The student protests and the encampment movement that exploded on campuses toward the end of the 2024 school year pitted students (and faculty) protesting the Gaza genocide and calling for a ceasefire against administrators, Boards of Trustees, and donors at an increasing number of American colleges and universities. As the movement spread, some universities cancelled classes or moved to virtual teaching, while others took more steps, with Columbia University, for example, inviting police onto campuses, or reaching agreements with student protesters to consider some of their demands.
The end of the school year and beginning of the summer vacation provided a temporary respite from the controversies surrounding the protests; but as all parties expected, the protest movement started again once the 2025 school year began in September. As the genocide has not yet abated, the same issues are likely to be fought over again.
Dividing Lines
It is not surprising that the same issues that animated the protesters and galvanized the opposition to them last academic year will be at the center of the upcoming protests this year as well.
On the one side, students who were protesting the Israeli war on Gaza and calling for a ceasefire were also protesting the complicity of the United States government as Israel’s main supporter as well as the academic institutions that were the venues for the protests. Protesters called for divestment from Israel and Israeli companies and for cutting off relationships with Israeli institutions. They demanded to see the budgets of the universities to ensure their endowments were not being invested in Israeli or American companies involved in the Israeli occupation and genocide. They also protested allowing pro-Israeli speakers onto their campuses, and carried out disruptive activities to reenforce their message.
Students who were protesting the Israeli war on Gaza were also protesting the complicity of their own universities.
On the other side, pro-Zionist forces claimed that the atmosphere of protests was creating pain and discomfort to Jewish, or pro-Israeli students and that the universities should ban protests, organizations, and activities that create an uncomfortable situation for these students that is seen as anti-Semitic. They threatened university presidents who were “not doing enough” to protect Jewish students with cutting off funds as well as legal actions. Even Congress held hearings as the three university presidents of Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were grilled about not doing enough to make Jewish students feel safe on their campuses. Those of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania resigned from their positions shortly thereafter.
The issues raised by these protests, as well as by the anticipated crackdown of the universities promise to impact student activism on all issues, and they raise fundamental questions that have not been raised since students protested against the Vietnam War decades ago. They include the following:
Freedom of Speech: The true test of freedom of speech is not in allowing popular and establishment views to be heard but precisely in allowing controversial, unpopular, and even outrageously false views to be expressed and debated. The theory is that in a free society, citizens can be trusted to express their opinion, discuss and evaluate ideas, and eventually accept some or all of them. False ideas are to be debated, challenged, and sometimes ridiculed, but not suppressed or silenced. That is the premise of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, and the genius of a “free market of ideas.” Human progress is advanced not by silencing contrarian voices, or those that challenge accepted orthodoxy, but in allowing such ideas, discussing them, and trusting the citizenry to be able to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Countries and ideologies that use censorship or persecution to stifle new or contrarian ideas are prone to lose this great advantage.
Colleges and universities have often been important incubators for new ideas and unconventional views, and pride themselves on providing an open venue for discussion and debate. But on issues pertaining to Israel and Palestine, the norm is that the Zionist narrative has been dominant for decades, that the Palestinian narrative faces an uphill struggle, and that freedom of speech takes a backseat. In the mainstream media, film, arts and literature, as well as in political discourse throughout the United States and much of the West, those who wish to present the Palestinian perspective are usually ignored, or silenced. For this reason, Palestinian protests often move beyond mere speaking and hoisting signs into other forms of free speech including building encampments, organizing sit-ins and street theatre, burning flags, and calling for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS). These are all generally recognized as forms of free speech protected by the First Amendment, although efforts are being made to limit such expressions under various forms of regulations and rules. Legislation against BDS already passed in over 30 states is broadly considered unconstitutional, and generally has not been upheld by courts in the past. Nonetheless, until it gets challenged in court, it has serious chilling effects on freedom of speech.
Academic Freedom: In addition to freedom of expression, universities are expected to be open to new ideas in special ways. Tenure for professors was created to protect them as thought explorers from firing, even if they espouse outrageous ideas. Students are expected to be challenged and exposed to innovative and new ideas, to actively think critically, and to examine postulates that would otherwise not be tolerated easily in society. Yet there is a determined effort to limit the freedom of both students and professors to explore new thinking when it comes to Palestine/Israel. Departments of Middle East studies especially have been targeted and scrutinized if their position on Israel, Palestine, and Zionism veered from accepted orthodoxy of the infallibility of Israel and the morality of its army.
Anti-Semitism: The definition of anti-Semitism becomes one of the urgent issues since many of the mechanisms used to stifle Palestinian advocacy on campuses is fueled by the supposed need to combat anti-Semitism and hate speech. For this purpose, it is important to define the term. Advocates of Zionism would like to label all Palestinian activism as anti-Semitic and to conflate opposition to Zionism, Israel, and its policies with hatred of Jews, which naturally no one should support. For this purpose, the definition of anti-Semitism advocated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance is being adopted by and incorporated into many educational institutions. Under that definition, not only hatred of Jews is anti-Semitic, but also criticism of the State of Israel. In other words, anti-Zionist views and expressions, as well as organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), and even Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) can be banned from campuses. Even cultural events or the wearing of the Palestinian keffiyeh are labelled anti-Semitic, and calls to ban them are being heard more frequently. In addition, “Zionism” was included as a “protected category” so that opposition to it is itself now a prohibited activity and a form of illicit “hate speech” to be stifled and punished on many campuses.
