Among the most hostile campus environments exists at Emory University, where administrators not only authorized police violence against anti-genocide student protesters but have also for months enabled an environment where their own students and community members were free to discriminate against Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab students with impunity.
Emory University has acknowledged the “sustained oppression, land dispossession, and involuntary removals of the Muscogee and Cherokee peoples” from the land on which its campuses are now located. It contends that “diversity is foundational to academic excellence” and that its community is “open to all who have a commitment to the highest ideals of intellectual engagement.” Still, Emory University has failed to protect and even itself attacked a diverse coalition of Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, Jewish, and other students protesting against the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, as well as Israeli apartheid and occupation of Palestinian land.
On April 25, at Emory University, police officers attacked students, faculty, and other protesters following the establishment of an anti-genocide student encampment. Reports included the “use of teargas on the crowds, in addition to stun guns and rubber bullets being deployed against the protesters.” In one video, an individual is held to the ground by officers while another officer holds a stun gun to their leg. Videos also appear to show two professors among those arrested, including one who was reportedly held to the ground, arrested, and charged with battery of a police officer after she attempted to ask officers why they were holding a student to the ground. While the university initially released a statement indicating that protesters were “not members of [Emory’s] community,” Emory University President Gregory L. Fenves was later forced to admit that the university’s earlier claim that protesters were not affiliated with the school was “not fully accurate.”
In the months prior to the attack on students, numerous reports emerged that the university had failed to protect and, in some cases, even allegedly endorsed racial, religious, and ethnic discrimination against its own students, leading the U.S. Department of Education to open an investigation into the university. For example, in the weeks following October 7, a Muslim student reportedly overheard a girl loudly say to a friend that her family members would “keep saying we need to kill all the Palestinians” before laughing with her friend. Another student posted a message on his social media, reportedly threatening to “fist fight anyone with a pro palestine [sic] sign on campus.” An Arab student was reportedly harassed by another student, who asked her “Are you a terrorist?” before telling her “I think all brown people are terrorists. Everything I say is not sarcastic. I’m not joking,” and then later claimed to be joking.
Despite the persistent attacks on Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students, Emory administrators refused to intervene. In one instance, an Emory parent reportedly “verbally accosted a Muslim student,” accusing them of supporting violence. When the student asked the university to intervene on the student’s behalf, they were reportedly informed that “[the university’s staff] could not stop the verbal harassment because of Emory’s open expression policy.”
In another instance, on LinkedIn, an alumnus reportedly listed and tagged the full names of at least four students and a faculty member affiliated with Emory Students for Justice in Palestine (ESJP) and called ESJP a “terror-related” organization, asking the university to expel students affiliated with it. The post was reportedly “liked” by several students, alumni, and faculty, who have not “faced any consequences for supporting clearly anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic expression.” When students met with a dean of the business school for support with social media posts targeting them, the dean reportedly said that “when students say ‘Free Palestine,’” — a call for Palestinian human rights — “they are associating themselves with terrorism.”
However, it seemed that Emory was only willing to stand by its “open expression policy” when it sanctioned attacks on Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students. In other situations, where students sought to engage in open expression in support of Palestinian human rights, administrators and staff reportedly acted to silence them. In one incident, the Emory College Instagram account, the official page run by Emory College of Arts & Sciences, reportedly failed to share ESJP’s posts advertising a vigil for Palestinians in Gaza, despite having a policy of sharing all student club information on its Instagram page. In October, the page also reportedly deleted a post it had shared from ESJP mourning the loss of Palestinian lives, while reposting statements from other groups. Emory’s hostile environment therefore appears to be the result not just of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian bias from fellow students but also an apparent institutional culture in which administrators enable discrimination against and harassment of Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, and other anti-genocide students while silencing their activism.
