Coalition for Mutual Liberation at Cornell University

WHO WE ARE

The Coalition for Mutual Liberation (CML) is a broad-based coalition of over 40 organizations on Cornell University's Ithaca Campus and in the surrounding community. Many of these orgnizations are publicly members of CML; the others wish to remain anonymous.
 

COALITION MEMBERS

The Arab Graduate Student Association
Asian Pacific Americans for Action
The Basic Needs Coalition
Black Students United
The Buddhist Sangha
The Cadre Journal
Climate Justice Cornell
Cornell Progressives
Ithaca Ceasefire Now
Jewish Voice for Peace at Cornell
The Mass Education Campaign
The Muslim Educational and Cultural Association
El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx at de Aztlán
Native American and Indigenous Students at Cornell
The People’s Organizing Collective Cornell, United Students Against Sweatshops Local 3
The South Asian Council
Students for Justice in Palestine
Young Democratic Socialists of America

OUR MISSION

Our mission is to educate, empower, and organize our community to take action against imperialism, settler colonialism, and all other forms of oppression. Our struggles are deeply interconnected, and it is only through our collective resistance that we will achieve mutual liberation.

OUR FOCUS

Today, we join international humanitarian organizations, political leaders, scholars, activists, and most recently the state of South Africa incondemning Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people. We come together in solidarity with the people of Palestine in particular because Palestine is among the clearest manifestations of American economic and military hegemony—the force that perpetuates imperialism, racism, white supremacy, transphobia, homophobia, as well as religious- and gender-based violence across the world's historically exploited nations and populations.

DIVESTMENT DEMANDS

We find Cornell University complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people through its endowment investments in weapons manufacturers and military technology developers, its corporate and institutional partnerships with the producers of these technologies, and its lack of screening procedures and transparency around these ties. Cornell must take immediate action to sever its ties with the US-backed Israeli siege on Palestine which has already left more than 30,000 Palestinians dead. We demand:

1. Divestment from any company complicit in genocide, apartheid, or systematic cruelty against children perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, in accordance with Cornell's 2016 Standard to Guide Divestment Consideration. As outlined in Cornell's 2016 Standard to Guide Divestment Consideration, the Board of Trustees must consider divestment from companies whose actions constitute "genocide, apartheid, or systemic cruelty to children." By doing business with Israel as it conducts its genocide, responsibility for these three morally reprehensible actions fall on the shoulders of the following weapons companies: BAE Systems, Boeing, Elbit Systems, General Dynamics, L3Harris Technologies, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, and ThyssenKrupp. In order for Cornell to abide by its own divestment standards and precedents for divestment (in the cases of the Sudanese genocide and the fossil fuels industry), the university must immediately liquidate all of its holdings in the companies listed above and enact a moratorium on all investments in arms manufacturers that supply weapons, munitions, and other military supplies to Israel.

2. The termination of all corporate partnerships with companies complicit in the genocide, apartheid, or systematic cruelty towards children perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Cornell currently maintains corporate partnerships with a number of weapons companies whose products have been used against civilians in Gaza. These companies include BAE Systems, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin. Cornell Systems Engineering also partners with RTX (Raytheon), which is described as being “an extended part of the Cornell Systems Engineering community.” Cornell’s partnerships with these weapons companies amounts to complicity in the genocide of the Palestinian people. We are therefore calling on Cornell University to sever their corporate partnerships with these companies as soon as possible. We call on Cornell University to begin this process immediately and to have fully dissolved these partnerships by the end of the 2024 calendar year.

3. A comprehensive ban on the research and development of any technologies used by the Israeli Offensive Forces at the Jacobs Cornell-Technion Institute in New York City. The Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, a partnership between Cornell University and the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion), is part of Cornell Tech, a campus for graduate research in New York City. Independently of Cornell Tech, Technion researches and develops geospatial, intelligence, and weapons technologies used by the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Cornell Tech’s publicly stated founding purpose is “to advance technology as a means to a better quality of life for all communities [...] around the world.” Its “Diversity and Inclusion” mission includes “[engaging] in research that promotes justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion” and “[educating and training] ethical technology leaders of the future.” In light of Technion’s numerous connections to Israel’s occupation and genocide in Palestine, Cornell Tech’s supposed commitment to ethical and just technological development rings hollow. We demand a comprehensive ban on the research and development of any technologies used by the Israel Offensive Forces at the Cornell Tech/Technion Campus in New York City.

As Israel continues its relentless genocide in Gaza and further militarizes its occupation of the West Bank, the world watches as Palestinians are displaced, starved, and killed every day. The horrors of Israel’s siege on Gaza are broadcast in full display across multiple news outlets and social media platforms, and yet, the American institutions that fuel this violence refuse to act.

Thirty years ago, when over fifty other universities across the country divested from South African apartheid, Cornell faltered in its commitment to humanity and never severed its ties with a state dependent on the perpetuation of horrific racial violence. Today, the global community once again stands at a crossroad—Cornell University has the opportunity to do what it couldn’t three decades ago.

Cornell University must make a choice: to toe the line drawn by a foreign nation and remain complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people, or to establish itself as a leader among elite educational institutions by being the first to materially recognize the Palestinian right to life and dignity.

We envision a future for Cornell University that does not fund and partner with the corporate entities responsible for the decimation of an entire people, their cultural artifacts, and the land they inhabit. The Board of Trustees must have the courage and moral fortitude to cut ties with Israel’s unrelenting campaign of violence against Palestine so that Cornell may truly do the greatest good.

For more information about our divestment demands, the companies listed as divestment targets, Cornell's complicity in Israel's genocide against the Palestinian people, and Cornell's violation of its own standards, procedures, and values, see CML's full Divestment Report. 

DEMANDS FROM LIBERATED ZONE

Cornell students, staff, faculty, and community members join the cross-campus wave of organizers establishing liberated zones in solidarity with Gaza. The campers' ongoing act of nonviolent resistance will include teach-ins, art builds, and other activities to highlight the urgency with which Cornell must act in response to the Israeli government's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Students from across the globe have joined together to protest the genocide in Gaza during which the Israeli Offensive Forces have murdered over 34,000 Indigenous Palestinians in under seven months. Students are organizing in outrage that Palestinian universities have been obliterated with weapons funded and developed through Cornell University's partnerships and investments. Distinctly, the Cornell University Board of Trustees adopted a commitment in 2016 to divest from companies engaged in "genocide, apartheid, and systematic cruelty against children.” Cornell's failure to divest is not only a violation of the university's stated policies, but also an act of genocide denialism.

