Mecha de Teejop, formerly Mecha de UW-Madison, announced their independence from the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Thursday.
The organization disaffiliated on June 17 after they were suspended by Dean of Students Christina Olstad on May 6 during a Committee on Student Organizations (CSO) investigation into antisemitic chalkings found at the Dane County Farmers’ Market.
Mecha described the investigation as “a pattern of harassment and intentional intimidation of our already vulnerable Latine, Chicane and Indigenous members” in a July 4 statement announcing their independence from the university.
The CSO received complaints on May 5-6 alleging members of Mecha and Anticolonial co-hosted a chalking event that resulted in some chalkings that endorsed violence, supported terrorist organizations and contained antisemitic comments, according to a May 6 UW-Madison statement.
The Daily Cardinal reported chalkings found at the May 4 Dane County Farmers’ Market included “Al-Qassam you make us proud, kill another soldier now,” “Power to Al-Qassam'' and “Al-Qassam show us how, kill another soldier now.” Other chalkings said “Power to Hezbollah” and “Power to Ansrallah [Houthis] seize them all.”
“Of course our organization would never write nor condone the explicitly anti-Jewish sentiments of which we are allegedly accused of chalking, but we are not here to engage in these manufactured controversies which are created and weaponized by zionists as a shield for their complicity in settler-colonialism, ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people,” Mecha’s statement said.
Mecha’s suspension letter said the CSO received reports that “curse all Jews” was written in chalk. The Cardinal did not report chalk that said “curse all Jews.” The university did not respond to an initial May 7 inquiry on if they had evidence of this phrase, and Mecha said the university admitted they had no physical evidence of this claim.
Mecha said UW-Madison administration asked them to identify individuals writing in chalk in images in the Cardinal after indicating they would not pursue consequences against individual Mecha members in the July 4 statement. The organization also said administrators behaved disrespectfully towards faculty who expressed support for Mecha.
It is unclear if the organization will still have a space on campus after their disaffiliation. The organization currently has an office in the Red Gym after they were temporarily removed from their house due to Levy Hall construction disruptions.
UW-Madison did not respond to immediate requests for comment.
Noe Goldhaber is the college news editor and former copy chief for The Daily Cardinal. She is a Statistics and Journalism major and has specialized on a wide range of campus topics including protests, campus labor, student housing, free speech and campus administration. She has done data analysis and visualization for the Cardinal on a number of stories. Follow her on Twitter at @noegoldhaber.
