CAIR’s Unhostile Campus Campaign centers fostering a campus environment where Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, and other students, faculty, and staff opposing the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza enjoy free speech and academic freedom and are not subjected to state force or university discipline due to their viewpoints.
CAIR previously designated GWU, UCLA, and Emory University. Earlier this year, CAIR released ‘Hostile’: How Universities Target Anti-Genocide Protesters which detailed unprecedented efforts across the country to suppress students from advocating for Palestinians.
CAIR is adding Columbia University and UT Austin to its list of “institutions of particular concern” due to their creation of “a thoroughly hostile and dangerous environment for anti-genocide students, faculty, and staff, especially Muslim and Palestinian community members.”
Columbia University in the City of New York
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization has designated Columbia University in the City of New York as an “institution of particular concern” due to the hostile environment on campus and the threat to the safety of Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish and other students, staff, and faculty who stand against occupation, apartheid, and genocide.
On Columbia University’s website, the office of the president asserts that its educational diversity initiatives are “designed to recruit and support a community of students, faculty, and staff that is diverse in every way.”
This support apparently does not apply to Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, and other students, staff, and faculty who stand against occupation, apartheid, and genocide. Former president Shafik greenlit the use of state force against students and faculty who were peacefully engaged in the American tradition of protest. The university has reportedly repeatedly short-cut its own policies and implemented new ones to sanction anti-genocide protestors. The university faces at least one lawsuit and a Department of Education investigation into reported discriminatory practices targeting Palestinians and their supporters.
Columbia University has reportedly targeted Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, and other anti-genocide student activists since late 2023. In a lawsuit filed against Columbia University, the New York Civil Liberties Union and Palestine Legal accused the university of “violating its own policies” by suspending Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). In their filing, attorneys state that the two groups had participated in a “peaceful campus protest on November 9, 2023, that was sponsored by a coalition comprised of over 20 groups. The next day, university officials singled out SJP and JVP and suspended them for alleged violations of university procedural rules governing campus events. The two groups were given no notice of the planned suspensions and no opportunity to respond to the charges or to contest them. None of the other groups involved in the event faced disciplinary action.”
The university had reportedly altered policies and language regarding student group events following several protests held on campus by the two groups and then referenced newly introduced language in their decision to suspend them. David Lurie, the president of the Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors, exclaimed that university administrators’ reported decision to make updates to student group policies on their own superseded “well-established, extensive procedures” for the sanctioning of student speech and believes that the new policies were created “in order to use it exactly as [the university] did.” Joseph Howley, a professor at the university argued that there is “no precedent for simply banning a student group – certainly not like this, unilaterally, without transparency.”
In January 2024, students at Columbia University were reportedly sprayed with a chemical agent by two individuals while at a protest in support of Palestine. Following a lawsuit by the person allegedly behind the spray the university asserted that the spray was a novelty gag gift. At least 10 students reportedly sought medical care. Dozens of students reported symptoms such as burning eyes, nausea, headaches, abdominal and chest pain, and vomiting. The NYPD reportedly told one of the impacted student’s legal team that it was “law enforcement-grade chemicals.” A university spokesman also reportedly made an initial statement seemingly blaming students for the alleged attack, claiming that their protest was “unsanctioned and violated university policies and procedures.”
In April 2024, Columbia University was reportedly “aided by ‘an outside firm led by experienced former law enforcement investigators’” to investigate students for an unauthorized event. Students claim that a private investigator had visited a Palestinian student’s home and rattled “the doorknob as if trying to break in.” Students also report that investigators “demanded to see the private text messages of students in order to ‘comply’ with the investigation.”
On April 18, more than 100 Columbia University and Barnard College students were arrested after President Shafik reportedly authorized the New York Police Department to sweep the encampment established by students in protest of the continued attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. The Barnard and Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors issued a statement condemning the suspensions and arrests “in the strongest possible terms”. It claimed that the “acts violate the letter and the spirit of the University Statutes, shared governance, students’ rights, and the University’s absolute obligation to defend students’ freedom of speech and to ensure their safety.” On April 30, after the encampment was re-established, hundreds of NYPD officers in riot gear entered Columbia to sweep protesters from the campuses. Students were reportedly kicked and pushed to the ground, and one was allegedly thrown down a flight of stairs and did not receive medical attention for over an hour. One police officer had “accidentally” fired a gun, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
In May 2024, the U.S. Department of Education announced that Columbia was under investigation following a civil rights complaint filed by Palestine Legal, alleging discriminatory treatment of Palestinian students and their supporters.
