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Alumni urge Ohio University to reinstate suspended professor Thomas Hayes
By: Charlie Ihlenfeld
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — After Thomas Hayes’ suspension from his post at Ohio University after joining an aid flotilla to Gaza, alumni have rallied behind him.
In a letter sent to the university Wednesday, they urged President Lori Stewart Gonzalez to “do the right thing, and reinstate Tom Hayes immediately as the instructor of The Art of Editing.”
The letter was signed by more than 150 former professors and graduates of the university’s film and theater programs.
Hayes was detained by the Israeli military earlier this month after they intercepted the flotilla in international waters. The university suspended Hayes on the grounds that he changed his class to a virtual format during the semester, which violated the faculty handbook. He did so to participate in the flotilla.
When this decision to risk his job and life presented itself to Hayes, he said he did not hesitate to join.
“What then must I do?” said Hayes. “And when this opportunity presented itself to me on the 24th and I needed to be in Taranto, Italy, on the 26th, so I basically blew out the door to be there.”
Hayes is an associate professor of film at Ohio University and has been involved in the struggle for Palestinian rights since 1981. He trained alongside other journalists and medical professionals for the trip before they set sail this month, but it was not his first journey with the Freedom Flotilla. Hayes was also part of the May journey.
The group was surprised when, as reported by the BBC, the ship was intercepted in international waters.
“We had even practiced our chant for the arrival,” said Hayes. “We didn’t want them to be able to use their seizure of our ship as a propaganda moment.”
“We were all chanting, ‘We are journalists, we are medics’ until they shoved guns in our faces and told us to shut up.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists reported the journalists and medics testified to being beaten and threatened by Israeli forces.
The group was taken from the boat to the Israeli prison Ketziot. Hayes and others testified to being denied essential medication and subject to inhumane conditions.
“I was denied my medication,” he said. “I’m 70 years old. 70-year-old people need their medication. There were diabetics among us who were also denied their medication. But that is nothing in comparison to what the Palestinian prisoners, kids who are in a notorious prison, are facing.”
Hayes and the group were released once they received legal representation and flown to Turkey. He stressed the importance of providing aid to the people of Gaza as the weather gets colder.
“Look, winter is closing in,” said Hayes. “If the world, if the globe doesn’t respond the level of the Berlin Airlift or the Marshall Plan right now, open all of the crossings, repave the Gaza Airstrip, open a maritime humanitarian corridor, I doubt a single Palestinian infant will survive this winter. Winter is coming, and they have no shelter.”