US students, faculty fight silencing of anti-genocide protests

Universities are expanding draconian measures intended to censor support for Palestinian rights. Bryce Greene (@TheGreeneBJ) and professor Mohamed Abdou (@minuetinGmajor) discuss the current climate for Palestine solidarity on US campuses and talk about the way forward pic.twitter.com/HKXGZjNF6n
— Electronic Intifada (@intifada) September 16, 2024

Students and faculty are returning to their universities after the summer break amidst accelerating repression by administrations that are trying to silence support for Palestinian rights and protect their political and financial interests.

Already, at New York University, the administration has essentially placed a gag order on anyone who wishes to criticize Zionism, a political ideology, by categorizing it as a protected identity class.

At Barnard College, which is part of Columbia University, the administration adopted its so-called institutional neutrality policy and identified the word “Zionist” as a potential “code word” that may constitute prohibited discrimination or harassment against Jewish and Israeli students, the Columbia Spectator reported.

Palestine Legal says that Columbia University’s school year began with New York City police violently arresting student picketers demanding divestment from genocide on the first day of classes.

At the University of Michigan, four people were arrested and two were hospitalized after police slammed students into the ground for engaging in a peaceful die-in demonstration.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech watchdog group, “handed Columbia a score of zero in its 2025 College Free Speech Rankings, assessing the University as ‘abysmal’ for conditions of free speech and freedom of expression,” according to the Columbia Spectator.

Columbia tied with Harvard University for last place out of 251 evaluated colleges and universities.

And last month, the University of California and Cal State systems, which constitute more than 30 campuses across the state, prohibited both Gaza solidarity encampments and the use of masks to “conceal identity.”

Universities willing to engage in repression

Two return guests, Bryce Greene and Mohamed Abdou, joined us on The Electronic Intifada Podcast to assess the current climate for Palestine solidarity on US campuses and talk about the way forward.

Greene is a graduate student at Indiana University and is a freelance writer with Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, and he’s also contributed to The Electronic Intifada.

He was part of the mass Gaza solidarity student encampment last spring, and faced extreme repression by the administration and the police. The university allowed a sniper to be positioned on the roof of a campus building, directly aiming at students, including Greene.

You ever had people tell snipers to keep an eye on you because you're protesting a genocide? https://t.co/xgfrEjqeLd pic.twitter.com/tGWXav3Rv5
— Bryce Greene (@TheGreeneBJ) July 9, 2024

Greene joined a complaint filed recently by the American Civil Liberties Union alleging that the university’s ban on expressive activity outside the hours of 11pm to 6am is overly broad and violates constitutional free speech rights.

“It does demonstrate the level of repression that universities are willing to engage in when students are threatening the status quo, when faculty, the university community as a whole is threatening the status quo,” Greene says of the restrictions on free speech rights.

“The climate here on this campus is pretty dire. But as usual, whenever you have repression like this, you get the reaction of people rising up and saying no. So each of these protests, they’ve doubled in size every single time, and we hope to continue those kinds of protests in the future,” he explains.

Abdou, an author and scholar, was a visiting assistant professor at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute for the spring 2024 semester. He was at the Gaza solidarity encampment with his students when he learned that he was being fired by the university’s then-president Minouche Shafik.

Shafik was testifying before a congressional committee and engaged in an attack on Abdou, joining hardline pro-Israel lawmakers in distorting his words and vowing that he would never teach at Columbia again.

Abdou filed a wrongful termination suit against the university, citing prejudice surrounding his anti-colonial academic discourse and vocal support of Palestine.

A grassroots campaign, WeAreMohamed, has been launched not only to raise support for his case, but also to build solidarity with others who have been silenced or threatened over their vocal support of Palestinian rights.

“What they tried to kill is a story, the story of my scholarship and the story of my voice,” he says.

The lawsuit, he adds, addresses “the defamation, and hence the loss of opportunity to teach, to learn and work alongside my students – and students in general – who I feel in this moment in time, actually, particularly those on Turtle Island [North America], let alone globally, are the most honorable, valiant, courageous and whole-hearted students that anybody would have the honor of actually teaching.”

Watch the entire episode above, or listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the SoundCloud player below.