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John Hopkins University Adopts ‘Institutional Neutrality’ Policy After Anti-Israel Protests
John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Photo: Paul Sableman/Wikimedia Commons
John Hopkins University (JHU) announced that it has adopted a policy of “institutional neutrality” and will not weigh in on topics outside its direct “interest or function,” which ostensibly means it will not issue public statements on contentious political issues.
The decision came after JHU was one of many US universities to experience raucous anti-Israel protests on campus last spring semester.
“The dedication to restraint applies to university statements from the president, provost, and deans,” the university said on Thursday. “It does not apply to individual faculty members in their scholarly or personal capacity. In fact, one intent of the commitment is to extend the broadest possible scope to the views and expressions of faculty, bolstering faculty in the exercise of their freedom to share insights and perspectives without being concerned about running counter to an ‘institutional’ stance.”
It continued, “Moving forward, in considering whether and when to issue a statement, university leaders will determine whether the issue clearly pertains to the ‘direct, concrete, and demonstrable interest or function of the university.’ Determinations will ultimately fall to an internal working group including senior members of the president’s and provost’s staff.”
Coming just a week before the start of its new academic year, the policy addresses a bitter debate in academia over what stance, if any, universities should take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israel’s war with Hamas. Anti-Zionist scholar-activists and students have implored administrators to adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, while Zionist and pro-Israel forces have insisted on their denouncing anti-Zionist speech that is antisemitic. In the spring, anti-Zionist students escalated their demands for an anti-Israel boycott by illegally occupying a section of the campus for 13 days.
At the time, JHU pledged that a “petition for divestment will be considered, pursuant to existing policies,” and a committee convened to study it in June. Thursday’s institutional neutrality statement arrived before the committee announced its recommendations. With it, JHU follows Harvard University, Vanderbilt University, and other institutions that have opted against becoming enmeshed in interminable debates. However, some maintain that doing so abdicates the university’s responsibility to stand for principles which hold together the fabric of Western civilization.
“These institutional neutrality policies sound wholesome in the abstract, but I fear they are often just attempts to by college administrators to avoid taking a stand against antisemites, communists, and other radicals who attempt to hijack the university’s credibility to advance their own agendas,” Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars (NAS), told The Algemeiner on Monday.
Wood, the author of several books and hundreds of articles on higher education, has weighed in on the matter before, most recently in a report titled “The Illusion on Institutional Neutrality” which was published in April. The concept, he says, dates back to 1915, but it reached widespread popularity during the Vietnam War, when the University of Chicago issued the “Report on the University’s Role in Political and Social Action” in 1967. The previous year, over 400 university students held a “sit in” to protest president George Beadle’s decision to provide, with permission, the US Army information — class rank and grade point averages, for example — about students who had registered for the draft. From that controversy emerged what is today known as the “Kalven Report,” the work of a committee chaired by University of Chicago law professor Harry Kalven Jr.
It famously said, “There is no mechanism by which [the university] can reach a collective position without inhibiting that full freedom of dissent on which it thrives … The neutrality of the university as an institution arises then not from a lack of courage nor out of indifference and insensitivity.”
While Wood’s NAS and other organizations once supported its conclusion, Wood argues that it is today insufficient for addressing the threat academic antisemitism poses to the university, which, he says, cannot afford to remain neutral on the issue of anti-Jewish hatred.
“Institutional neutrality empowers the mob by giving the activists of popular causes the assurance that the university’s officials will not get in their way,” Wood argued. “Activists of less favored causes are seldom treated with such leniency. University officials can easily ignore institutional neutrality to run critics of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ off campus, but they seldom if ever stand up to a large group of excited proponents of, say, Hamas apologists.”
He continued, “The ideal has proved delusional, and as a weapon it is easily used against reform as for it. We must call for universities to espouse substantive ideals of truth, liberty, and citizenship, even though they cut directly against the ideological commitments of many of higher education’s administrators and faculty members. This is a challenging task. But Hamas’ massacre of Israelis [on Oct. 7] has stripped us of many illusions … We must say forthrightly what virtues we wish our universities to champion. And if we wish our universities to fight once more on the side of the angels, the swiftest way to that goal is to teach them how to speak with courage by speaking so ourselves.”
As The Algemeiner previously reported, Harvard University followed its adoption of institutional neutrality with several policy decisions which, according to critics, protected those who uttered antisemitic speech. In July, it “downgraded” disciplinary sanctions it levied against several pro-Hamas protesters it punished for illegally occupying Harvard Yard, where they called for a genocide of Jews in Israel for five weeks and created a sign which depicted President Alan Garber as an antisemitic caricature. Also, the university has chosen to contest a lawsuit which accuses it of doing little to stop a wave of antisemitic incidents on campus, one of which saw a Jewish student surrounded by a mob students screaming “Shame!” into his ears.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post John Hopkins University Adopts ‘Institutional Neutrality’ Policy After Anti-Israel Protests first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire
Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.
Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”
As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.
Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.
The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.
Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.
Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
The post Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.
“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.
“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.
Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.
The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.
In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.
“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.
In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.
Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.
In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.
“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”
31 años del atentado a la AMIA – DAIA. 31 años sin justicia.
El 18 de julio de 1994, un atentado terrorista dejó 85 personas muertas y más de 300 heridas. Fue un ataque brutal contra la Argentina, su democracia y su Estado de derecho.
Desde la DAIA, seguimos exigiendo verdad y… pic.twitter.com/kV2ReGNTIk
— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) July 18, 2025
Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.
Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.
To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.
Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns
Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.
Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.
With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.
The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.
Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.
Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.
According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.
With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.
In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.
The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.
Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.
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