Colleges see clashes between Israel and Pro-Palestine protesters — here’s where major institutions stand
College campuses across the US have become flashpoints as groups protest and clash over the reaction to Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel.
College campuses across the US have become flashpoints as groups protest and clash over the reaction to Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel.
Although some faculties and professors stood in solidarity with the Jewish people, others have resorted to anti-Semitism under the guise of solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Here is what’s happening at a selection of the country’s top institutions and where they stand in relation to the conflict:
University president Minouche Shafik said she was “devastated by the horrific attack on Israel this weekend,” on October 9, but did not mention Hamas or terrorism.
A day earlier politics and history teacher Joseph Massad wrote an article online in which he praised Hamas’ terror attacks, calling it “astonishing,” “astounding,” and “incredible” as well as a “stunning victory of the Palestinian resistance” against “cruel colonizers.” A petition calling for his removal reached over 45,000 signatures before being placed “under review” by Change.org. Columbia refused to comment on the situation when approached by The Post.
On October 11, a 24-year-old Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside the University’s main library, leading to 19-year-old Maxwell Friedman, who uses she/her pronouns, to be charged with second and third-degree assault, both as hate crimes.
Campus protests continued the next day, with thousands of people representing both sides filled its main square.
A day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, a coalition of 34 student groups including the campus Amnesty International chapter signed a letter claiming Israel was “entirely responsible” for the terrorism which left over 1,400 dead, including babies, children and the old and defenseless.
President of Harvard, Claudine Gay, was criticized for her lukewarm official reaction to Hamas’ attack and had to issue three statements in total before finally coming out against the “barbaric atrocities perpetrated by Hamas”.
Those outside the university were quicker to action, with a “doxxing truck” driving around the campus with digital billboards reading “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites” in gothic script over a slideshow of the names and photos of students who allegedly signed the letter.
Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman said he would blacklist any of the people who had signed up to blame Israel, and was quickly joined by a dozen other top CEOs.
Others pulled funding including former Victoria’s Secret CEO Leslie Wexner’s foundation, commiserating the Ivy League school’s “dismal failure” over the handling of the incident.
After professor of American and religious studies Zareena Grewal — who calls herself a “radical Muslim” on X — labeled Israel a “murderous, genocidal settler state” on the platform as news of Hamas’ attack began rolling in, Yale student Netanel Crispe started a petition calling for her firing from the Ivy League university.
“She has unequivocally proven that she has no right being in her current role or in the field of education if she considers war crimes against civilians to be acts of resistance,” Crispe wrote in the petition on Change.org, which has since gathered nearly 52,000 signatures.
Other posts from Grewal cited in the petition included “Palestinians have every right to resist through armed struggle, solidarity,” accusations that Israel was committing genocide, and a retweet of footage from the Hamas attack she captioned “It’s been such an extraordinary day!”
Yale administrators said Grewal’s opinions statements were protected under her freedom of speech, telling NBC Connecticut the school “is committed to freedom of expression, and the comments posted on Professor Grewal’s personal accounts represent her own views.”
Given the presence of active pro-Palestinian students and facutly on her campus, Chancellor Carol Christ walked a tightrope in her statement, ripping Hamas’ assaults while also expressing concern for civilians in Gaza.
“I know many members of our community have deep ties to Israel and to Palestine and are experiencing tremendous sorrow and trauma at this time. Your suffering must be particularly acute; we feel compassion for all that you are experiencing.”
Led by founder Hatem Bazian — a lecturer in Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies — the school’s Bears for Palestine group has been vocally anti-Israel since the hostilities flared.
“Biden is heading to visit Israel to incite and sanctify Netanyahu’s War Crimes after the US vetoed another UN Security Council resolution related to Palestine,” Bazian tweeted Tuesday.
At the other end of the spectrum, Berkeley Law School Professor Steven Davidoff Solomon urged employers not to hire students who backed Hamas in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
“My students are largely engaged and well-prepared, and I regularly recommend them to legal employers,” Solomon wrote. “But if you don’t want to hire people who advocate hate and practice discrimination, don’t hire some of my students.”
