Leean Othman
Overview
Leean Othman [Leean Othman Sarsour] was reportedly Vice President of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Marquette University (Marquette) in 2015. She also promoted the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement at Marquette.As of August 2020, Othman’s LinkedIn page said she worked as a Summer Law Clerk with the California Department of Justice, for attorneys in the Bureau of Children's Justice in the areas of immigration law, child welfare and child education in 2017.
Also as of August 2020, Othman’s LinkedIn page said she was located in San Francisco, California and working as an attorney since November 2018, at the law office of Robin C. Smith, Esq. P.C., of San Rafael, California, which is licensed in both New York and California.
In April 2020, Othman appeared on a brief filed from a Wall Street, New York address on behalf of a sex offender convicted on three counts of rape and other abuse of a minor, in a high profile federal case in New York’s Southern District.
SJP Activism
On October 11, 2014, Othman published a GoFundMe request online, to help “SJP Marquette Go to NSJP [National Students for Justice in Palestine Conference].”
Tufts SJP hosted the 2014 SJP National Conference, where Sa’ed Atshan, then the Tufts SJP faculty advisor, blamed Israel for Palestinian honor killings and persecution of LGBTQ+ people within Palestinian society.
Clothing was sold at the conference, including a shirt with the image of airplane hijacker Leila Khaled — a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) — with the text “resistance is not terrorism.”
Although the event was listed as “free and open to the public,” at least one student journalist was refused press credentials. Terror supporter Max Geller and agitator Ahmed Hamad both spoke and presented at the conference.
Promoting BDS
On April 22, 2015, Othman featured [00:00:07] in the 2015 MU Divest campaign video, where she said she supported the campaign: [00:01:14] “Because I am human before anything else and I do not want to be complicit in human rights violations.”
On April 27, 2015, the divestment resolution was presented to the Marquette University Student Government (MUSG). The resolution called on Marquette to divest from companies including United Technologies, Caterpillar, G4S and Hewlett-Packard, for profiting off human rights violations.
SJP Marquette reportedly had “over a dozen” co-sponsoring student organizations, along with a petition that “garnered over 700 signatures” from students in support of the resolution.
MUSG held an executive session to debate and vote on the resolution behind closed doors after the student government president revealed a document that had been circulating on the Marquette campus containing personal information about the student government senators, including their religion and political beliefs.
The document also contained assignments and plans of action to solicit their support for specific issues. SJP members and other non-student government campaigners had to wait outside the room during the senate’s debate and discussion.
The resolution passed with a 25-3-0 vote. However, all references to Israel and the companies targeted for divestment were removed from the bill, as well as the word “divestment.” The edited resolution became a generic recommendation for the university to implement socially responsible investing, negating the efforts of MU Divest.
On the same day the divestment vote took place, four students, two of whom wearing MU Divest clothing were arrested for blocking an intersection after during a march which was reportedly to address “ongoing concern about Marquette’s handling of...divestment.”
A week after the vote, Othman participated in an SJP organized sit-in, where members of the MU Divest coalition walked into the MUSG offices with black tape over their mouths and holding signs that read: “You’ve chosen to silence us” and “#MUDIVEST.”
SJP
SJP is a student organization engaged in anti-Israel activity on North American college and university campuses.
The first chapter of SJP was founded in 2001 at the University of California at Berkeley by Professor Hatem Bazian. Bazian has spread classic anti-Semitism, reportedly promoted religious anti-Semitism and defended the Hamas terror group. In 2004, Bazian called for “intifada” in America.
SJP organizes anti-Israel campaigns, including running annual Israel Apartheid Weeks, often in collaboration with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Muslim Students Association (MSA) campus chapters.
SJP has been a major force in pushing the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses. Chapters have initiated dozens of BDS resolutions in student governments, which have been proposed on or around Jewish holidays, a time when many Jewish students are off-campus.
SJP activists have reportedly physically assaulted, intimidated and harassed Jewish students, disrupted pro-Israel campus events and demonized pro-Israel campus organizations.
Chapters have often endorsed and campaigned for numerous terrorists and whitewashed terrorism.
BDS
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true.
One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”
Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”
In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”
The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.
BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.
The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.
Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.
BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.
Social Media and Weblinks
Facebook:www.facebook.com/louthma/100001925306489https://www.facebook.com/leean.othman [Deleted]
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loth-1/
- Status:
- Professional
- University:
- Marquette,
- more...
- Organizations:
- BDS,
- SJP
- Related Profiles:
- Ahmad Murrar,
- Rawan Atari,
- Daniel Maguire,
- Gadeer Ayesh,
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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