Cornell’s refusal to cut ties to Palestinian genocide reflects its history of profiteering from the violent dispossession of Indigenous Peoples across North America. Cornell is the largest beneficiary of the Morrill Act of 1862, which redistributed Indigenous land as public domain to states to establish and endow land-grant institutions. Through the dispossession, Cornell accrued nearly 1 million acres of land, some of which it sold for profit, and some to which it currently retains the rights. Today, Cornell showcases its land-grant status—its status as an institution supposedly dedicated to the promotion of practical disciplines such as agriculture, mining, and engineering—to signal its commitment to accessible higher education and mask its refusal to provide reparations or restitution to the 251 tribal nations affected by land-grant dispossession. Cornell's settler colonial project in the United States is the foundation for its settler colonial interests in Palestine. Through this encampment, students highlight Cornell's role in dispossession and genocide across the globe.

The encampment on the oldest commons on Cornell's campus invites all members of the community to support the students' demands that Cornell University:

1. Acknowledge its role in the national genocide of Indigenous Peoples through the Morrill Act and its sale of 977,909 acres of Indigenous land; return all mineral interests to Tribal Nations dispossessed by the Morrill Act; provide restitution for the dispossessed nations; provide restitution for the Cayuga Nation; establish an Indigenous Studies department; and return surplus land in New York state to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Lenni Lenape, and their descendants who have been forced out of New York.

2. Annually disclose a comprehensive account of its endowment and land holdings, and divest from entities involved in “morally reprehensible activities,” in accordance with Cornell’s 2016 Standard to Guide Divestment Consideration.

3. End profit-generating partnerships, volunteer arrangements, and other significant corporate and academic affiliations with institutions involved in “morally reprehensible activities,” including but not limited to the dissolution of the Jacobs-Technion Cornell Institute and all other partnerships with the Technion Israel Institute of Technology.

4. Call for an unconditional, permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

5. Establish a Palestinian Studies program housed in the College of Arts and Sciences, along with an accredited minor that is available to all undergraduate and graduate students. Representatives from Cornell’s chapter of “Students for Justice in Palestine” and “Cornell Collective for Justice in Palestine” must serve on the committees that oversee the hiring of the program’s faculty.

6. Publicly acknowledge and protect anti-Zionist speech, viewpoints, and histories in both religious and academic contexts. Recognize the legitimate and historical claim that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.

7. Remove all police from campus, beginning with the elimination of police presence at demonstrations. Replace police with an emergency response team composed of healthcare workers and first responders trained in de-escalation. A majority of team members must be providers who share lived experiences and identities with Cornell’s diverse student body.

8. Ensure total legal and academic amnesty for all individuals involved with the Liberated Zone and related demonstrations.
 

POINTS OF UNITY

1. The principal contradiction of our world is that between the exploited nations and the exploiters in the imperial core: imperialism.

2. The underdevelopment of the exploited nations was and is the dialectical necessity for the development of the exploiters.

3. Capitalism has always been a global, racialized system—primitive accumulation could not have occurred without genocide, enslavement, and ecocide.

4.Imperialism creates a stratification that rewards some proletarians as settlers and/or citizens, thus forming a labor aristocracy.

5. The labor aristocracy’s wages and incorporation into the nation-state allow them to benefit from the exploitation of the low-waged labor of the exploited nations, intensifying imperialism in the form of unequal exchange.

6. Unequal exchange precludes the universality and internationalism of the proletariat, and hinders the solidarity of the “workers of the world”.

7. Imperialism manifests itself in a variety of other ways today, in sanctions regimes, indebtedness, military intervention, nuclear aggression, extractivism, and other forms.

8. Capitalism cannot be defeated globally while imperialism persists—without anti-imperialism, efforts at socialism in the exploiting nations can only produce social imperialism.

9. The obligation of revolutionaries today is to challenge imperialism by any means necessary. In the exploiting nations, that primarily means acting in solidarity with anti-imperialist movements in the exploited nations.

10. Solidarity cannot be simply symbolic—it must be material; it must be something we can hold in our hands.
 

CONTACT US
Information address: cml.information@proton.me
Press address: cml.press@proton.me

The Serenity Prayer, Climate Collapse, and Genocide: A Deal with the Devil

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."

The Serenity Prayer has comforted millions. In times of personal struggle, it can be a powerful call to surrender what lies beyond one’s control. But in moments of global crisis, when powerful institutions profit from destruction, the prayer can function less as a path to peace and more as a pact of passivity—a deal with the devil.

This danger becomes stark in the face of two intertwined realities: planetary climate collapse and the mass suffering of human populations through war and genocide. While glaciers melt and firestorms raze entire regions, and while families in Gaza are buried beneath rubble from precision airstrikes, too many well-meaning individuals offer only whispered prayers for acceptance. The language of “serenity” has become a spiritual sedative, numbing people to action in the face of unprecedented violence.

The horror in Gaza is not isolated. It is the latest chapter in a long history of calculated brutality. For more than nine months, Israeli forces have carried out one of the most intensive bombing campaigns of the century, reducing schools, hospitals, and apartment blocks to ash. Palestinians—already confined, stateless, and starving—are told to disappear quietly. And in the United States, many of the most powerful evangelical Christian institutions offer not protest, but prayer. They do not condemn the bombs. They bless them.

This theology of inaction extends to the climate crisis as well. Fires in Canada have darkened skies from New York to Kentucky. Rising seas threaten to erase Pacific island nations and entire Gulf communities. Extreme heat has shattered records from Delhi to Phoenix. The science is clear, and has been for decades. The cause is clear: the burning of fossil fuels for profit. And yet, rather than confront the systems responsible, many Americans—especially in religious communities—retreat into familiar verses, trusting in divine will while oil executives thank them for their silence.

This pattern is old. During the genocide of Native Americans, Christian settlers invoked scripture to justify massacres. Indigenous nations were labeled “heathens” standing in the way of Manifest Destiny. Boarding schools were built to “kill the Indian, save the man.” Entire civilizations were wiped out in the name of order, law, and even God. Churches, rather than stand with the oppressed, often operated hand-in-hand with empire. They prayed not for justice, but for tranquility—after the land had been stolen and the people erased.

In the twentieth century, many Christian leaders remained silent during the Holocaust. In the Rwandan genocide, clergy sometimes aided the killers. Again and again, the lesson is clear: serenity without resistance is complicity.

And today, we see this same quiet complicity in American Christian higher education. At Liberty University—a billion-dollar religious empire—the Serenity Prayer might just as well hang above the boardroom. The institution thrives on a mixture of fundamentalist certainty, political power, and economic ambition. Its law school has become a breeding ground for conservative legal warriors who reinterpret justice through dominionist theology. Its Jesse Helms School of Government honors a segregationist legacy while preparing students for ideological battle. Climate science is downplayed. Militarism is sanctified. And genocide—whether in the name of security or salvation—is never named.

In such an environment, prayer becomes performance. It soothes the conscience while injustice metastasizes. It gives believers a moral loophole: if change is deemed impossible, no action is required. But change is not impossible. Resistance is not futile. And silence is not neutral.

