On Monday, 22nd April, UCDSU was joined by UCD BDS, USI, along with a multitude of students and healthcare workers, in a demonstration denouncing the visit of Nancy Pelosi.
On Monday, 22nd April, University College Dublin Students’ Union were joined by UCD’s BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions), the Union of Students in Ireland (USI), along with a multitude of students and healthcare workers, in a demonstration denouncing the visit of Nancy Pelosi, a former speaker of the United States’ House of Representatives.
Pelosi was recently condemned for calling on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigate pro-Palestinian protestors which she believes may be “connected to Russia”. These comments were later described as “unsubstantiated smears” by the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), smears which targeted “those who seek an end to the slaughter of civilians in Gaza.” Pelosi has also been criticised due to her association with the U.S. Government who currently provide an estimated 69% of Israel’s foreign-sourced weapons.
As “shame” was written across the window of UCD’s O’Reilly Hall and as many in unison waved the flag of Palestine whilst condemning Pelosi’s actions with exclamations such as “shame on you” and “war criminal”, Pelosi was being awarded an honorary doctorate degree of law from UCD, along with the Sutherland Leadership Award and the James Joyce Award during a Gala Dinner.
The Sutherland Leadership Award was established in 2018 to recognise international leaders who embody the social and political values of Peter Sutherland. Sutherland was a Fine Gael politician and served as UN Special Representative for International Migration from 2006 to 2017. Past recipients of the award include European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, former US Secretary of the Treasury Henry “Hank” Paulson and former President of the European Central Bank and Prime Minister of Italy, Mario Draghi. The James Joyce Award was established by the Literary and Historical Society (L&H) to give recognition to those who have achieved success in their given field. The recipients are often from fields such as politics, the arts, science and sports. Past political recipients include former South African President F.W. de Klerk, Nobel Laureate and Northern Irish politician John Hume and UN High-Level Commissioner and Sustainable Development Goals Advocate Alaa Murabit.
As protest brewed outside its doors at 3pm, Pelosi was awarded the honorary degree inside the University Club. Present at the ceremony was Incumbent UCDSU President Martha Ní Riada. Ní Riada was later forcefully removed from the ceremony for expressing resentment at Pelosi, stating: “You said that your support for Israel is in our DNA, no it’s not”, followed by a repetition of the question: “What about Palestinian women?”. Pelosi did not respond to Ní Riada. In the statement, Ní Riada was referring to a comment made by Pelosi in October 2021 to which she stated that “for many of us”, support for Israel “is in our DNA”.
Ní Riada was later forcefully removed from the ceremony for expressing resentment at Pelosi, stating: “You said that your support for Israel is in our DNA, no it’s not”, followed by a repetition of the question: “What about Palestinian women?”.
Following the ceremony, Ní Riada told The University Observer that Pelosi is “not welcome in UCD” and that the decision to celebrate her political efforts is “not representative of our university”. Ní Riada then went onto state that she does not want to attend “a university that’s giving the same degree to someone who is actively supporting a genocide.”
Throughout her career, Pelosi has been heralded as being an advocate for women’s rights. In 2007, she made history by becoming the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives and in 2013 was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. However, commenting on this depiction, Ní Riada noted “it doesn’t matter if you’ve held powerful positions if you don’t care about anyone that’s not a white woman”, thus rendering Pelosi’s feminism “one-faceted”. In recent years, Pelosi has faced scrutiny for her treatment of women of colour in the political sphere, with Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accusing her of “singling out” freshman congresswomen of colour.
President-elect of the UCD SU, Miranda Bauer, also spoke to the Observer and asserted that it was “incredibly disrespectful of the university to completely negate the feelings of the wider student body”. As chants castigating Pelosi and her associates rang out across the university, Bauer noted that it was “very heartening to see the amount of support from students that have come to the protest”.
As the Gala Dinner was commencing at 6pm, the congregation gathered outside of O’Reilly Hall. It was here that the UCDSU, BDS and USI were joined by healthcare workers, a wider student body and People Before Profit–Solidarity TD Richard Boyd Barrett. As the guests of the dinner were ushered into the venue by members of An Garda Síochána, they were met with chants such as “shame on you”, “Palestine will be free” and “while your dining, kids are dying”.
President-elect of the UCD SU, Miranda Bauer, also spoke to the Observer and asserted that it was “incredibly disrespectful of the university to completely negate the feelings of the wider student body”.
Boyd Barrett spoke outside the hall as the dinner began and described the protest as having “saved the reputation” of the university. Boyd Barett went on to note that if not “for the weapons and the political support and the impunity” provided to Israel by the United States, the “genocidal massacre that has been convicted on the people of Gaza could not happen, would not have happened”.
When commenting on Pelosi’s role, Boyd Barrett stated that as she “could not even bring herself to say the word ‘ceasefire’”, Pelosi and her associates “are not just complicit with genocide, they are guilty of genocide”.
Later in his speech, Boyd Barrett emphasised that how for decades, “people advocating on behalf of the Palestinian people” have been “begging Western governments to end the impunity of Israel long before the recent horror”, a demand that can be traced back to the “foundations of the Israeli state which was built on a brutal murderous act of ethnic cleansing in 1948”. Additionally, Boyd Barrett also critiqued the presence of former Taoisigh Bertie Ahern and Enda Kenny at the Gala, noting that throughout their time in government, “they did nothing” for Palestine.
Following Boyd Barrett, Zaid Albarghouthi of the USI took the stage and described honorary degrees as being “the prestigious way for an institution to get someone’s name associated with that institution”. This, Albarghouthi expressed, is a way to influence students “to seek inspiration from the recipient of such awards”. Albarghouthi then emphasised how this placed Pelosi’s awarding as contradictory as UCD is an institution whose student body and staff “have taken every possible chance to call for an ending in complicity to genocide”. Consequently, Albarghouthi notes that this “stain on the institution’s history does not reflect the students that study here or the staff that keep this institution on its feet”.
Albarghouthi then emphasised how this placed Pelosi’s awarding as contradictory as UCD is an institution whose student body and staff “have taken every possible chance to call for an ending in complicity to genocide”.
As the speeches of Boyd Barrett and Albarghouthi received applause from the congregation, the demonstration continued and the chanting returned. To further disrupt the dinner, three megaphones were left to play a high-pitched siren outside O’Reilly Hall, a siren which reverberated across the campus, and likely throughout the halls of the ceremony itself.
When asked by the Observer what actions should be taken next by students, Boyd Barrett emphasised the importance in getting UCD “to join the boycott and investment sanctions” against Israel. Boyd Barrett said that if the authorities “are willing to collude with people who are directly involved in a genocide”, then it is the responsibility of students, through campaigning and protesting, “to actually enforce the boycott and break all links between UCD and the apartheid state, Israel, that has carried out this genocidal horror in Gaza”.
When asked by the Observer what actions should be taken next by students, Boyd Barrett emphasised the importance in getting UCD “to join the boycott and investment sanctions” against Israel.