What does free speech have to do with Palestinian liberation? On resisting genocidal epistemicide

In this article, I argue that epistemicide exists in relation to genocide as scholasticide exists in relation to war: it attempts to erase not just educational institutions in their current state, but the very possibility of education in the future, in order to entirely erase the existence of a people from the Earth. I further argue that the fight for free speech – documenting its suppression and pushing back against its violations – is among the most powerful means of resisting genocide in its epistemic forms. From Palestine to Europe to North America, students, staff and faculty are opposing the Gaza genocide by developing their local protest traditions, which in turn rely on a robust understanding of free speech that is often at odds with popular understandings of the term.