We must reclaim the Serenity Prayer from the institutions that have weaponized it. Serenity cannot be the first response to atrocity. Courage must lead, especially when the victims are silenced. Wisdom must include historical memory—of the land theft that built America, of the smoke rising from Gaza, of the forests burning in Siberia and the Sahel. And acceptance must come only after struggle, not before it.

The future will not judge us for how often we prayed, but for what we did while praying. In an age of climate catastrophe and global injustice, serenity without struggle is not peace—it is surrender.

Sources:
Reinhold Niebuhr, The Serenity Prayer and its Contexts, Library of Congress
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “Gaza Emergency Reports” (2023–2025)
UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Sixth Assessment Report (2023)
Human Rights Watch, “Israel: Apparent War Crimes in Gaza” (2024)
Samantha Power, "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide
Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything
Naomi Oreskes & Erik Conway, Merchants of Doubt
Democracy Now!, “Witnessing the Gaza Bombardment”
Center for Environmental Justice, “Climate Apartheid” Report
Higher Education Inquirer, “Liberty University: A Billion-Dollar Edu-Religious Powerhouse Under the Lens” (2025)

Presidents, Trustees, Donors, and the Machinery of Genocide: Higher Education’s Complicity in War and Fossil Capital

In a time of global climate catastrophe, endless war, and mounting social unrest, the American higher education system—ostensibly a sanctuary of ethics and enlightenment—has shown its allegiance not to peace or justice, but to power. The presidents of elite universities, their boards of trustees, and their wealthiest donors now stand exposed as key cogs in a machinery that profits from genocide, fossil fuel destruction, and war profiteering. They are not simply bystanders to global injustice; they are its enablers and its beneficiaries.

The Role of University Presidents

University presidents, many with backgrounds in business or law rather than academia, have become institutional CEOs rather than moral stewards. Their silence—or worse, their euphemistic statements—in the face of war crimes and environmental devastation reveals not neutrality but complicity. As students protest U.S.-backed wars and apartheid policies abroad, these leaders respond not with dialogue, but with surveillance, mass arrests, and the suppression of speech.

The university president today is less a defender of academic freedom and more a manager of reputational risk. In the face of genocide in Gaza or mass civilian deaths in Yemen, many presidents remain silent or offer carefully crafted non-statements that betray the moral bankruptcy at the heart of neoliberal academia. Their true constituents are not students or faculty—but the donors and trustees who demand institutional alignment with corporate and political interests.

Trustees as Enforcers of the Status Quo

University trustees are often drawn from the ruling class: hedge fund managers, defense contractors, fossil fuel executives, and venture capitalists. These are not individuals selected for their commitment to education or the common good. They are chosen precisely because of their wealth and their proximity to power.

Their presence on governing boards ensures that universities continue to invest in private equity, fossil fuels, and weapons manufacturers. They help enforce austerity for faculty and students while protecting multi-million-dollar endowments from divestment campaigns. When students call for cutting ties with Israeli defense contractors or fossil fuel companies, it is trustees who push back the hardest.

Donors as Puppeteers

Donors exert a quiet but overwhelming influence on policy, curriculum, and campus climate. Mega-donors like Stephen Schwarzman, Kenneth Griffin, and Leonard Lauder have given hundreds of millions to name buildings, shape public discourse, and suppress dissent. Often, these donations come with invisible strings—ideological conditions that shift the priorities of entire departments or shut down lines of critical inquiry.

In the case of fossil fuels, large gifts from oil and gas interests help sustain "energy centers" at top institutions, which in turn push pro-industry research and obstruct climate activism. In terms of war, donations from defense industry executives or foreign governments with poor human rights records ensure a steady normalization of militarism on campus.

Even genocide, once a line that no institution dared cross, is now rendered a matter of "complex geopolitics" by the same donors who pour money into think tanks and academic centers that sanitize ethnic cleansing and apartheid.

Genocide and the Academy

It is no longer possible to ignore the role of elite institutions in justifying or supporting genocidal policies. When universities accept grants and partnerships with governments or corporations involved in mass displacement, ethnic cleansing, or indiscriminate bombing, they become accomplices in atrocity.

During the ongoing Israeli siege of Gaza, for example, several major U.S. universities have contracts or investments tied to Israeli defense firms or U.S. arms manufacturers whose weapons are used against civilians. Students calling for divestment face violent repression, police brutality, and academic retaliation. The pursuit of justice is punished. The preservation of power is prioritized.

Fossil Fuels and the Death Economy

Despite decades of research proving the existential threat of fossil fuels, many university endowments remain deeply invested in oil, gas, and coal. The divestment movement, led primarily by students, has scored some victories—but these are often cosmetic. Institutions may pull direct holdings while maintaining exposure through private equity or index funds.

Fossil fuel interests also shape research agendas, sponsor misleading "carbon capture" or "clean energy" projects, and silence environmental whistleblowers. Professors who speak out risk losing funding. Departments that challenge fossil capital are marginalized. The truth, as always, is inconvenient.

War as a University Business Model

Finally, the war economy permeates American higher education at every level. Defense contracts support engineering departments. ROTC programs and military recruiting are embedded in campus life. Universities run weapons labs, receive funding from DARPA, and participate in Department of Defense research initiatives. The "military-academic-industrial complex" is not an abstraction—it is the everyday reality of higher ed.

Many of these contracts directly support weapons development used in current conflicts. And as with fossil fuels, the system is built to insulate the university from moral scrutiny. War is framed as "security research." Genocide is called "a contested political issue." Exploitation is rendered invisible through language.

Toward a Reckoning

The American university must decide: Will it continue to serve as a laundering machine for violence, fossil capital, and authoritarian control? Or can it reimagine itself as a truly democratic institution—answerable not to trustees and donors, but to the communities it serves?

That transformation will not come from the top. It will come from students occupying campus lawns, adjuncts organizing for fair wages, and the public demanding transparency and divestment. The reckoning is long overdue.

Until then, university presidents, trustees, and donors will remain what they have become: polished stewards of empire, cloaked in Ivy and moral evasion.

The Higher Education Inquirer continues to investigate the political economy of higher ed, exposing how institutions prioritize power and profit over people and planet.

GAZA, GENOCIDE, AND THE GLOBAL MEDICAL RESPONSE (Saint Cecilia Parish, Boston)

WEDNESDAY, JULY 30 | 6:30PM | PARISH HALL (Boston)

Join us for a special presentation by Dr. Kuemmerle, a neurologist at Children's Hospital and the co-founder of Doctors Against Genocide. Founded in 2023, Doctors Against Genocide is a coalition of healthcare professionals who seek to unite their voices in uproar against the genocide in Gaza. This presentation will be livestreamed on our Youtube channel. 