In September 2024, CAIR warned Columbia University in a demand letter against turning over to Congress the disciplinary records of students organizing on campus. According to CAIR, those records are the constitutional equivalent of membership rolls that the U.S. Supreme Court has determined to be protected by the First Amendment. Around the same time, The Intercept reported that after the subpoena, Columbia’s administrators apparently changed an intent that “most of the students arrested in the past year for protesting against Israel’s war on Gaza would be allowed to return to campus for the fall.” Instead, “dozens of student protesters have received notices that their cases are being fast-tracked to university disciplinary hearings, short-circuiting Columbia’s own investigation process. Scheduled interviews with students have been canceled, and cases are moving directly to the University Judicial Board, which can expel or otherwise punish students.”
University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin)
The culture at UT Austin reflects apparent discrimination based on religion, race, and ethnicity by actively suppressing the free speech of Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, and other students, staff, and faculty who oppose occupation and apartheid, making them feel marginalized. In 2022, the university interfered in student democratic processes, declaring student support for Palestinian humanity a non-university issue but later having President Hartzell issue a statement apparently supportive of Israel. University administration opted to deploy state force against students engaged in the American tradition of protest. A July report found the university violated its own institutional rules in its response to anti-genocide protestors.
On the UT Austin website, the university leaders declare, “we value a culture of learning, discovery, freedom, leadership, individual opportunity and responsibility to transform lives and society.” In a statement posted on April 9, 2024, UT Austin claimed that it “has no tolerance for violence or other hateful actions against any of our community members, including those in our Muslim, Palestinian, and Arab communities. We are committed to a campus and community where respect for difference is embraced, and all feel safe and supported by our University.”
In February of 2022, the Dean of Students interfered with student legislative processes and deemed a resolution in support of Palestinian students’ rights on campus a “non-university related matter.” President Jay Hartzell’s October 17, 2023 letter addressed the suffering of the Israeli people, failed to address the history of the occupation in Palestine, and failed to explain the policy change regarding the topic.
In November 2023, two teaching assistants at the University of Texas at Austin were reportedly dismissed after sharing a statement to students that “acknowledge[d] the mental health implications of the current escalation of violence in Gaza,” following a request from a student that the “mental health needs of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students” be acknowledged. The instructors reportedly received approval from the course’s faculty member to distribute the statement. However, the dean of the Steve Hicks School of Social Work reportedly sent dismissal letters to the teaching assistants, claiming that they lacked “professional judgment,” that the statement was “unprompted,” and that they had not received “approval of the supervising faculty member.”
A group of Muslim students at the University of Texas-Austin were reportedly harassed by three men during a Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) meeting on campus in October 2023. The men reportedly confronted the student organizers and repeatedly called them “f****** terrorists.” Before the event, the students had also reportedly received a hateful message in their Instagram inbox. In October, the university reportedly claimed that they believed there was no “criminal offense,” although they later noted that the men “could be subject to a criminal trespass violation.” In November, the university reported, however, that it had not yet been able to identify the men, even though both the students and NBC News have reportedly been able to identify them and noted that at least one of them is not difficult to reach online.
On April 24, university administrators at the University of Texas at Austin requested state troopers to disperse a student protest, resulting in the arrest of over 50 demonstrators. In its reporting on the incident, the Texas Tribune noted, “No one accused the people gathered of turning violent.” That same reporting notes that demonstrations at other Texas sites were resolved through communication rather than state force. Faculty report that they had witnessed “police punching a female student, knocking over a legal observer, dragging a student over a chain link fence, and violently arresting students simply for standing at the front of the crowd.”
Charges against the demonstrators were reportedly dropped due to “lack of sufficient probable cause.” Despite this lack of probable cause, the university administration still reportedly banned all the arrested students from campus except for “academic reasons.”
Another 79 people were reportedly arrested at another campus demonstration on April 29.
Since the egregious response to the April 24th and 29th 2024 protests, students were forced into student conduct processes without the option for hearings. One student was suspended, and multiple students received deferred suspensions, requiring them to take an exam on university rules and waive their right to appeal. UT has changed its free speech rules “placing greater limitations on expression and affording the university more power to quench it, as well as expanding authority to non-UT police to enforce campus rules.”
The Daily Texan reports, “In July, the Committee of Counsel on Academic Freedom and Responsibility released a report which concluded the University violated its own institutional rules during its response to the April pro-Palestinian protests. “
Additionally, UT Austin has vague policies restricting off-campus speech: “Section 13–204 on harassment applies to all speech on campus, to speech made using University resources, and to off-campus speech that materially interferes with a person’s education or employment.”
