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How Colleges and K-12 Schools Are Marching Forward with an Anti-Israel Agenda
A pro-Hamas activist wears a keffiyeh while marching from the City University of New York to Columbia University. Photo: Eduardo Munoz via Reuters Connect
Universities continue to protest the Trump administration’s efforts to expunge DEI and rein in costs, while receiving help from Congress, which has restored funding to schools. Scientists in particular have resumed their complaints regarding Federal budget cuts and increased oversight, while the media have resumed stories about the economic and social impacts of cuts on sciences, states, and individuals.
The place of antisemitism in the priorities of the higher education industrial complex were reflected at the American Association of Colleges and Universities annual meeting. In contrast to the many sessions on DEI and artificial intelligence, only one was devoted to antisemitism, which was paired with the topic of “Islamophobia.”
In a sign that senior university leaders have simply decided to wait out the administration regardless of appearances, Georgetown Law School appointed Elizabeth Magill, former University of Pennsylvania president, as dean. Magill resigned her position after a disastrous appearance before Congress, where she failed to stand up to hate against Jewish students. The committee that appointed her at Georgetown was comprised largely of leading Democratic donors.
University pushback against pro-Hamas students continued at a lower rate in February. American University suspended its Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter, which promised “resistance.” Students at Northwestern University who had rejected antisemitism training on the basis that it discriminated against them as Palestinians and Arabs — and who were subsequently suspended by the university — dropped their lawsuit.
Several court cases have challenged university efforts to discipline pro-Hamas protestors. In one, a district judge ordered the University of Massachusetts to lift the suspension of a student who organized a campus protest, arguing that his First Amendment rights had been breached. A judge also blocked the deportation of pro-Hamas activist and professional student Mohsen Madawi on procedural grounds. A Federal court also ordered the release of Tufts University graduate student and Hamas supporter Rümeysa Öztürk.
More positively, the New Jersey Superior Court has rejected Fairleigh Dickinson University’s effort to quash a lawsuit by a Jewish chaplain who had been disciplined for opposing an anti-Israel event on campus. Notably, the court rejected the university’s claim regarding precedent in a recent case involving MIT, in which a court held that antisemitic conduct motivated by “anti-Zionism” was protected as academic freedom.
Finally, a report from the Department of Education noted that Qatar had tripled its contributions to American universities in 2025. Some $1.2 billion was given to American universities, with Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Texas A&M, and Northwestern, being the largest recipients.
Faculty Support for Hamas Remains High
Faculty support for Hamas remains high despite administration efforts to persuade or force fewer expressions of enthusiasm.
There was a presentation at the CUNY Law School entitled “The Underground in Gaza,” which claimed that Hamas tunnels used for terrorism are part of “resistance to colonization” and “decolonial land use.” This will be followed by a conference at CUNY Graduate Center on “Palestinian History Between Past and Present” featuring a number of prominent anti-Israel scholar-activists.
One notable development in February was a report detailing how the Mellon Foundation has reshaped humanities and social sciences faculties towards social justice and “scholar-activism.” The report noted that as Federal funding for the humanities was reduced over the past two decades, the Mellon Foundation, under the leadership of Elizabeth Alexander, had offered institutions funding to adapt research, courses, curriculums, and entire mission statements to comport with the foundation’s social justice emphasis. In doing so the foundation pushed scholarship which emphasized race, class, gender, and inequality, with an anti-Western bias.
The report, and another on humanities funding from the American Enterprise Institute, complements those showing how the Qatar Foundation has inserted itself into university operations including personnel decisions, particularly with respect to DEI, as a condition for grants.
Unsurprisingly, another report on the University of California found that while students are the most visible actors, faculty and academic departments are key institutional drivers of the hostile environment. At UCLA alone, some 155 faculty members have publicly endorsed BDS and dozens of departments issued statements in support of pro-Hamas encampments.
Seemingly cognizant of the perception of Middle East studies as the focal point for campus anti-Israel agitation, a Columbia University provost released a report recommending adding additional faculty and courses in Israel studies. At the same time, reports indicated that the leading candidates for the Edward Said Chair in Arab Studies were all scholar-activists with minimal publication records who had expressed support for Hamas and other Palestinian factions.
