On February 2nd, 2024 KCAI canceled an event entitled “Writers for Palestine,” hosted by Mizna, the Twin Cities based arts organization centering SWANA (Southwest Asian North African) artists, and included SWANA writers from around the country who were visiting Kansas City for the annual AWP conference (Association of Writers and Writing Programs), many of them from the Palestinian diaspora. According to a statement that Mizna released this weekend, event organizers were informed two business days before the event that KCAI would no longer host them, citing “security concerns”. The event was set against the context of the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the israeli state.

As KCAI alumni, students, and community members, we consider the cancellation of the Writers for Palestine reading to be part of a continuation of erasure and censorship of Palestinian voices and advocacy on college campuses around the country. We agree with Mizna that KCAI weaponized the language of safety in order to cancel the event. We agree with Mizna that any institution that is unprepared to protect Brown and Black community members is complicit in exclusion, censorship, and silencing marginalized voices. We know that KCAI maintains a partnership with the israeli Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, and perhaps has financial connections to israel that we are unaware of at this time.

We urge you to join us in demanding transparency and accountability from the college, and demand that they divest from israeli institutions and interests.

Our demands are as follows:

1) We demand that KCAI make a public statement apologizing for the cancellation of the event with the understanding that they have actively censored Palestinian voices.

2) We demand that KCAI end its International Exchange partnership with the israeli Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, and join the cultural and academic boycotts of israeli institutions outlined by the global Boycott, Divestments, Sanctions movement.

that KCAI disclose its investments and divest from any financial interest in israel and the manufacture of weapons of war.