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Attacks on College Campuses Continued in April; But Universities Are Beginning to Fight Back
DePaul University Law School. Photo: ajay_suresh/Wikimedia Commons.
Attacks against Jews in the US continued in April, including the arson attack against the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion on the first night of Passover. The suspect, Cody Balmer, was apparently motivated by Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro’s “plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people” and stated Shapiro “needs to stop having my friends killed” and “our people have been put through too much by that monster.”
Balmer stated further to police that he planned to attack Shapiro with a hammer.
Elsewhere, an arrest was finally made in the case of two Jewish students at DePaul University who were brutally attacked in November 2024. Three Pittsburgh residents were also indicted for vandalizing a Jewish facility and lying to Federal investigators. One self declared “Hamas operative” was also charged with building pipe bombs.
Despite the appearance of protests having slowed, pro-Hamas demonstrations continued in April on campuses and elsewhere:
- Seventeen students were arrested at Michigan State University protest organized by the local SJP chapter and other anti-Israel groups. Protestors had occupied the lobby of an administration building;
- Protestors at Princeton University disrupted a talk by former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, eventually pulling a fire alarm that emptied the hall. Protestors yelled “Go back to Europe,” “They’re all f***ing inbred!” and “inbred swine!” at attendees.
- Pro-Hamas protestors chased and harassed another University of Michigan regent, Sarah Hubbard, at her home, yelling “Your money has gone to kill Palestinian children. Your money has killed our families. We are your students, you answer to us.”
- In response to the Hubbard incident and others, local police and FBI raided the homes of TAHRIR members and supporters. Electronic devices were confiscated but no arrests were made;
- The Occidental College SJP disrupted the presidential inauguration, vandalized an administration building, and then launched a hunger strike, “consuming only water with zero-calorie electrolyte powder”;
- A building at Dartmouth College was vandalized with red paint during prospective student visits. The perpetrators stated “Let the blood that drips from Dartmouth Hall remind you of the price of silence”;
- A talk by Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir at Chabad headquarters in Brooklyn resulted in violent protests which resulted in several arrests;
- Protestors waved Hamas flags outside of Auschwitz on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Predictably, news accounts have focused on alleged wrongdoing by Jewish counter-protestors:
- In the aftermath of the Brooklyn protests, media coverage focused on the alleged harassment of an individual by Jewish counter-protestors rather than the attempted “flood” of a Jewish neighborhood by an antisemitic mob organized by the Bronx Palestine Solidarity Committee and led by a BLM operative to “rise up against” the “racist Zionist Chabad-Lubavitch”;
- In the aftermath of the violent encampment that occurred in May 2024 on the campus of UCLA, the Los Angeles City Attorney has charged two Jewish counter-protestors and referred only one of the 300 pro-Hamas protestors for a diversionary hearing. The remainder of charges were dropped “due to a university’s failure or inability to assist in identification or other information needed for prosecution;”
- Two Harvard students facing assault charges for beating an Israeli student in 2023 will not face trial but “complete anger management programming, a Harvard course on negotiation, and 80 hours of community service — without the court-mandated apology that the District Attorney’s office had requested.”
Reports indicate universities have formed informal collectives to coordinate responses to the Trump administration but many, including Harvard and George Washington University, have hired well-connected Washington lobbying firms in order to aid with their messaging and restore relations with both Congress and the White House.
A statement released by the American Association of Colleges and Universities and signed by over 150 institutional leaders decried “unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education,” but claimed, “We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses.” Antisemitism was not mentioned.
Reductions in Federal funding have prompted universities to seek alternatives including commercial loans and both taxable and tax exempt municipal bonds in addition to tapping endowments, most of which are comprised of investment vehicles with donor restrictions.
Brown University announced it was negotiating loans while Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Northwestern announced they would be issuing bonds. In the past universities have typically issued bonds for capital projects. Unconfirmed reports suggest Yale University has begun to sell holdings in order to avoid potential capital gains should its tax exempt status be revoked.