Doctors Against Genocide is currently raising $737,000 to fund the construction of a 140-bed field hospital with 4 operating rooms on the grounds of Al-Shifa hosptial. Gaza's largest hospital has been bombed, burned, and pushed past its limits. After the forced shutdown of the Indonesian, Al-Awda, and Kamal Adwan hospitals, Al-Shifa is the last major hospital left standing in North Gaza. 

Right now, occupancy is at 200–300%. Patients are being treated on floors, in hallways, and tents. There are no more beds. No more space. But there is a way forward with your help. If you would like donate, please visit: https://doctorsagainstgenocide.org/donate.

The Dark History of Yale University: Power, Privilege, and Complicity in Genocide

Yale University, long celebrated for its intellectual prestige and political influence, has carefully cultivated an image of moral and civic leadership. But beneath the carefully constructed brand lies a history mired in racism, elitism, secrecy, and direct complicity in acts of violence—including genocide. From its early support of settler colonialism to its modern entanglements with war profiteering and imperial policy, Yale has not simply been a passive observer of atrocity, but in many cases, an active participant or enabler.

Founded in 1701 on land taken from the Quinnipiac people, Yale’s earliest benefactors enriched themselves through slavery, land theft, and violent religious expansionism. The institution was deeply tied to Puritan theology and settler colonialism, which justified the displacement and extermination of Native peoples in New England and beyond. Yale College educated generations of ministers, judges, and politicians who championed Manifest Destiny and Indian removal policies—ideologies and practices that resulted in the deaths and forced migrations of hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people across the continent. In this sense, Yale was not only born of colonialism; it helped write and preach the intellectual and religious justifications for genocide.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Yale’s scientific and anthropological institutions played an instrumental role in legitimizing eugenics and racial pseudoscience. Professors affiliated with Yale promoted theories of white supremacy, while the university's alumni became architects of U.S. imperialism abroad. Yale graduates were deeply involved in violent campaigns in the Philippines, Latin America, and the Caribbean—campaigns that destroyed communities, repressed national movements, and imposed economic and racial hierarchies through military and corporate force.

In the 20th century, Yale became an incubator for the Cold War security state. The university cultivated close ties with the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Skull and Bones, Yale’s secret society, became a recruitment pipeline for covert operations that supported right-wing dictatorships and death squads across the Global South. Yale men were involved in U.S.-backed coups in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Chile (1973), and Indonesia (1965)—many of which led to mass killings and long-term political repression. Some of these operations resulted in genocidal violence, such as the U.S.-supported extermination of hundreds of thousands of suspected communists in Indonesia.

Yale's complicity has continued into the 21st century. The university and its alumni were instrumental in shaping the so-called War on Terror, which led to the invasion of Iraq—a war based on lies, responsible for hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and the displacement of millions. Yale Law School graduates like John Yoo and Harold Koh wrote or defended legal justifications for torture, targeted killings, and indefinite detention. Others helped normalize drone warfare, which has devastated communities in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan. These are not merely policy failures—they are crimes against humanity in which Yale-educated policymakers, lawyers, and think tank intellectuals have played central roles.

Yale’s investments also raise questions about complicity in structural violence. The university’s massive $40+ billion endowment is largely hidden from public scrutiny, but investigative reporting and activist pressure have revealed connections to fossil fuel companies, weapons manufacturers, and multinational corporations that profit from land dispossession, labor exploitation, and environmental degradation. Yale’s refusal to fully divest from these industries—despite sustained student and faculty protests—aligns it with forces that contribute to ecological collapse and human displacement on a global scale.

In recent years, Yale has made limited efforts to confront its dark history. These include renaming buildings previously honoring staunch defenders of slavery and colonialism, sponsoring research projects on the university’s ties to slavery, and promoting diversity initiatives. However, these gestures, while notable, are overwhelmed by the institution’s long record of harmful acts. The scale and depth of Yale’s complicity in oppression and violence far outstrip these piecemeal reforms, leaving the university’s fundamental structures of power intact and unchallenged.

This is not merely a matter of history. As the world confronts genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, the repression of Uyghurs in China, and the persecution of Indigenous communities in the Amazon, Yale has failed to take meaningful stands. Its silence on current atrocities, particularly those committed or enabled by U.S. allies and business partners, reflects a persistent institutional cowardice masked as neutrality. The university continues to host and celebrate figures implicated in these atrocities while marginalizing the voices of those calling for justice.

Meanwhile, Yale benefits from the labor of underpaid staff and the gentrification of New Haven, all while operating as a tax-exempt institution that hoards wealth rather than redistributing it. Yale’s rhetoric of inclusion and social justice cannot obscure its structural role in global systems of domination and violence.

The dark history of Yale is not a footnote—it is central to understanding how elite education functions in a global empire. Yale has helped shape the world not only through scholarship and leadership, but through conquest, secrecy, and the normalization of genocide. To confront this truth requires more than renaming buildings or commissioning reports. It demands reparations, divestment, decolonization, and a total reimagining of what higher education can and should be.

The Higher Education Inquirer will continue to report on these institutional contradictions, shining a light on the real consequences of elite complicity. As long as Yale and its peers remain unaccountable, they will continue to reproduce the very systems they claim to critique.

From Lie to Myth: How January 6, 2021, Is Being Rewritten

Five years after the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, January 6, 2021, is already being reframed. Once documented as an unprecedented attack on American democracy—captured in real-time video, congressional testimony, and thousands of contemporaneous reports—it is increasingly portrayed not as a factual event but as a malleable symbol in the service of ideology. Through selective memory, amplification of distortions, and the cultivation of doubt, some narratives depict the day as a “patriotic protest” or a “routine political demonstration gone awry,” erasing violence, shootings, and clear attempts to overturn a certified election.

This phenomenon mirrors a long-standing pattern in U.S. history education. Scholars such as James Loewen have documented how American history textbooks frequently sanitize or mythologize the past. In works like Lies My Teacher Told Me and Lies Across America, Loewen demonstrated that slavery, genocide, systemic oppression, and the struggles of marginalized peoples are often minimized, distorted, or omitted entirely. Textbooks present events in palatable, ideologically convenient ways, softening uncomfortable truths and creating myths that can shape generations’ understanding of history.

The parallels are striking. Episodes of slavery, genocide, and the oppression of indigenous peoples have long faced pressures to be simplified, sanitized, or celebrated as part of a “progressive” or patriotic narrative. These distortions often appear in children’s textbooks, turning lived suffering into background context or moral lessons rather than acknowledging systemic cruelty and resistance. The pattern establishes a precedent for reframing contemporary events, like January 6, in ways that normalize myth over fact.

