Anti-Israel agitators disrupting an Israeli history class at Columbia University, New York City, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: Screenshot

Protests and attacks aimed at Jews and broader society in support of “Palestine” and Gaza continued in March, despite the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and protests in Gaza against Hamas. Examples included: 

•   The home of a University of Michigan provost was vandalized with pro-Hamas graffiti and a rock thrown through a window;
•   The Columbia University president’s house was vandalized with fake blood and the slogan “free them all”;
•   Sixteen Cornell University students were arrested after they disrupted a “Pathways to Peace” talk, which included Palestinian and Israeli speakers;
•   Buildings at Cambridge University and Oxford University were vandalized by Palestine Action;
•   A pro-Hamas protest featuring calls to “globalize the intifada” was held outside the Ohio State Hillel;
•   A student walkout and encampment was created at the University of Glasgow. Several buildings were also occupied and a hunger strike was said to be underway;
•   A Toronto man, Amir Arvahi Azar, was arrested in connection with arson attempts at five local synagogues and a Jewish community center;
•   Pro-Palestinian hackers, apparently aided by Iran or Russia, undertook a cyberattack that disrupted X/Twitter service for several hours;
•   A golf course in Scotland owned by President Trump was vandalized by pro-Hamas protestors;
•   An arson attack on a synagogue and Jewish community center in Casa Grande, AZ caused serious damage. A local man was arrested;
•   An attack on Jewish feminists by unidentified Iranians at a Berlin coffee shop prior to an International Women’s Day demonstration.

Talks by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett were also protested at Columbia University and Harvard Business School, and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) protestors also disrupted a University of Oklahoma regents meeting. Finally, a pro-Israel speaker, Rawan Osman, was shouted down at Radboud University in the Netherlands and had to be escorted from the premises by police.

After a February series of Executive Orders targeting antisemitism and DEI, the Trump administration has now taken new steps, beginning with cuts to university grants and efforts to deport foreign Hamas supporters who may have violated their terms of entry to the US by supporting a terrorist group.   

Congressional action against campus antisemitism also accelerated in March. Legislation was passed in the House which would require colleges and universities to publicize their policies for handling civil disturbances such as pro-Hamas protests, make students convicted of protest-related crimes ineligible for loans, and create an excise tax on university endowments.

In an effort to undermine the legislation, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) introduced amendments which would force universities to report investments in or gifts from countries targeted by the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice. As Tlaib made clear in remarks, this is aimed only at Israel. The amendments were overwhelmingly rejected.

Additional legislation would expand Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include religious discrimination, mandate penalties for educational institutions who are repeat violators, and direct the US Department of Education to oversee private lawsuits against colleges and universities. Trump has vowed to fully close the Department, however. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has again introduced resolutions to cut arms sales to Israel. The vote will be a test of Democratic support for Israel.

At the local level a court has halted a Pittsburgh ballot referendum that would have prohibited the city from dealing with any entity connected to Israel. The court pointed to probable fraudulent signatures and other irregularities on the petitions. The Somerville, MA,  city council also voted to permit activists to collect signatures to present the resolution on the November ballot.

Five Vermont municipalities, Plainfield, Thetford, Newfane, Winooski, and Brattleboro, similarly voted in favor of the so-called “Apartheid Free Pledge” which included the statements “WE AFFIRM our commitment to freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people and all people; WE OPPOSE all forms of racism, bigotry, discrimination, and oppression; and WE DECLARE ourselves an apartheid-free community and to that end, WE PLEDGE to join others in working to end all support to Israel’s apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.” Five other municipalities voted the measure down.

In New York City, reports indicate that city controller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander had unilaterally divested holdings in Israel Bonds from city pension funds. 

Apparently in response to the Trump Administration’s harshening policies universities have taken new measures against pro-Hamas protestors:

• Columbia University suspended and expelled a number of students including the head of the UAW affiliated graduate student union;
•  The UCLA SJP chapter was shut down indefinitely, while Graduate Students for Palestine was banned for four years for their role in the violent 2024 encampments;
•   The Boston University SJP chapter was placed on probation for violations of policies;
•  George Washington University barred the SJP chapter from hosting events indefinitely after students attempted to block university officials from attending their meetings;
•  The University of California at Davis dissolved the Law Students Association after it passed a resolution mandating a fiscal and academic boycott of Israel;

A number of institutions, such as New York University and Brown University, have warned international students not to travel overseas and risk detention on return. University administrations also continue to reject calls to divest from Israel. Boston University, the University of Washington, and Princeton University became the latest institutions to announce they would not consider divestment policies. The University of Minnesota adopted an institutional neutrality policy.

To appear in compliance with new Federal guidelines, the University of Michigan announced the complete dismantling of its enormous DEI program that had — among other things — bypassed normal methods to place faculty members into departments. UCLA announced a new initiative to combat antisemitism based as usual on enhanced student training and reporting. At California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt a new lawsuit alleged that administrators told Jewish students to “hide their Jewish identity to avoid being targeted.”

Internationally, however, the University of Cape Town governing council narrowly voted to retain its complete boycott of Israeli universities despite having lost two-thirds of its donors as a result.

Faculty members reacted with shock to the Trump administration’s funding cuts to higher education. Columbia University faculty held an “emergency vigil” to condemn what one called the “larger conservative agenda hell-bent on destroying universities as we know them.” Nationally some 650 Jewish faculty members signed an open letter condemning the Trump administration and claimed “destroying universities in the name of Jews risks making Jews in particular less safe by setting them up to be scapegoats.”

Many faculty condemned the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, including some 2,000 Jewish faculty members “united in denouncing, without equivocation, anyone who invokes our name – and cynical claims of antisemitism.”  

Faculty members have also continued what is now a strong trend towards presenting conferences endorsing anti-Zionism or non-Zionism. Following examples at Boston University, Brown University, and Columbia University, the African-American Studies Department at Princeton University will present a two day conference on “The Anti-Zionist Idea: History, Theory, and Politics.”

The trend was reinforced by a conference on “scholasticide” sponsored by the American Association of University Professors, at which speakers alleged Israel had deliberately destroyed Gaza’s education infrastructure. The conference builds on the continuing series of articles attacking Israel (and the Trump administration) in the AAUP’s magazine, and is designed to lend further support to the association’s endorsement of boycotts.  

Protests were widespread in response to the Khalil detention and the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement actions. Protests occurred at the University of Michigan, UCLA, Stanford University, the University of Chicago, and other campuses, as well as in public locations including Philadelphia City Hall and the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City.

The author is a contributor to SPME, where a significantly different version of this article first appeared.