Georgetown University, however, renewed its agreement with the Qatar Foundation regarding the university’s Qatari campus for another 10 years. The university also awarded the President’s Medal to an outspoken Hamas supporter. A new study indicates that Qatar and China remain the largest donors to US universities. Overall, $29 billion in foreign donations were made to American universities from 2021 to 2024, a tremendous increase over previous years.
Faculty members have been outspoken in opposition to new Trump administration policies, and in some cases, their own institutions’ responses. This has primarily taken the form of public letters demanding resistance and depictions of the dire effects of budget cuts on medicine and science. Little mention has been made of the specific antisemitism or DEI concerns that motivated the administration’s moves. One notable example came from Columbia medical faculty and staff demanding the trustees oppose the Trump administration, support foreign students, reimplement DEI, and provide backup funding for research. In the case of Dartmouth College, faculty have condemned the president’s decision not to sign an industry-wide letter attacking the Trump administration.
Faculty senates have emerged as centers of “resistance.” Some continue to condemn disciplinary procedures for pro-Hamas demonstrators, such as at the University of Wisconsin. A faculty authored report at Columbia University also condemned the university for not deescalating the May 2024 building takeover by allowing the perpetrators to simply leave without the police becoming involved.
Jewish faculty members at a variety of institutions have also issued letters decrying the administration’s move and in support of students. These are complemented by explicit claims that higher education is indeed being destroyed in the name of the Jews. These and similar statements are designed to position progressive Jews as defenders of the status quo and to evade blame for unwanted changes.
Students have continued their opposition to Israel by supporting a variety of pseudo-academic presentations, such as that at the University of Massachusetts on “Resisting the New McCarythism & Complicity.” Another covert intervention was documented at Harvard Law School where a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon targeted the web pages of major law firms that were critical of student protests.
A typical example was changing the term “antisemitic incidents” to “pro-Palestinian protests.” At the same time, reports indicate that dozens of students have requested the removal of op-eds or their names from pro-Palestinian opinion pieces published in student newspapers.
Disciplinary actions against pro-Hamas protestors continued in April:
- The Bryn Mawr College chapters of SJP and JVP were placed on interim suspension after disrupting an admitted student event. They then protested a trustee meeting;
- The Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee was suspended and its events canceled until July after it violated regulations on campus demonstrations;
- McMaster University suspended the Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights pending an investigation into the group’s misconduct;
- McGill University revoked a memorandum of understanding with the school’s student society after the group orchestrated a three day strike in support of Palestinian rights that involved blocking campus access and vandalizing an administration building.
Maintenance staff at Columbia University have filed a lawsuit against pro-Hamas students and organizations alleging they were held hostage and both physically and verbally abused in the May 2024 building takeover. Named in the suit are a number of professional organizers as well as organizations including The People’s Forum, WESPAC, National SJP, and American Muslims for Palestine.
Pro-Hamas organizing in the K-12 sector remains at crisis levels. But in what might be a sign that universities are responding to both Trump administration financial pressure and unwelcome publicity, Brown University announced it was discontinuing a curriculum development program that had been severely criticized for its anti-Israel content.
At the same time, however, the Rhode Island General Assembly is considering legislation that would mandate Ethnic Studies in the state’s public high schools.
Teachers unions and educational consultants continue to center anti-Israel and antisemitic curricula. The American Educational Research Association’s annual conference, for example, will feature 23 round tables which include “Palestine” with numerous individual presentations emphasizing “decolonization,” “liberation,” the “right to resist,” as well as “occupation, genocide, and settler-colonial and imperial violence.”
Similarly, the Oregon Educators for Palestine has announced plans to hold a “community teach-in” on “Teaching Palestine” alongside “Rethinking Schools” and the Portland Association of Teachers’ Social Justice and Community Outreach Committee.
