Why are Palestinians and their allies at Ivy League Campuses feeling unsafe?

The ongoing Israeli carpet bombing of Gaza has ignited heated controversies in several prestigious universities in the United States. Those who voice their criticism against the Israeli aggression and Palestinian dispossession find themselves heavily berated and in many cases facing threats of violence.

Two Ivy League universities, Yale and Harvard, have recently made headlines as students supporting Palestine faced doxxing and death threats and professors critical of Israel have come under scrutiny for possible dismissal.

TRT World interviewed students and alumni from Yale and Harvard, where they shared their personal experiences related to the prevailing atmosphere on campus amid Israel’s recent bloodletting in Gaza.

Yale’s approach to Palestinian cause

On October 9, a message reading “Death to Palestine” was found on a whiteboard outside a suite in Grace Hopper College at Yale University.

Later that evening, this message was replaced with three Hebrew phrases conveying further hostile sentiments.

The response from the Yale administration was particularly concerning following the reported incident. They chose to categorise the phrase “Death to Palestine” as a political sentiment rather than hate speech.

Their statement read, “After considering Yale’s policies for free expression and harassment, we concluded that the message was a political sentiment and not a personal threat.”

Furthermore, a petition, amassing nearly 50,000 signatures, called for the dismissal of a Yale professor, Zareena Grewal who had referred to Israel as a “murderous, genocidal settler state.”

TRT World contacted the professor for a comment, but she said that due to the threats, she cannot engage with the media at this time, adding that her employer has been very supportive.

What Yalies think

A PhD student at Yale University, who insisted on remaining anonymous for his safety, said that hostilities towards pro-Palestinian voices on the campus are not isolated incidents but rather emboldened by the university administration’s decisions concerning Palestine.

“I thought Yale would not take a position, to be honest, since it’s very controversial. But what I found is that Yale took a position that is very strongly supporting Israel and not acknowledging the Palestinians at all,” he said.

He found the Yale president’s remarks on the Israel's war on Gaza particularly startling. The president’s statement only noted that “Non-militant Palestinians have been killed or displaced” without attributing to Israel.

The majority of the statement, he observed, focused on Hamas and its actions without mentioning the Israeli atrocities against Palestinians and their systemic dispossession.

He also mentioned receiving an email from the dean, essentially endorsing the president’s statement but not addressing the Palestinian issue at all. “So this is the context where the administration is openly supporting one side and the dehumanisation of pro-Palestinians was going on in the media and with governments,” he said.

He believes that this unsettling climate has left many of them living in fear of potential attacks and has, regrettably, coerced many people into maintaining a silence on their thoughts regarding Palestine within the campus community.

“The major fear, I should say, comes from doxxing, which happened most strongly at Harvard, but also seen in Canary Mission.” he adds.

Established in 2014, Canary Mission is a website that compiles extensive profiles on student activists, professors, and organisations, primarily focusing on North American universities. It primarily targets those it deems anti-Israel or anti-Semitic and has indicated its intention to share the names of listed students with potential employers.

Ruqaiyah Damrah, a Yale alumna and co-founder of Yalies4Palestine, was one of the people who was blacklisted by Canary Mission.

“I have faced harassment from Zionists for my organising work. I was recently added to Canary Mission and harassed on Twitter, and the news media for the past two years have twisted many of my statements to vilify me as a terrorist supporter,” she told TRT World.

“As an Arab American born just a few months after 9/11, these narratives are not new to me - they have shaped my life in the US. The recent threats and attacks against Arabs and Muslims in the West heighten these narratives to a new level.”

Yalies 4 Palestine

She also pointed out how the university administration's stance in general towards the Palestinian cause aims to deter discussions.

“Before I co-founded Yalies4Palestine in 2020, there were no organised spaces for students to talk about Palestine. Yale's SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) had been repeatedly shut down, and there was no other organised attempt for dialogue on Palestine. Every event that addressed issues in the region was organised by Zionist voices and did not allow any space for pro-Palestinian voices.”