One result of relentless antisemitism and anti-Zionism on campus is a widening crisis for Jewish faculty. A new poll indicates that 40% of faculty felt compelled to hide their identities, while a similar figure were considering leaving academia.
Student Attacks Against Jews Continue, If Down Slightly
On campus, harassment of Jewish and Israeli students appears to have declined somewhat as a result of restrictions on pro-Hamas protests. Off campus protests continue, as in the case of an anti-ICE event outside of Columbia University which featured the same students and faculty who had supported Hamas in 2025 and 2024. Anti-ICE protests organized by groups such as Students for a Democratic Society and others such as SJP chapters which had been at the center of pro-Hamas protests, have been noted at many campuses including the University of Minnesota, Cornell, and Columbia.
A serious incident took place at a cafe near DePaul University where Jewish students attending a Hillel event were harassed and eventually driven out by pro-Hamas students and staff. The university president later expressed outrage at the incident, which was another in a series which have taken place at the institution.
The Princeton SJP chapter canceled the appearance of anti-Israel speaker Norman Finkelstein and stated he might appear at another time. The university noted it had not barred Finkelstein.
BDS resolutions continue to be proposed in student governments despite the fact that they are opposed almost uniformly by administrations and trustees. Examples in February include:
- The University of Maryland student government passed its fourth anti-Israel resolution of the year. Student government at Maryland has been dominated by pro-Hamas activists for several years despite the school’s large Jewish population;
- A resolution in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln student government calling for divestment from weapons manufacturers passed after language specifically naming Israel was removed.
Campus disruptions of speakers deemed insufficiently hostile to Israel continued in February. One example was the disruption of a talk by left-wing journalist Ezra Klein at Sarah Lawrence College. Klein was called a “Zionist pig” and signs held by protestors included “Nazi” and “Sarah Lawrence, we know you; you protect Zionist Jews.” Sarah Lawrence president Cristle Collins Judd sat next to Klein on stage and did not intervene, but reportedly commented to him, “Welcome to Sarah Lawrence.”
Judd’s emailed condemnation of the incident elicited protests for the SJP chapter who accused her of “blatant lies wielded to vilify students and manufacture consent for disciplinary charges” and claimed Sarah Lawrence was attempting to “suppress dissent against Zionism and imperialism at any cost.” The group threatened retaliation if disciplinary procedures were taken.
A talk entitled “Being Jewish in America Today” at the University of Virginia Jewish studies program by writer Adam Kirsch was similarly disrupted by student protestors “resisting the Zionist speaker.” Neither Sarah Lawrence nor Virginia have taken disciplinary measures against students.
A new AJC/Hillel survey indicated that 42% of American Jewish students have experienced antisemitism on campus. Half reported feeling uncomfortable or unsafe, while 34% indicated they had refrained from displaying their Jewish identity. Some 69% stated that Israel was an important part of their identities and 80% of parents indicated that antisemitism was part of their decision where to send children to college.
What’s Happening in K-12 Schools
One notable development in February was the involvement of outside groups such as the Party of Socialism and Liberation in training and organizing student walkouts and anti-ICE protests. These groups have shifted from pro-Hamas to anti-ICE protests and make the explicit equation of “Gaza” with “Minneapolis.”
The same groups, along with the Sunrise Movement, Code Pink, the Palestinian Youth Movement, and others, are working with the DSA and teachers unions in cities like Dallas to celebrate Palestinian “resistance” and oppose the US government.
Teacher training remains a focal point for radicalization, particularly in connection with mandated ethnic studies curriculums. The Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium was awarded a contract by San Jose (CA) schools to train teachers. Lesson materials include materials on “Stolen Land” and “Youth Incarceration and Resistance in Palestine.” The leadership of the consortium include University of California ethnic studies faculty connected with the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism.
