Cobb Hall at the University of Chicago. Photo: Dion J. Pierre.

On March 11, 2025, University of Chicago students took to the quad, just as final exams were beginning, to oppose the arrest of Columbia University encampment organizer Mahmoud Khalil.

Khalil is accused of distributing pro-Hamas propaganda, including material labeled from the “Hamas Media Office.”  The University of Chicago student demonstrators invoked our school’s principles in defense of freedom of expression — labeling the arrest a violation of Khalil’s right to free speech.

Unfortunately, these protestors only agree with free speech when it is content they agree with.

These student groups see the Chicago principles as a means to their anti-Western, anti-American ends, not as principles that are essential to liberty and democracy.

Consider the following example: In February 2025, Israel confirmed that civilian hostages, Ariel, Kfir, and their mother, Shiri Bibas, had been murdered in Hamas captivity. Ariel was 4 years old, and his little brother was 9 months old when they were kidnapped.

Israeli forensic analysis confirmed that they had been strangled to death, and that Hamas terrorists had desecrated their bodies in an attempt to obscure their crimes.

As the Jewish world mourned the murdered children, Hamas staged a revolting propaganda ceremony, where they simultaneously celebrated their deaths yet blamed Israel for the outcome.

Although the Bibas family’s true cause of death has been proven by forensic evidence, some of my peers at the University of Chicago still believe the terrorist propaganda that they perished at the hands of Israel.

In response to the murders, Maroons for Israel — the pro-Israel student organization on campus, of which I am the President– placed a University-approved installation on the Swift quadrangles in memory of Kfir Bibas on Monday, March 3.

By Friday, March 7, it was defaced; as far as we can tell, it was vandalized in broad daylight.

Within hours of the destruction, Maroons for Israel saw a message on Instagram attempting to justify the vandalism, citing an Al Jazeera article baselessly parroting Hamas propaganda that the children died in IDF rocket fire.

Students and faculty at this school claim to support free expression, and then they applaud the suppression of our organization’s free speech.

And that’s not the first time their hypocrisy has been on display. Last November, our approved banner explaining the danger of “globalize the intifada” rhetoric was dismantled and left in a dumpster.

Also, during an encampment on campus last spring, our approved installations were destroyed every evening, like clockwork, and every morning we had to rebuild them.

Where were these free speech warriors when Maroons for Israel was forced to guard our property into the late hours of the night to ward off defacement? Where were these First Amendment activists when the picture of a murdered child’s face was ripped in half?

These students are also disrupting speaker events, and attempting to shut down opinions they disagree with. They called for the boycott of what they labelled “Zionist classes.” They invoke the principle of free speech when it suits them, but show open disdain for it otherwise.

Maroons for Israel calls on the silent majority of the student body, those who do not despise the Chicago principles, to join us in highlighting the hypocrisy of the anti-Israel demonstrators. Join us in our dissent against the radicalized groups, who claim to speak for you, while openly displaying their hatred of the principles you actually support.

Joachim Sciamma is a student at the University of Chicago and a 2024–2025 fellow for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) on campus.