This process is already visible in Texas and Florida. In Texas, the TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) standards were revised for 2024–2025, requiring students to study slavery and sectionalism. Critics, however, note that Texas textbooks historically minimized slavery as a cause of the Civil War and that initiatives like the 1836 Project promote celebratory narratives of state history, often downplaying oppression and Indigenous dispossession. In Florida, recent social-studies standards have described enslaved people as developing “skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit,” a characterization widely criticized for sanitizing the brutality and systemic oppression of slavery. Florida has also rejected textbooks containing material deemed inconsistent with state standards on “social justice” or critical race theory. As a result, textbooks may present sanitized, recontextualized versions of history that obscure systemic injustice and human suffering.

The consequences are profound. When textbooks mythologize slavery, genocide, or oppression, they normalize the selective telling of history. Students may internalize incomplete or sanitized narratives, making it easier for future events to be reframed or mythologized. Once historical facts are treated as optional or negotiable, myth replaces reality; ideology displaces context; collective memory becomes selective. The rewriting of January 6 is only the latest iteration of a long-standing educational trend documented by Loewen and others: the molding of history to comfort, persuade, or conceal rather than to illuminate.

For educators, historians, journalists, and concerned citizens, the challenge is urgent. Preserving factual records, teaching critical thinking, and highlighting the mechanics of mythmaking are essential to resisting the erasure and distortion of history. January 6, like slavery, genocide, and other atrocities, demonstrates that when truth is optional, democracy itself is at risk. Recognizing the difference between lie, myth, and historical reality is not merely academic—it is central to defending memory, civic understanding, and the integrity of public discourse.

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Sources

1. Loewen, James. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New York: The New Press, 1995.

2. Loewen, James. Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong. New York: The New Press, 1999.

3. Texas State Board of Education. 2024–2025 TEKS Social Studies Crosswalk (Kindergarten–Grade 8).

4. “How some Texas parents and historians say a new state curriculum glosses over slavery and racism,” Texas Tribune, Nov. 18, 2024.

5. Thomas B. Fordham Institute critique of 2010–2014 Texas history standards.

6. “Florida’s new social‑studies standards on Black history stir outrage over embrace of ‘benefits,’” TIME, July 2023.

7. Reporting on textbook rejections and curriculum restrictions in Florida under Governor Ron DeSantis.

8. Wikipedia: The 1836 Project — background and aims.

9. Studies and critiques of bias in curricula and textbooks — how history can be whitewashed, sanitized, or mythologized in official education materials.

Wikipedia Community Documents Pro-Palestinian Protests on University and College Campuses

On April 22, 2024, the Wikipedia community began building an article titled 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses. The article includes a timeline on an estimated 120 campus protests and occupations that first started at Brown University in November 2023. On May 3, 2024, the list of pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses in 2024 was created. 

As of May 6, more than 120 writers and editors have been involved in the Wikipedia project making more than 1100 edits. Editors are restricted to those who have shown a record of following with community rules. The article has received about 33,000 views so far. On May 3, the original article received a peak number of views, more than 10,000 for the day. The number of views of the second article, the list, continues to grow.  

Events Preceding the Student Protests 

Demonstrations which began in Europe and the US in October 2023 moved onto college campuses and expanded internationally.  

The protests are in response to tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians being killed and a half million facing famine.  The US media has generally avoided discussing the larger picture: of  US, European, and Arab nations over the last seven decades, and their role in the forced migration and containment of Palestinians in what has been termed an "open air prison" in Gaza.  US history includes similar elements of inhumanity and oppression. 

In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said it is "plausible" that Tel Aviv was committing genocide in Gaza, ordering Israel to stop such acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians.  An order that Israel has rejected.

In March 2024, United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese said of the Israeli actions that “There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide…has been met.” 

Outcomes During and After the Demonstrations

In an attempt to quell the university and college protests in the US, more than 2,700 people have been arrested, to include students and university professors. An unknown number of students have also been expelled with limited due process. Media have been restricted access to protest sites.

Despite the documented horrors in Gaza, the US public has generally not supported the protests. And the US government continues to send arms, and money for arms, to Israel. Pro-Palestinian protesters have been labeled as radicals and antisemitic, even though many of them are Jewish. 

Student demands for divestment from Israel and from US arms makers have been discussed, but no material changes have occurred. Israel is planning to invade the city Rafah, which is likely to end in more deaths and suffering, but the US has mentioned no consequences if civilian body counts are high. Internationally, Israel is facing greater isolation, and its leaders are being accused of war crimes. 

Time will tell whether these articles will be reflective of a short-lived situation or part a larger social movement. The 76-year genocide in Palestine, the unintended consequences of the Jewish genocide during the 1930s and 1940s, will not be going away. 

For more than a century, student protests have been a part of US history and social consciousness, sometimes forgotten, but often reflecting progressive thinking (civil rights, peace, divestment from apartheid, fighting climate change).  

Related links:

A People's History of Higher Education in the US?

One Fascism or Two?: The Reemergence of "Fascism(s)" in US Higher Education

Silencing Higher Education: Trump’s War on Discourse About Genocide in Palestine

Academic institutions have long served as crucibles of free thought and protest. Yet under President Trump’s second term, universities have become battlegrounds in a sweeping campaign that conflates advocacy around the genocide in Gaza with antisemitism—and weaponizes Title VI and Title IX to stifle dissent. This article outlines the administration’s tactics, war crimes ramifications, and the universities ensnared so far.

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War Crimes at Issue: Gaza Protests and U.S. Reaction

The conflict in Gaza has seen mounting allegations of genocide against Israel—claims underscored by protests on dozens of U.S. campuses. In response, the Trump administration has launched a social media “catch-and-revoke” system that uses AI to flag pro-Palestinian speech, leading to visa revocations and deportations—even targeting legal residents and green-card holders. Over 1,000 visa revocations were reported by mid-April 2025, rising to nearly 2,000 by mid-May—many later overturned by courts.

Activists such as Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University legal resident arrested during a protest, and Mohsen Mahdawi, detained during a citizenship interview, have been caught up in these actions—both cases widely criticized for infringing First Amendment rights. These responses reflect a concerted effort to equate peaceful protest with national-security threats under the guise of combating antisemitism.

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Title VI Enforcement: Chilling Academic Freedom

Under a January 29, 2025 Executive Order, Trump directed federal agencies to squash antisemitism—including speech critical of Israel—by enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against universities.

In March 2025, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights sent letters to 60 universities, warning of enforcement investigations over alleged antisemitism during pro-Gaza protests. This has had an unmistakable chilling effect on faculty, students, and campus activism.

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Institutions Targeted and Financial Punishments

The administration’s pressure tactics have taken several forms.