In a recent local example, the Pajaro Valley Unified School District (CA) Board of Trustees voted unanimously to continue a contract with the ethnic studies curriculum provider Community Responsive Education, whose product includes endorsements of boycotting Israel. The debate over the curriculum was also notable for the overt antisemitic comments from at least one trustee, who accused Jews of being “segregationists” with “economic power.”
Meanwhile, the California Department of Education has found that the Campbell Union High School District used biased content and systematically discriminated against Jewish students.
New York City School Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos was also forced to apologize after the monthly Office of Student Pathways Newsletter, sent to select teachers and parents, included a bullet point entitled “Guidelines for teaching about genocide” and which linked to a US Campaign for Palestinian Rights document titled “STOP GAZA GENOCIDE TOOLKIT.” Aviles-Ramos has ordered a “thorough investigation.”
The University of California Academic Senate voted down a proposal to make Ethnic Studies an admission requirement for the state’s universities. The core of the proposal demanded that students study “dominant cultures, institutions, and structures that perpetuate racial violence, white supremacy, and other forms of oppression.”
The working group which made the proposal is comprised of academics from the system’s Ethnic Studies Council, which has made repeated efforts to implant its anti-Israel bias in various parts of the university and K-12 enterprises.
The author is a contributor to SPME, where a different version of this article was first published.
The post Attacks on College Campuses Continued in April; But Universities Are Beginning to Fight Back first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Says He Expects Gaza War to Reach ‘Conclusive Ending’ in 2-3 Weeks
US President Donald Trump speaks during a swearing-in ceremony of Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, May 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
US President Donald Trump said on Monday he expects the ongoing war in Gaza to reach a “conclusive” end within the next two to three weeks, even as ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas remain unresolved.
Speaking alongside South Korean President Lee Jae Myung at the White House, Trump told reporters he believed a resolution was close. “I think within the next two to three weeks, you’re going to have a pretty good, conclusive ending,” he said.
Trump also urged Americans not to forget the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust that started the war in Gaza.
“It has to end, but people can’t forget Oct. 7,” Trump said.
Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages while perpetrating rampant sexual violence during their onslaught, which led Israel to wage a military campaign aimed at freeing those who were abducted and dismantling Hamas’s rule in neighboring Gaza.
The comments came as Israel continued to deliberate over a ceasefire proposal agreed to by Hamas last week. Though Israel has not given an official answer, Israeli Prime Minister Benjmain Netanyahu said he commenced negotiations to secure an end to the war and a return of the remaining hostages.
The proposal, brokered by the US, Egypt, and Qatar, calls for a 60-day truce during which Hamas would free 10 living hostages along with the deceased bodies of 18 others. In return, Israel would release significantly more Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, and partially pull back its forces in Gaza.
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Cornell University Takes Cleaver to Budget Amid Trump Crackdown
Illustrative: Cornell’s anti-Israel divestment protests on May 25, 2024. Photo: USA Today Network via Reuters Connect.
Cornell University is taking a cleaver to its budget amid what it described as a “contraction” in government funding caused by the Trump administration’s impounding $1 billion previously awarded to it via research grants and federal contracts as punishment for its alleged nonresponse to campus antisemitism.
“Urgent action is necessary, both to reduce costs immediately and to correct our course over time — achieving an institutional structure that enables us to balance our budgets over the long term,” Cornell president Michael Kotlikoff wrote in a letter to the campus community. “Our work toward this goal will progress in several phases, beginning with immediate budget reductions already underway for the current fiscal year across our Ithaca, Cornell AgriTech, Weill Cornell Medicine, and Cornell Tech campuses.”
He continued, “Hiring on all campuses remains restricted indefinitely, with rare exceptions from campus-based position control committees.”
Cornell announced the cuts even as it inches closer toward a reported $100 million settlement with the federal government to restore the confiscated funds. It has already resorted to borrowing, having placed over $1 billion in bonds on the market since April — according to Bloomberg — and refused to publicly discuss the decision.
