ​monitored by administration—such as the Faculty/Staff ​​​​​​email server. These individuals have yet to face any consequences for clear violations of Title VI, while faculty that even just mention Palestinian liberation have outstanding investigations and undue vigilance placed upon them by authorities in the administration. What reason is there to believe this hostility won’t continue at Tagouri’s event?

The environment being cultivated at “Common Ground” is so alarming that lawyers have advised us not to attend. Anyone with an outstanding lawsuit against the university or who was arrested last year is especially recommended to not speak or reveal any private information, in order to not endanger yourself or legal proceedings. Taking a hint from administration, if they think they would be legally liable at this event, chances are you will too.

And so we forward this question again: who is this common ground between? Between the students and faculty who lived through May 2nd? Between pro-Palestinian organizers and Zionists who parrot islamaphobic propaganda? Between the campus community and administration—who refuses to attend this event in recognition of the ongoing lawsuit against them? What is the kind of common ground Noor Tagouri seeks to bring us towards?

All of this speaks to Tagouri's own misconduct in the (mis)organization of this event—which, at best, we can characterize as opportunistically naive and at worst nefariously negligent. There is an ethical grey area created by Tagouri's asking of her students to sign the Appearance Release Form themselves, when she, as a professor, is responsible for upholding FERPA protections. As of 2/24/25, it is our understanding that Tagouri has made attendance optional for her students. However, rescinding mandatory attendance does little to attend to the mandatory release of image Tagouri requested of her students. There is an even more explicit moral conundrum in her exploitation of all participants. Whether it is the students coerced by a syllabus to be involved in its construction, or the attendees whose faces and voices will be used in ways out of their control. No one in our community will benefit from this production. Only Tagouri and her company have monetary stake and creative control. What results from the project is up to her.

In the most forgiving light, we see this event as the result of inconsiderate, sloppy, and possibly well-intentioned organizing that has forgotten the dangers organizers face. It denies the campus culture of surveillance, where resistance can only be whispered and a draconian administration refuses all accountability. All of us—student, faculty, staff, and community member alike—are being conditioned to bring trust in an environment fundamentally opposed to it. Ultimately, however, we must remain undaunted. The radical love which sustains, defends, feeds, and educates our community threatens administration. We must never forget that the encampment was entirely peaceful. Prior to the university sanctioned assault, we sat on Parker Quad and shared food, books, music, and community—prefiguring what, in the words of a beloved comrade, a queer feminist decolonial world might offer. When the cops came, with their batons and their dogs, above all else we held to each other. A true student community poses a damning threat to administration. Poses a threat to the racist tactics used to seed division between us. Poses a threat to the oppression of the police state. The courage displayed by our community on May 2nd embodies the values this administration only pretends to carry.

And so we must call out Noor Tagouri's "Common Ground: From Protest to Progress" as the uncaring environment it is. Open dialogue is important and necessary for healing, but the proper safeguards must be in place to keep us all safe. Tagouri's event fails to offer those safeguards. The risks are immeasurable. Her distaste for student voices—as anything other than a means towards profit—make this project reek with the unintentional. As such, New Paltz Students for Palestine calls for the official boycott of Tagouri's event. Anyone who shares similar misgivings, please boycott alongside us and make those misgivings known. Follow our instagram to be notified of the next (unrecorded) people's assembly we hold. Reach out to a friend, go have fun. Let us enjoy the community Tagouri is working so hard to co-opt.

And Tagouri, before you assume the position of victimhood on your platform, we ask you to consider this statement as an invitation rather than condemnation. We ask that you hold yourself to a higher journalistic standard and to listen to the needs of those around you. Right now, we feel used. And we sincerely hope that means something to you.

To the student journalists who participated in the organization of this event: we hold no ill-will towards you. It is our understanding that you acted as instructed, in good-faith, and offered critical interventions at your own risk. We encourage you to take action. Make use of your capacity for urgent and critical journalism to speak truth to power. Collaborate with your fellow students and develop genuine relationships with the organizers you hope to empower. Your professors and your administration are never above critique, and radical student journalism is one of the few remaining tools at hand to hold them accountable.

Solidarity forever,

- NPS4P, 133 arrestees, and every brave student and community member who demanded justice on 5/2.