Columbia University saw $400 million in federal grants and contracts canceled, tied to agencies including the Departments of Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services. The university received an ultimatum to change discipline policies, suspend or expel protestors, ban masks, empower security with arrest authority, and restructure certain academic departments by March 20—under threat of permanent funding loss. Columbia ultimately settled for $200 million and restored funding.

George Washington University was accused by the DOJ of being “deliberately indifferent” to antisemitic harassment during spring 2024 protests, especially affecting Jewish, American-Israeli, and Israeli students and faculty, and was given a deadline of August 22 to take corrective action.

UCLA recently had $584 million in federal funding suspended over similar antisemitism-related accusations and affirmative action concerns.

Harvard University is in settlement talks over nearly $500 million in frozen federal funding, negotiating compliance with federal guidelines in exchange for restoring money. Harvard also faces a separate Title VI/IX complaint over $49 million in DEI grants, with claims of race- and sex-based discrimination.

Other institutions under investigation include Johns Hopkins, NYU, Northwestern, UC Berkeley, University of Minnesota, and USC.

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Legal Backlash and Academic Resistance

Universities and academic organizations have begun to push back.

The AAUP has filed suit against Trump’s executive orders on DEI, calling them vague, overreaching, and chilling to speech. Some institutions, including Harvard, have resisted enforcement efforts, defending academic freedom and constitutional rights—even as they weigh risks to federal funding.

Legal experts argue that Title VI enforcement in this context may be unconstitutional if motivated by ideological suppression rather than actual antisemitism.

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The Battle for Free Speech and Human Rights

Trump’s strategy effectively conjoins criticism of genocide and advocacy for Palestinian rights with civil rights violations—casting a chilling effect across campuses nationwide. The consequences are profound.

Academic autonomy is undermined when universities must trade institutional integrity for compliance with politically driven mandates. Student activism, especially from international and Palestinian voices, faces existential threats via visa policies and deportation tactics. Human rights accountability is sidelined when federal power is used to muzzle discourse about atrocities abroad.

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Sources:

• Harvard, Trump Administration Near Deal for $500 Million Settlement

• Trump administration says George Washington University violated law over Jewish students, faculty

• Why Harvard Decided to Challenge Donald Trump

• Columbia University Faces Ultimatum from Trump Administration

• UCLA Funding Suspended by Trump Administration

Our Journalism

Our journalism is different than most others who cover higher education.  Like those other outlets, we report the news, but that is not our focus. And like a few outlets, we also do time-consuming investigative work.  We recognize the outstanding contributions of dedicated journalists, but these times, the 2020s, call good people to do more--much more. 

The Higher Education Inquirer (HEI) follows the legacy of the muckrakers from the early 20th century. HEI delves into in-depth investigative reporting, uncovering scandals, institutional failures, and systemic inequalities in colleges, universities, and their related businesses. Journalists like Upton Sinclair (who exposed the meatpacking industry) and Ida Tarbell (who revealed monopolistic practices in oil) used their platforms to spotlight hidden problems. In a similar vein, HEI carries this tradition forward by focusing on the higher education industry and connects it with the world outside the ivory tower.

Muckraking journalists of the past often focused on giving a voice to the voiceless, and in today's context, HEI highlights issues such as racial, class, and gender disparities in education and the work that should follow. These topics have become more prominent in the 2020s as society grapples with the effects of systemic inequalities and how marginalized communities are underserved and underrepresented in elite institutions.

Just as muckrakers' stories led to reforms (e.g., child labor laws, anti-trust regulations), HEI aims to create change in higher education by influencing public opinion and policy. Change that can take decades to create and months to lose. By exposing unethical practices and systemic problems, such as the growing burden of student loans, the corporatization of universities, and complicity in climate change and authoritarianism, we hope to prompt action from lawmakers and educators to implement more equitable solutions.

Importance of This Type of Journalism in the 2020s:

In the 2020s, higher education is undergoing significant challenges, to include skyrocketing tuition, an increasing reliance on adjunct faculty, and concerns over the value of a college degree. Investigative journalism like ours holds universities accountable for the way they handle these issues. It serves as a check on the growing power and wealth of educational institutions, particularly in light of their increasing commercialization and influence over public policy.

The 2020s have brought heightened awareness of issues like racial inequality, mental health concerns, and the widening gap between wealthy and poor students. Investigative journalism continues to expose these problems, helping to drive conversations about fairness and equity in education. In an era when many people feel disconnected from powerful institutions, journalism that uncovers uncomfortable truths is essential for mobilizing change.

Higher education has been seen by many as a beacon of knowledge, innovation, and fairness, yet there are growing concerns about its accessibility and integrity. Investigative journalism done well helps maintain public trust in higher education by ensuring that universities live up to their purported values. HEI helps the public see when universities exploit students, misuse funds, or engage in unethical practices.

In the 2020s, many key policy issues—such as student debt, the cost of education, and educational access—are hot topics. Journalism that scrutinizes higher education can influence policy reform, potentially leading to legislative action aimed at reducing student debt, increasing transparency in university finances, and addressing fair hiring practices.

War and Peace:

War is often driven by political, economic, and technological forces, and universities are deeply intertwined with these drivers. Many top universities have longstanding partnerships with military contractors, defense organizations, and intelligence agencies. Research funded by these institutions may directly contribute to the development of weapons or military technologies, some of which are used in conflicts around the world. 

The Higher Education Inquirer investigates how these partnerships influence the direction of research, as well as the ethical implications of universities prioritizing military contracts over other forms of academic inquiry. Similarly, university programs train future leaders who will shape foreign policy or lead military operations, and HEI will hold them accountable for the potential consequences of those actions. 

On the other hand, universities can be spaces where peace studies, conflict resolution programs, and global diplomacy are taught—an important counterbalance that HEI highlights, showing how academia can be a force for peace amidst the militarization of knowledge.

Genocide:

Genocides are often preceded by a climate of division and dehumanization, and universities are often the breeding grounds for ideologies that either challenge or perpetuate these dynamics. Throughout history, some academic institutions have provided intellectual support to regimes that perpetrate genocide, whether through the training of military officers or the dissemination of harmful nationalist ideologies. 

Conversely, universities can also serve as platforms for the resistance against genocide, with professors and students leading efforts to expose atrocities, advocate for human rights, and prevent violence.  

The Higher Education Inquirer investigates how universities have both been complicit in, and resisted, the ideologies that fuel genocide. HEI explores the ways in which certain university-funded research or prominent academic figures have either contributed to genocidal narratives or become strong advocates for justice and reconciliation in the aftermath of such horrors.

Global Climate Change:

Climate change represents a massive, existential crisis that touches every part of society, and universities are both contributors to and leaders in tackling this challenge. 

HEI investigates how universities have been complicit in exacerbating the climate crisis—whether through fossil fuel investments, ties to unsustainable industries, or research that furthers environmentally harmful practices. At the same time, universities are also at the cutting edge of climate science, sustainable technologies, and environmental activism.  