She notes that Yale's reluctance to provide Middle Eastern and North African students with a dedicated cultural house worsened the lack of community and space for Palestinians and Arabs in general.

Moreover, she stresses that they have always found it incredibly difficult to not just have institutional support of their work, but even just the bare minimum of protection of their right to speak on this issue.

“Whether it was not being approved to be a student organisation or having our art sales shut down or being explicitly intimidated by Yale administration and community leaders when we were running campaigns, we have always known it to be true that Palestine is the exception to activism and free speech at Yale.”

“At a university that is hailed as an elite, liberal institution of academic thought and dialogue, we expect better.” she says, holding the Yale administration responsible for creating an openly hostile and perilous environment for Palestinian students and pro-Palestinian voices challenging Israeli occupation.

As a glaring example of Yale's perceived bias, Ruqaiyah shared another incident where students chalked "Love 4 Gaza" on campus, only to have Yale security calling it inappropriate and erasing it within 10 minutes.

In order to highlight the hypocrisy in the official positions taken by the university administration a group of Yale alumni, who identify themselves as the "Conscientious Alumni of Ivy League Institutions," has issued a statement. The statement reads:

“Presidents of Ivy League institutions call for the mourning of Israeli lives lost while referencing the Palestinians killed as an afterthought at best or not at all. We, alumni of conscience, are appalled by this hypocrisy in the official stances taken by our universities.”

The statement has garnered the signatures of 600 Ivy League alumni.

The statement also emphasises the significance of historically contextualising the oppression and murder of Palestinian people: It concludes saying, “A free Palestine is within our reach. As alumni and fellow community members, we stand together to uplift student activism.”

Preserving free speech at Harvard

As for Harvard University, in the aftermath of Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 a joint statement endorsed by three dozen student organisations placed Israel responsible for the ongoing violence. The statement highlighted that Hamas’ attack ‘did not occur in a vacuum'.

However, in a matter of days, students associated with these groups were subjected to doxxing, with their personal information being posted online.

Additionally, a digital billboard truck, funded by a conservative group, circulated Harvard Square, displaying students' photos and names under the headline, “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.”

Ahmet Utku Akbiyik, a Political Economy and Government PhD student at Harvard Kennedy School spoke to TRT World after participating in a campus strike and protest held on October 19th in solidarity with Palestine.

Contrary to recent reports, Ahmet highlighted that campus environment is conducive to organising pro-Palestinian events.

He underscored that the doxxing incident was not the result of actions by other students, professors, or university administration. Instead, it was the work of a conservative non-profit group outside the university.

In contrast to the pro-Palestinian statement of 30 Harvard student organisations, Harvard President Claudine Gay, strongly condemned the "barbaric atrocities perpetrated by Hamas” but did not take a position as openly supportive of Israel as was the case at Yale. Also, she resisted calls to penalise or name students who had signed the statement, attributing Israel with full responsibility for the ongoing violence.

Ahmet also drew attention to another statement titled "Don't Bully Students with Dissenting Views. Protect Them," published by his professors.

He says, “While they may not personally agree with the joint statement released by the students, they supported their students' right to express dissenting views without facing repercussions.”

The statement emphasised, "Individuals have a right to object to the Palestinian Solidarity Committe’s statement. But no one should be punished for dissenting views. For this reason, we are deeply troubled by powerful individuals’ public attacks on the students, often based on a misconstrued reading of the statement.”

Ahmet concluded by highlighting his disagreement with the administration's statement, but he also expressed satisfaction in the existence of an environment where diverse perspectives can coexist.

He remarked,“Students issued a certain declaration regarding the events in Gaza. Another declaration came from the university. These two tell different stories and present different arguments, but both can coexist in the same environment. I was pleased to see that my professors supported their students, even if they did not endorse the students' statement.”