Cornell University has seen a series of disturbing antisemitic incidents since the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre perpetrated by Hamas across southern Israel.
Three weeks after the atrocities which ravaged Israeli communities, now-former student Patrick Dai threatened to commit heinous crimes against members of the school’s Jewish community, including mass murder and rape. He was later sentenced to 21 months in federal prison.
Cornell students also occupied an administrative building and held a “mock trial” in which they convicted then-school president Martha Pollack of complicity in “apartheid” and “genocide against Palestinian civilians.” Meanwhile, history professor Russell Rickford called Hamas’s barbarity on Oct. 7 “exhilarating” and “energizing” at a pro-Palestinian rally held on campus.
Cornell University and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) sparred all of last academic year, with SJP pushing the limits of what constitutes appropriate conduct on campus. In September, school officials suspended over a dozen SJP affiliated students who disrupted a career fair, an action which saw them “physically” breach the area by “[pushing] police out of the way.” In February, the university amnestied some of the protesters, granting them “alternate resolutions” which terminated their suspensions, according to The Cornell Daily Sun.
In January, anti-Zionist agitators at Cornell kicked off the spring semester with an act of vandalism which attacked Israel as an “occupier” and practitioner of “apartheid.” The students drew a blistering response from Kotlikoff, who said that “acts of violence, extended occupations of buildings, or destruction of property (including graffiti), will not be tolerated and will be subject to immediate public safety response,” but the university has declined to say how it will deal with the matter since identifying at least one of the culprits in February.
Other elite colleges may soon face the same hard choices as Cornell.
Just last week, the US Department of Education began investigating Haverford College over alleged violations of civil rights laws stemming from inadequate responses to antisemitism.
“Like many other institutions of higher education, Haverford College is alleged to have ignored antisemitic harassment on its campus, contravening federal civil rights laws and its own anti-discrimination policies,” acting civil rights secretary Craig Trainor said in a statement. “The Trump administration will not allow Jewish life to be pushed into the shadows because college leaders are too craven to respond appropriately to unlawful antisemitic incidents on campus.”
Earlier this month, a coalition of leading Jewish civil rights groups called on the higher education establishment to prioritize fighting campus antisemitism during the upcoming academic year, citing an unrelenting wave of anti-Jewish hate that has swept the US in recent years.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Jewish Federations of North America, Hillel International, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations issued a joint statement, putting forth a policy framework that they say will quell antisemitism if applied sincerely and consistently. It included “enhanced communication and policy enforcement,” “dedicated administration oversight,” and “faculty accountability” — an issue of rising importance given the number of faculty accused of inciting discrimination.
“These recommendations aren’t just suggestions; they’re essential steps universities need to take to ensure Jewish students can learn without fear,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “Jewish students are being forced to hide who they are, and that’s unacceptable — we need more administrators to step up.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, colleges campus across the US erupted with effusions of antisemitic activity following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, an uprising which included calling for the destruction of Israel, cheering Hamas’s sexual assaulting of women as an instrument of war, and dozens of incidents of assault and harassment targeting Jewish students, faculty, and activists.
At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), anti-Zionist protesters chanted “Itbah El Yahud” at Bruin Plaza, which means “slaughter the Jews” in Arabic. At Columbia University, Jews were gang-assaulted, a student proclaimed that Zionist Jews deserve to be murdered and are lucky he is not doing so himself, and administrative officials, outraged at the notion that Jews organized to resist anti-Zionism, participated in a group chat in which each member took turns sharing antisemitic tropes that described Jews as privileged and grafting. At Harvard University, an October 2023 anti-Israel demonstration degenerated into chaos when Ibrahim Bharmal, former editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, and Elom Tettey-Tamaklo encircled a Jewish student with a mob that screamed “Shame! Shame! Shame!” at him while he desperately attempted to free himself from the mass of bodies.