The Higher Education Inquirer investigates whether universities are doing enough to address their own carbon footprints, promote sustainable practices on campus, and foster a generation of leaders who are committed to climate justice. In a world where universities are increasingly seen as both perpetrators of environmental degradation and potential agents of change, HEI’s investigative reporting is crucial in holding these institutions accountable.

Mass Incarceration:

The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, and universities are deeply involved in the systems that perpetuate this crisis. Many universities participate in research that supports law enforcement, surveillance technologies, or criminal justice policies, which can fuel the growth of the prison-industrial complex.  

The Higher Education Inquirer examines how higher education sustains and challenges mass incarceration. For instance, some universities benefit from partnerships with prisons, offering education programs to incarcerated individuals, but also facing criticism for their indirect role in perpetuating a system that disproportionately targets people of color.  

HEI investigates whether universities are actively working to dismantle mass incarceration through programs that promote restorative justice, education in prisons, or advocacy for systemic reform, or whether they are complicit in perpetuating the status quo through research and policy influence that supports harsh criminal justice policies.

Uniting These Issues:

The Higher Education Inquirer brings these issues together by demonstrating how universities are not isolated entities but integral parts of a global system that influences war, human rights, the environment, and justice. 

For example, universities that are heavily funded by military contracts should be implicated in fueling global conflict and war, while also contributing to climate change through the development of harmful technologies. At the same time, these same universities often fail to adequately address the ways in which their research, policies, and curricula shape or reinforce systemic racism and mass incarceration.

By following the muckraker tradition of exposing corruption and exploitation, HEI investigates how the pursuit of profit, power, and prestige within academia intersects with larger global crises. 

Investigative journalism that connects the dots between higher education, war, genocide, climate change, and mass incarceration is crucial to fully understanding these issues and holding institutions accountable for their roles in perpetuating or mitigating them. 

In the 2020s, when universities hold immense cultural, political, and economic power, the Higher Education Inquirer continues the legacy of the muckrakers by pushing for a more ethical, transparent, and socially responsible approach to higher education—one that reveals the problems of the world and to its solutions.

Call for Authors: Writing on the Genocide in Palestine

The Higher Education Inquirer is calling on student journalists, college students, faculty, and independent writers to speak truth to power about the ongoing genocide in Palestine. At a time when universities, governments, and media outlets are complicit through silence, distortion, or outright propaganda, it is urgent that we create space for honest accounts, rigorous investigations, and unapologetic solidarity.

We are seeking pieces that uncover how campuses are responding—or refusing to respond—to the atrocities, that expose academic and financial ties between U.S. higher education and Israel, that highlight student and faculty resistance, and that reflect on the risks of teaching and speaking openly in an environment of censorship and fear. We are especially interested in writing that challenges media narratives, including the BBC’s deeply biased coverage of Gaza, which research shows privileges Israeli voices and humanizes Israeli deaths while erasing Palestinian suffering.

This is not a moment for neutrality. Higher education is entangled in global systems of power, and its students and workers bear both the weight of silence and the responsibility to resist. We welcome investigative reporting, personal testimony, analytical essays, and critical reflections. Because safety is a real concern, we will publish pieces anonymously if needed.

If you are ready to contribute, send a 2–3 sentence pitch to gmcghee@aya.yale.edu. The Higher Education Inquirer stands in the muckraking tradition: fearless, uncompromising, and committed to amplifying voices that others try to silence.

Sources:
Centre for Media Monitoring, “BBC on Gaza-Israel: One Story, Double Standards” (2024) https://cfmm.org.uk/bbc-on-gaza-israel-one-story-double-standards

Novara Media, “BBC Systematically Biased Against Palestinians in Gaza Coverage” (2025) https://novaramedia.com/2025/06/16/bbc-systematically-biased-against-palestinians-in-gaza-coverage

BRICUP, “Meticulous Analysis of BBC’s Systemic Bias on Israel-Palestine” (2025) https://www.bricup.org.uk/news-2/meticulous-analysis-of-bbcs-systemic-bias-on-israeli-palestine-confirms-its-link-to-the-deep-state

The Guardian, “The BBC Pulled My Gaza Documentary After It Was Approved” (2025) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/02/bbc-gaza-doctors-under-attack-documentary-israel-war

The Guardian, “The BBC Has Alienated Everyone on Gaza Bias” (2025) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/15/bbc-alienated-everyone-gaza-bias
Wikipedia, “Media Coverage of the Gaza War” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_Gaza_war
Wikipedia, “South Africa’s Genocide Case Against Israel” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa%27s_genocide_case_against_Israel
Wikipedia, “International Criminal Court Arrest Warrants for Israeli Leaders” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court_arrest_warrants_for_Israeli_leaders

20-year UVA law school librarian forced to seek redress from President Jim Ryan; defending the right to protest in the face of illegal disciplinary action

Contact: Ben Doherty, 434-282-9009

Charlottesville - On Saturday, May 4th, Ben Doherty (they/them) joined hundreds of UVA co-workers, students and community-members protesting for university leadership to divest from Israel’s war-machine.

Not only do Ben and coworkers have a demonstrable right to protest under the law, it’s also the case that UVA as a public institution has legal restrictions that prevent it from infringing on such rights. However, in response to this May 4 protest, UVA law school leadership issued Ben a “Letter of Counseling.” Letter of Counseling refers to an optional first step in discipline by the VA Department of Human Resources Management’s Standards of Conduct which has jurisdiction over UVA.

On June 25th, Ben was joined by coworkers on a delegation where they asserted the need for UVA to accept its legal restrictions and honor Ben’s right to protest. In response to this delegation, the UVA law school’s Assoc. Dean sent an email to Ben indicating, “a letter of counseling is not a disciplinary action.” However the email also sent mixed messages that were out of step with DHRM requirements. The Asst. Dean would not categorically agree that the result of ruling it not discipline is by extension ruling it unable to be referenced in any future cumulative evaluation or attempts at termination. The Asst. Dean encouraged Ben to take a one-on-one with Dean Leslie Kendrick. However, that meeting on July 12th did not resolve anything.

The unwillingness to comply with Ben’s rights is a risk not only for Ben but for their coworkers as well. That’s why Ben and their team have decided that the issue must be brought to the attention of UVA President Jim Ryan. Ben will lead a delegation to President Jim Ryan’s office tomorrow Wednesday, Oct. 9th at 1pm.

***

What: Delegation to President Jim Ryan

When: Wednesday, Oct. 9th, 1pm.

Where: Launching from Gingko Tree (b/w Rotunda & Chapel), UVA Campus 145 McCormick Rd.