The school system also paid teachers to attend the Xicanx Institute For Teaching and Organizing (XITO) Summer Institute which presented materials on “Teaching Border Imperialism From Turtle Island to Palestine: Ethnic Studies as a Tool For Liberation” and “Transformative Teaching: Interactive Read-Alouds and Art as an Entry Point For Teaching Palestine in K-5.”
The addition of Anti-Palestinian Racism (APR) as a pedagogical foundation and legal enforcement mechanism in Canadian schools, effectively enshrining the Palestinian narrative as unquestionable truth and criminalizing expressions of support for Israel and even visible expressions of Jewish identity, has cemented radicalism. Canadian journalists investigating APR trainings for teachers in Hamilton (ON) have been denied access to materials on the grounds that sharing it publicly would be a “Danger to Safety or Health.”
To complete the equation, the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario has hired the anti-Zionist group Independent Jewish Voices to provide antisemitism training for teachers. The group “firmly rejects the use of IHRA, which distorts the definition of antisemitism to conflate political criticism of Israel with antisemitism, and perpetuates anti-Palestinian racism” and will be “including anti-Palestinian racism tools into the training.” Unsurprisingly, antisemitic acts in Ontario schools increased dramatically after October 7th.
Individual teachers also continue to instigate dramatically antisemitic incidents. In one case a Muslim San Diego teacher was fired after posting a video in which she accused Israel of “hijacking protests in order to do the same BS that they’re always doing — which is just stealing from people. And that includes everything from goods and services all the way down to the livers and kidneys and eyeballs.”
Conversely a teacher at the elite UN International School in New York was fired after complaining about harassment from Muslim teachers who made statements regarding how “Jews are driven by money.” The school, which educates children of UN officials, received a Qatari pledge of $60 million in 2023.
A newly filed lawsuit against the State of California on behalf of Jewish parents and children accuses the state of failing to address systemic antisemitism in local school districts including Berkeley, Los Angeles, Santa Clara, San Francisco, Campbell Union, Fremont, and Oakland. The suit alleges that Jewish students were subjected to antisemitic harassment from teachers and peers with administrators taking no action or supporting their attackers. The trajectory of California schools reflected in the lawsuit appears to match that of British schools, which have been overwhelmed by horrific antisemitism towards the relatively small number of Jewish students.
Finally, a new campaign by left-wing and pro-Hamas groups in Canada has targeted Jewish summer camps for their support of “genocide.” The effort seeks to strip accreditation from at least 17 camps across Canada “because they encourage support for a genocidal, settler-colonial state.” The groups include the Palestinian Canadian Congress, Just Peace Advocates, the Ontario Palestinian Rights Association, and PAJU Montreal. Jewish groups condemned the campaign, which the Ontario Camps Association called “discriminatory and antisemitic in nature.”
The author is a contributor to SPME, where a different version of this article appeared.
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Trump Admin to Designate Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan as a Terrorist Group
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a US-Paraguay Status of Forces agreement signing ceremony at the State Department in Washington, DC, US, Dec. 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt
The Trump administration will soon designate the branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan as a terrorist group, the US State Department announced on Monday, following similar steps targeting the global Islamist network’s activity in Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan.
“Today, the Department of State is designating the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist and intends to designate the group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, effective March 16, 2026,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubion said in a statement.
“The Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood (SMB) uses unrestrained violence against civilians to undermine efforts to resolve the conflict in Sudan and advance its violent Islamist ideology,” Rubio continued, noting the organization receives backing from the Islamist regime in Iran.
“Its fighters, many receiving training and other support from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have conducted mass executions of civilians,” the top US diplomat added. “As the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, the Iranian regime has financed and directed malign activities globally through its IRGC. The United States will use all available tools to deprive the Iranian regime and Muslim Brotherhood chapters of the resources to engage in or support terrorism.”
The Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood’s armed wing, the al-Baraa Bin Malik Brigade (BBMB), was blacklisted by the US government in September 2025 for its role in Sudan’s ongoing war.
“SMB’s BBMB fighters have conducted mass executions of civilians in areas they captured, and repeatedly and summarily executed civilians based on race, ethnicity, or perceived affiliation with opposition groups,” according to the State Department.