More recently, Eden Deckerhoff — a female student at Florida State University — allegedly assaulted a Jewish male classmate at the Leach Student Recreation Center after noticing his wearing apparel issued by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“F—k Israel, Free Palestine. Put it [the video] on Barstool FSU. I really don’t give a f—k,” the woman said before shoving the man, according to video taken by the victim. “You’re an ignorant son of a b—h.” Deckerhoff has since been charged with misdemeanor battery.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Trump Admin Reviewing Visa Applications of ‘Terrorist Sympathizers’ Set to Appear at Pro-Palestinian Conference
Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The US State Department is actively reviewing the records of foreign speakers at the upcoming People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit for potential ties to terrorism, The Algemeiner has learned.
A spokesperson for the State Department told The Algemeiner that officials have “noted” the conference, which is set to take place from Aug 29-31, and will also watch out for visa applications for invited international speakers, citing a preponderance of “terrorist sympathizers” on the program’s lineup.
“Given the public invite lists seems to include a number of terrorist sympathizers, we are going through and ensuring all international speakers slated to attend the conference are being placed on a ‘look out’ status for visa applications, so we are alerted if a request is submitted and can ensure they are appropriately processed,” the spokesperson said.
“In every case, we will take the time necessary to ensure an applicant does not pose a risk to the safety and security of the United States and that he or she has credibly established his or her eligibility for the visa sought, including that the applicant intends to engage in activities consistent with the terms of admission,” the spokesperson added.
The People’s Conference for Palestine will feature dozens of anti-Zionist activists, academics, artists, and political organizers, including US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).
Tlaib’s appearance at last year’s iteration of the conference sparked intense backlash, with critics pointing out the event’s connections to Wisam Rafeedie and Salah Salah, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization.
The conference is convened by a coalition that includes the Palestinian Youth Movement, Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, among others. Several of these groups have maintained ties with PFLP, openly supported boycott efforts against Israel, and called for an arms embargo in the wake of Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza. The programming highlights sessions on “Documenting Genocide” and “Breaking the Siege,” rhetoric that critics argue mischaracterizes Israel’s actions as it seeks to defend itself against terrorist attacks following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
The Detroit gathering is expected to attract thousands of attendees, with dozens of speakers and activists scheduled to participate. Among the roster are well-known anti-Israel figures such as Linda Sarsour, Miko Peled, and Chris Smalls.
The planned presence of several alleged “foreign terror sympathizers” has sparked outrage among observers.
Abed Abubaker, a self-described “reporter” from Gaza, is expected to make a physical appearance at the Detroit conference later this month. Abubaker has repeatedly praised the Hamas terrorist group as “resistance fighters” on social media and won a “journalist of the year” award from Iran’s state-controlled media outlet PressTV. In a January 2025 social media post, he showered praise on long-time Hamas leader and Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, saying that the terrorist’s “love of resistance and land is seen very clearly.” In a March 2025 post, Abubaker argued that international supporters of the Palestinian cause should “attack your governments.” He also defended Hamas’s murdering of dissidents, saying that the victims were “collaborating” with Israel.
Since returning to the White House earlier this year, the Trump administration has launched a major overhaul of the US visa system, part of what officials have described as an effort to root out individuals sympathetic to terrorism or those espousing antisemitic views. The sweeping measures include expanded social media vetting for new applicants, continuous monitoring of the 55 million current visa holders, and the revocation of thousands of student visas.
The Trump administration’s sweeping visa crackdown has ensnared high-profile foreign academics and students, fueling outrage among pro-Palestinian activists. Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese professor at Brown University, was deported after officials flagged content on her phone as sympathetic to Hezbollah, a US-designated terrorist group. Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and green-card holder, was arrested and assigned criminal charges for alleged ties to Hamas before he was released. At Tufts University, Turkish student Rümeysa Öztürk was detained after co-authoring an opinion piece on Gaza.