President Martha Pollack also initially issued a very mild statement about the “attacks by Hamas militants in Israel” on Oct. 10 which immediately caused a backlash leading her to revise it hours later to include the group’s “acts of terrorism.”
However, associate professor of history Russell Rickford didn’t mince his words at a pro-Palestine rally on Oct. 15 when he called the brutal terror attack “exhilarating” and “energizing” and that the attacks “shifted the balance of politics and punctured the illusion of invincibility” of Israel.
His actions led to calls for him to be removed from his post by students at the university on Tuesday.
One of the University of Pennsylvania’s most prominent donors, former US Ambassador Jon Huntsman Jr., announced he was halting all of his family’s donations to the institution and as many called for the removal of school president Liz Magill after she took a week to condemn Hamas — a silence the billionaire called “antisemitism.”
“Silence is antisemitism, and antisemitism is hate, the very thing higher ed was built to obviate,” Huntsman wrote in a letter to Magill, as he joined other well-heeled donors in calling for Magill’s removal.
Ire against Magill and UPenn administrators began building in September when the school hosted the Palestine Writes Literature Festival, which involved speakers some accused of having histories of antisemitic statements.
Billionaire donor Marc Rowan called for the removal of the chairman of UPenn’s trustee board, Scott Bok, in addition to Magill over their muted responses to the festival and the Hamas attacks.
Homemade banners celebrating Hamas and condemning Israel could be seen flying from houses and prominent university buildings across Stanford’s campus within hours of the attacks on October 7.
“The Israeli occupation is nothing but an illusion of dust,” read one banner written in red ink that was hung from a popular student center on campus, student Julia Steinberg wrote shared in the Stanford Review.
Such banners were later removed, but the school issued a letter explaining it had done so “based on the location of the banners, not the content or viewpoint expressed,” while stating its position on the conflict was founded in neutrality.
Despite committing to neutrality, a university lecturer was suspended after Jewish students complained they’d been made to stand in a corner while being called “colonizers” as part of a lesson just three days after Hamas attacked Israel.
The teacher reportedly said “only 6 million” Jews were murdered in the holocaust, according to an account in the San Francisco Chronicle, and labeled students “colonizers” and “colonized” based on their race and religion.
When a student said they were from Israel, the unidentified lecturer reportedly said “Oh, definitely a colonizer.”
University president Christina H. Paxson issued a statement on October 10 about the “horrific and devastating terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel.”
A day later she condemned the attacks by Hamas in another statement, saying: “We are heartbroken for the people of Israel who have been terrorized by the recent events.”
Since then 24 student groups — including Brown Beekeeping Society and Burlesque at Brown — have signed a letter from Students for Justice saying they “hold the Israeli regime and its allies unequivocally responsible for all suffering and loss of life, Palestinian or Israeli.”
Chancellor Gene Block issued a statement on the crisis condemning the “horrific and heart-wrenching terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens that took place over the weekend. These attacks led to an escalation of violence in the region that has since claimed many additional Israeli and Palestinian lives.”
Pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian student groups each held separate rallies over the past week that were largely calm.
But some Israeli students reported being harassed on campus for their views, as UC President Michael Drake and the UC Board of Regents urged all those impacted by the conflict to seek out counseling as tensions rose.
Chancellor Mildred Garcia, who oversees the California state college system, ripped the “horrific attacks in Israel and the escalating violence that we are witnessing in Israel and the Gaza Strip. The increasing loss of innocent lives is heartbreaking.”
But the Long Beach campus drew headlines in the wake of the Hamas attacks after the La F.U.E.R.Z.A Student Association produced a flyer featuring a paraglider — the mode of attack used to massacre attendees at an Israeli rave.
The school condemned the action in a statement, calling it “deeply offensive in light of the loss of life and unspeakable violence during this conflict.”
The group marched through campus chanting, “Viva, viva Palestina!” and carrying a large banner of a Palestinian flag that read, “WHEN PEOPLE ARE COLONIZED RESISTANCE IS JUSTIFIED.”