The terrorist designations will deny the Brotherhood’s members access to the US financial system, restricting their access to resources they need to carry out attacks.
“All property and interests in property of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood that are in the United States or that are in possession or control of a US person are blocked. US persons are generally prohibited from conducting business with sanctioned persons,” the State Department warned. “Persons that engage in certain transactions or activities with the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood may expose themselves to sanctions risk. Notably, engaging in certain transactions with them entails risk of secondary sanctions pursuant to counterterrorism authorities.”
The State Department’s announcement came less than two months after the Trump administration designated branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan as terrorist groups.
US President Donald Trump in November signed an executive order directing his administration to determine whether to designate certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.
The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has long been affiliated with the Brotherhood, drawing both ideological inspiration and even personnel from its ranks.
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London’s Luton Airport Apologizes to Israeli Author, Enhances Staff Training After Discriminatory Incident
Demonstrators hold Israeli and British flags outside the Law Courts, during a march against antisemitism, after an increase in the UK, during a temporary truce between the Palestinian Islamist terrorists Hamas and Israel, in London, Britain, Nov. 26, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Susannah Ireland
London’s Luton Airport has apologized to Israeli author Alon Penzel after airport security targeted him with antisemitic comments about Israel before detaining him, The Algemeiner has learned.
Penzel is the author of Testimonies Without Boundaries: Israel: October 7th, 2023, which is an uncensored and verified collection of first-hand testimonies related to the massacre that took place in southern Israel. Penzel is an Israeli citizen, journalist, and former Israeli government spokesperson.
In a formal written note, Luton Airport offered a “sincere and unreserved apology” for an incident that happened at the airport on Nov. 18, 2024, according to UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), which helped the author in his formal complaint against the establishment. Luton Airport said it has also implemented “enhanced training” for its staff members “to reinforce our commitment to ensuring that every passenger is treated with fairness, courtesy, and respect.”
“The safety and security of the airport is our highest priority, and we are required to uphold strict safety and security standards at all times. However, we fully acknowledge that your experience fell below the customer service standards we expect and strive to uphold,” the airport wrote. “We also provide our clear and unequivocal assurance to our Jewish and Israeli passengers — and to you personally — that you are always welcome at London Luton Airport. Discrimination of any kind has no place in our organization.”
Penzel welcomed the apology and said, “I hope that what happened to me will lead to greater awareness and sensitivity going forward.”
In November 2024, Penzel was in the United Kingdom to speak about Testimonies Without Boundaries at a House of Lords event. He was at Luton Airport on Nov. 18 and set to board an El Al flight back home to Israel when the incident occurred with airport security. Penzel believes he was discriminated against and detained unfairly by security guards and police because he is Israeli and Jewish.
After checking in and passing through security, Penzel was stopped by an airport security officer because he was carrying a sign promoting his book and wearing a sweatshirt that said, “End Jew Hatred,” according to UKLFI. The sign was too large to fit into his suitcase, so Penzel was carrying it facing his body.
Penzel claimed a security officer told him that the sign was “political” before making offensive comments referring to the Oct. 7 massacre in 2023 and the history of Israel. The author explained that the sign was used to promote his book and that he was just trying to carry it back home to Israel. Still, the security personnel accused Penzel of protesting and accused Israel of an “illegal occupation since 1948,” UKLFI shared.
Penzel was detained at the departure gate area by “several security guards and policemen,” according to the pro-Israel group of lawyers. His passport was also taken for a period of time, and he was forced to wait in a restricted area while security camera footage from the airport was reviewed.
“I traveled to the United Kingdom to speak about the victims and survivors of the Oct. 7, 2023, atrocity,” Penzel said. “To then be stopped, questioned, and detained while wearing a sweatshirt saying ‘End Jew Hatred’ was shocking and upsetting.”
Following the incident, UKLFI was told that the security guard who stopped Penzel is no longer employed by the airport.
