# Pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses in the United States

Pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses in the United States have been going on intermittently on a smaller scale for many years, but in 2024, there have been major pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses in the United States in response to the ongoing Israel–Hamas war. Notable protests have occurred at Columbia University, Yale University, University of California at Berkeley, the University of Michigan, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Emerson College, Tufts University and New York University among others.
The student activism against the war in Gaza was surged when at least 108 protesters were arrested at Columbia University on April 18, which came after "administrators appeared before Congress and promised a crackdown." As of April 27, over seven hundred students have been arrested.

## Response
### Universities

On November 6, 2023 Brandeis University became the first private university in the United States to ban its student chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, for the group's support of Hamas. On November 10, Columbia University suspended its campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace for repeated violations of campus event policies, thus barring them from hosting events on campus. Columbia's decision was criticized by Naomi Klein and Noura Erakat. After Harvard University president Claudine Gay condemned the slogan "from the river to the sea", more than 100 faculty signed an open letter criticizing her censure. On 14 December, Rutgers University became the first public university to suspend its campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine in response to complaints of disruptive behavior and vandalism. Donors to top universities in the United States withdrew millions of dollars in donations in light of the universities' responses to Hamas' offensive.
On October 24, 2023 Ray Rodrigues, the Chancellor of the State University System of Florida issued an order to disband all existing chapters of National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) in the system. Chapters at University of Florida and University of South Florida have filed federal lawsuits against several parties including Rodrigues and Gov. Ron Desantis on constitutional grounds over the move. On December 5, the Louisiana Department of Education opened a civil-rights investigation against Tulane University after a pro-Palestine rally on October 26 became violent. American University announced it was banning protests inside university buildings. The Muslim Legal Fund of America sued Harvard University for failing to protect Muslim and Arab students from harassment.The ACLU published an open letter urging colleges not to initiate "baseless investigations" into pro-Palestinian student groups.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on November 25 it was forming a task force to combat "those generating antisemitism on campuses" in the United States. In February 2024, the American Civil Liberties Union signed a letter to US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona calling on him to reject redefining antisemitism to include political criticism of the government of the state of Israel, saying it would lead to First Amendment violations.
On December 11, a sit-in organized by the "Brown Divest Coalition" took place at Brown University in Rhode Island to protest the Israel-Hamas war. Early in the day, the group me with Brown President Christina Paxon who took their demands but did not present them to the "Brown Corporation." Forty-one students were arrested and charged with trespassing at 6pm.
After Bret Gustafson, a Washu professor, posted online in support of a protest outside of the home of the president of AIPAC, the university stated that Gustafson's views do not reflect the university's, and that they would not tolerate "discrimination, harassment or threatening behavior." Jairo Fúnez-Flores, a professor at Texas Tech University, was suspended for his social media posts related to the conflict.
Liz Magill, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, resigned on December 9, 2023 following congressional testimony in which she asserted that the question of whether calls for genocide of Jews violate the University's code of conduct is a "context-dependent decision". In January 2024, Indiana University fired Abdulkader Sinno, a tenured political science professor, in response to political pressure from the state's Republican legislators. Students at Northwestern University faced criminal charges for publishing a pro-Palestinian parody newspaper under a law originally used to combat the KKK. The New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union told Columbia University that the university must reinstate its chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine or face a legal challenge for First Amendment violations. On 12 March, the New York Civil Liberties Union and Palestine Legal sued Columbia University for banning the groups.
On February 12, "Penn State Students for Justice in Palestine" held a rally in front of the Allen Street Gates to protest 67 Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes in one day. An organizer said, “We’ll keep doing it until a permanent ceasefire.”
On March 5, students at Lehigh University held a rally calling on the Bethlehem City Council to advocate for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Students in the United States have reported fears of losing future job opportunities for engaging in protests against military action in Gaza.
On 26 April, a Columbia student who had emerged as a leader of the protest movement was barred after declaring in a video that "Zionists don’t deserve to live". Other protests groups condemned the comments, but the New York Times said they raised the question of "How much of the movement in support of the Palestinian people in Gaza is tainted by antisemitism?"

### Community colleges

On September 5, 2021, after a local teacher's union representing professors at the Grossmont-Cuyamaca and San Diego Community College districts issued a resolution criticizing Israel for its treatment of Palestinians. The resolution was criticized by individual board trustees from the district, the national president of the AFT, the San Diego Chapter of the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Federation of San Diego.
On October 27, between 100 and 150 students at San Diego City College called a ceasefire during a national student walkout.
On April 23, pro-Palestinian and anti-Abortion protests occurred outside a Joe Biden campaign stop at Hillsborough Community College near Tampa, Florida.

### Doxxing

The Israel on Campus Coalition reportedly engaged in covert espionage against pro-Palestinian student organizations. Accuracy in Media sent doxxing trucks to Yale and Columbia, displaying the names and faces of students under a banner labeling them "leading antisemites" on campus. Canary Mission published the identities and images of Harvard students involved in the issue of an open letter, published on October 7th, that held "the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence".

#### Investigations

On 24 January 2024, Palestine Legal stated it had received reports of activists who had written social media posts "criticizing Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza" being visited by the FBI. In March 2024, faculty at the University of Pennsylvania sued the school to prevent it from sending documents related to pro-Palestinian protests on campus to Congress, stating they opposed the "new form of McCarthyism, in which accusations of anti-Semitism are substituted for insinuations of Communist leanings which were the tool of oppression in the 1950s".