Fighting Campus Activism
Over the summer, US college and university administrations have developed and expanded a number of tools to impede student activism against the Israeli war on Gaza.
New Regulations: Several universities announced and distributed new regulations to students and student organizations that limit their activities, and threatened serious sanctions for students who violate them. Among those are ones prohibiting encampments and overnight stay, restricting outsiders’ entering campuses, limiting areas where protests can take place, prohibiting masks or clothes deemed to constitute hate speech, or vaguely defining categories that ‘hurt the feelings’ of other students. Students violating these regulations face severe sanctions
Use of Title VI Litigation: Under dubious legal reasoning, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination against students for race, color, or national origin, was twisted to declare Zionism and Israel categories of national origin, and treat opposition to Israeli policies as discrimination on that basis. While it is doubtful that such a theory would withstand judicial scrutiny, the mere threat of using that tool, and the prospect of litigation to deny universities any federal support under Title VI is enough to frighten most university administrations into taking drastic action to curtail student activism.
Withholding Donor Funding: Major pro-Zionist philanthropists already used defunding universities last year to rattle university boards and administrators. There is discussion to use such leverage systematically this year to ensure that universities prohibit or severely limit student activism on Palestine/Israel. Some of this pressure is used behind the scenes, but references to it also appear in the media.
Major pro-Zionist philanthropists already used defunding universities last year to rattle university boards and administrators.
Utilizing Police Services on Campuses: As was the case with Columbia University, administration officials are now openly eager to use law enforcement agencies to enforce their new regulations and confront particularly acts of civil disobedience, sit-ins, and protest that move into disruption of normal educational activities. Police are expected to be far more aggressive and intolerant in confronting students and their supporters. By contrast, students feel the ongoing genocide and atrocities warrant far more assertive protests and actions than merely expressing their opinions. This situation promises to yield major confrontations and greater repression than has been seen since the protests against the Vietnam War. In fact, it appears that over the last summer, a thriving security industry has been introduced into many campus processes, regulations, and training that limits the place, duration, and even content of permissible protests. This has been done without discussion or consultation with students or faculty, and seem to be the result of nation-wide coordination and planning.
Expected Flashpoints Next Academic Year
The issues over which students and college and university administrations are likely to clash will not be that much different from those around which last year’s controversies coalesced. They include the following:
Calls for Divestment from Israel and companies that support the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Most universities have extensive endowments and pension funds, but the investments in companies that support Israel are often not publicly available to students. One of the battles of students is for transparency to reveal those investments; the other is the call to divest from such investments. Universities usually resist such calls, and confrontations follow.
Relationships with Israeli government and academic institutions, including twinning arrangements, cooperation on research and publishing, and exchange of professors and students. Such programs are often a target of student protesters who demand to end them, or at least ask for a discussion around them.
Providing a platform for Israeli academics and/or speakers who spout government propaganda. BDS activists often protest and try to disrupt such speakers and demand that they be denied a platform on their campuses. University officials claim that such speakers should be allowed under principles of academic freedom. Many BDS chapters used to refrain from such calls for academic boycotts, but as the genocide in Gaza continues and as some speakers are known to have views defending Israel’s actions, or have actively served in the Israeli military, students find that they have to challenge allowing war criminals to speak on their campuses. The American Association of University Professors recently reversed its position objecting to academic boycotts and now supports them as a legitimate tactical response to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Access for Palestinian speakers, films, and materials. Much of the student activism is likely to be defensive as it tries to secure a space for Palestinian activism, which has been blocked or denied by universities and colleges. Indeed, the conflict between students and administrators may be less over protesting the genocide as it is about defending the right to hear and express their positions, and to defend individuals who have been unfairly targeted for their views. The University of Pennsylvania came under major attack by donors last year when it held a cultural festival for Palestinian writers. While the festival did take place, the university’s president, Liz McGill, eventually had to resign in part for allowing the event to take place.
Lawfare: The Israeli government and its supporters in the United States actively seek to use the courts and the legal system to harass, intimidate, and silence Palestinian activism. This is called “lawfare” by which its practitioners rely on draining the resources and energy of pro-Palestine groups in costly legal battles. It is to be noted that legal activities in the United States tend to be very expensive, and that even if free legal assistance can be obtained, the related costs of litigation—including depositions, transcripts, witness testimony, ancillary research, and other services—can be prohibitively expensive, particularly for students and activists who are often pitted against well financed “lawfare” organizations. This is in addition to the fact that organizations supporting or defending Palestinian rights, from the American Civil Liberties Union to Palestine Legal and others are overwhelmed and understaffed.
Whatever the obstacles to student protests against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, it is likely that the new academic year in the United States will witness renewed activism in defense of Palestinian rights and in advocating boycotts of Israel and its supporters. Considering the pressure colleges and universities are experiencing from pro-Israel donors and segments of American society, administrators are likely to devise yet more restrictive policies and regulations to stifle such essential mantras in higher education like freedom of speech and academic freedom.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors.
Featured image credit: Shutterstock/Zsuzsi Matolcsy