“No passenger should ever be detained or questioned because of their nationality, religion, or the peaceful expression of their identity,” said a spokesperson for UKLFI. “We welcome the airport’s apology and its commitment to improved training. This case highlights the importance of ensuring that security powers are exercised lawfully and without discrimination.”
Daniel Berke of 3D Solicitors, who represented Penzel in his case against the airport, said their client “was subjected to a prolonged and unjustified detention in circumstances that were deeply distressing and publicly humiliating.”
“The apology issued by London Luton Airport is an important acknowledgment that the standards expected of airport security staff were not met on this occasion,” Berke shared in a statement. “We hope the enhanced training measures will prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.”
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‘Nothing to Save’: Defections, Command Breakdown Grip Iran’s Security Forces as US-Israel Strikes Pound Regime
Images of Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei and late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are displayed at a gathering to support Mojtaba Khamenei, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 9, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
A taxi driver in Tehran this past week said he had picked up a commander from Iran’s Basij parliamentary force who, midway through the ride, hurled his mobile phone out the window into the rubble of a bombed building. The officer explained that many of his comrades in the Basij, the paramilitary organization operating under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), were doing the same, hoping the Iranian regime would assume they had been killed.
The anecdote was relayed to The Algemeiner during a press briefing by Maneli Mirkhan — an Iranian strategist and founder of Dorna, an organization working on plans for a democratic transition in Iran — and reflected what she described as the “defection and collapse” of the regime’s forces of repression.
Similar stories abound in other reports from inside Iran. The French Le Monde newspaper recounted an incident in which a woman was caught by a neighbor, an intelligence services employee, while filming an airstrike. The man accused her of spying, and his wife called the police to report the “infidel,” the newspaper said.
“The irony: nobody answered. A mundane scene, but one that reveals much,” the article noted.
Mirkhan cautioned against overstating the regime’s immediate collapse, saying it remains in place. But “the confidence within the regime and within its ability to survive is no longer there,” she said.
The families of members of Iran’s security apparatus were increasingly urging their sons to stay home, she said, as targeted strikes by the joint US-Israeli operation hit bases used by repression units. According to her account, “several hundred” personnel linked to those forces were being killed daily in strikes on their facilities.
Among the targets in recent days was the IRGC’s Sarallah headquarters, a central node of Iran’s internal security system, as well as the headquarters of three brigades belonging to the Faraja special units, which handle crowd control and the suppression of protests.
With some facilities destroyed, units have begun moving into civilian infrastructure such as sports centers and other public buildings as backup bases and resting areas, she said. But the more immediate problem, according to Mirkhan, is that the chain of command is fraying.
Her organization, she said, is in contact with networks inside Iran to help provide exit strategies for members of the security forces who are seeking to defect. Most of those reaching out are rank-and-file personnel and mid-level commanders, she said.
“What we are witnessing is that they are disoriented because of a lack of clear command,” Mirkhan said.
She described what she called “moral fatigue” among regime forces, saying that in this environment state propaganda has been one of the few things still “giving them a bit of energy.” But even that, she said, is now being weakened as the system that carries and reinforces the regime’s messaging comes under pressure.
Mirkhan argued that expanding access to outside information — including through satellite television and internet connections — could further erode loyalty among security personnel by showing them there is “nothing to save anymore.”
She said the public response should be read in the context of the fighting. The Israel Defense Forces is warning Iranian civilians in some areas to stay home ahead of major strikes — similar to its policy in Gaza — and with attacks concentrated in specific zones, many people are not evacuating or gathering in the streets for now. But Mirkhan said that should not be mistaken for support for the regime or an absence of public anger.
“We saw it on the first night of strikes, when the news of [former Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei’s death was confirmed,” she said. “Even with lots of risk to their lives, people were in the street.”
Mirkhan outlined the war’s three aims — destroying the regime’s nuclear program, weakening its capacity for regional aggression, especially its missile arsenal, and opening space for Iranians themselves to bring down the regime. That last goal, she said, would not be achieved by military action alone.
“Regime change is not something that will be operated by the attacks,” she said. But the strikes can help “open the space where people can regain strength, can go out in more security, and build up what they need to bring down the regime and replace it.”