***
Please see below: Full statement from the UCW-UVA’s campaign committee to defeat retaliation.

On Wednesday, October 9 at 1:00pm, United Campus Workers-University of Virginia (UCW) will rally to “say no to retaliation” outside of Madison Hall at the University of Virginia. UCW has chosen that location to tell UVA President Jim Ryan that it will not accept retaliation against any workers for exercising their right to protest.

On May 4, 2024 the University of Virginia administrators sent in riot police to violently break up the encampment for Palestine. After attacking the protesters with shields and chemical weapons, the police arrested 27 people. One of the people arrested was Ben Doherty (they/them pronouns), a librarian who has worked at the law school for over 20 years. Like the other arrestees, Ben was charged with criminal trespass–a charge that was later dismissed; and given a No Trespass Order barring them from campus–which was also soon rescinded since Ben was not an actual threat to anyone at the university.

However–in addition to the police violence, dismissed criminal charges, and rescinded No Trespass Order–on May 21, 2024, the law school issued a “letter of counseling” to Ben. The letter mischaracterizes Ben’s lawful protest against genocide in Palestine as insubordination and explains that “future conduct of this kind, whether at the Law School or elsewhere at the University, will very likely result in disciplinary action up to and including termination.” That is now the second “letter of counseling” the law school has placed in Ben’s employment record, the first being in 2018 when Ben objected to the presence in the law library of one of the main organizers of the white nationalist Unite the Right rally who was harassing people in the law school, and whom the University had failed to issue a No Trespass Order.

Workers everywhere have a right to protest and the United Campus Workers will collectively oppose any retaliation against workers for exercising that right. The University cannot be allowed to illegally chill anyone’s right to protest against genocide. UCW has already raised its concerns about this illegal and chilling discipline twice earlier this summer, and now is asking Jim Ryan to stop this retaliation threatening Ben’s termination for engaging in their right to protest as a member of the world community.

Quote from Ben Doherty: “In 2017 and 2018, I was present when University administrators did nothing to protect UVA students, staff and community members from blatant white nationalist violence and harassment. In 2024, I was also present when University administrators sent violent riot police in to attack and arrest people protesting against genocide in Palestine. In both cases, University leadership failures fell on the backs of students, workers and community members. To cover these failures, the University wants to keep people quiet and we all must work collectively to push back against University retaliation designed to chill our right to protest injustice.”

Gary Broderick
UCW-VA Lead Organizer
804-347-4942

American Universities Complicit in Genocide, Again

As universities across the United States respond with increasing repression to student-led protests against the genocide in Palestine, historical parallels emerge that challenge the very principles of academic freedom and moral responsibility. The aggressive crackdowns—ranging from mass arrests to administrative threats—echo disturbing precedents from The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower by historian Stephen H. Norwood. The book exposes how many American universities, particularly in the 1930s, were complicit in Nazi ideology through appeasement, censorship, and the suppression of anti-fascist voices. The current treatment of pro-Palestinian student activists suggests that history is, once again, repeating itself.

The Suppression of Moral Dissent in Higher Education

Norwood’s research demonstrates how elite U.S. universities—including Harvard, Columbia, and Yale—maintained diplomatic and academic relationships with Nazi Germany, even as the regime persecuted Jews, socialists, and other marginalized groups. Student activists who sought to protest these ties were ignored, censored, or dismissed as “radicals.” The pattern is eerily similar today: pro-Palestinian students, many of whom are calling attention to potential war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, are met with suspensions, arrests, and a media narrative that frames them as dangerous or disruptive.

This is not simply an issue of campus policy. It is an indication of how institutions of higher learning align themselves with power—whether it be the Nazi government in the 1930s or the Netanyahu government today—at the expense of justice and free expression.

The Influence of Financial and Political Interests

One of Norwood’s most damning revelations was how American universities welcomed Nazi officials on campus, accepted funding from German sources, and ignored early reports of persecution. Today, many of these same institutions maintain deep financial ties to Israel, including research partnerships, donor influence, and endowment investments in companies linked to the Israeli military-industrial complex.

This financial entanglement shapes institutional responses to protest. Instead of engaging with the moral and legal arguments posed by students—who cite documented reports from the UN, Human Rights Watch, and other credible organizations—university administrators call in police forces, disband student groups, and issue vague statements about maintaining "campus order." Just as in the 1930s, universities prioritize political and economic alliances over ethical accountability.

The Criminalization of Campus Activism

Norwood’s book describes how students protesting Nazi ties were accused of being “unruly” or “disruptive,” justifying administrative crackdowns. Today, students calling for an end to U.S. complicity in Israel’s actions face similar character assassinations, often being labeled as “terrorist sympathizers” or threats to campus safety.

Recent crackdowns have seen:

• Mass arrests of peaceful demonstrators, including those engaging in sit-ins and teach-ins.

• Surveillance and doxxing of students and faculty who express pro-Palestinian views.

• Increased administrative pressure, including suspensions, expulsions, and threats to scholarships or visas for international students.

The use of state power—often in coordination with local police, federal agencies, and even private security firms—mirrors historical instances where universities acted as enforcers of political orthodoxy rather than defenders of intellectual freedom.

What This Means for US Higher Education

If universities continue down this path, they risk further eroding their credibility as spaces for critical inquiry and moral debate. Just as history judges those who remained silent—or complicit—during the rise of fascism, future generations will scrutinize how today’s institutions responded to calls for justice in Palestine.

The lesson from The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower is clear: universities have a choice. They can either stand on the side of truth and academic freedom or become enforcers of state violence and repression. The students protesting today, much like those who opposed fascism in the 1930s, are asking their institutions to make that choice. The question is whether universities will listen—or if history will once again record their failure.

Campus Protests, Campus Safety, and the Student Imagination

According to the LA Times, students at Cal Berkeley, San Jose State, San Francisco State, and the University of San Francisco plan to hold coordinated protests on their campuses tomorrow. These actions are a continuation of this year's earlier protests against Israel's atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza--which have been backed by the United States, through arms deals and federal funding.

With the US-backed genocide expanding to the West Bank and Southern Lebanon, there will certainly be student resistance despite administrative and police efforts to make campus occupations and other forms of protest (even free speech and freedom of assembly) difficult.

The greatest threat so far from these protests has been to the reputations of elite universities and their endowments, rather than to campus safety. And the greatest perceived threat to administrators is that students and their allies have the imagination to resist in novel ways--without violence.   

Students have already gained partial victories with a handful of universities which have offered to review investment strategies complicit with genocide. These progressive schools include Brown University and San Francisco State. At the University of Michigan, pro-Palestinian students organized as the Shut it Down Party have won student elections.       

Coordinated and Secret Crackdowns

The crackdown measures that schools have already made to reduce free speech and other freedoms, and to stoke fear, are too numerous to list. Some of these measures, like increased surveillance are not even known by students, faculty, staff, and community folks. Just understanding that secret mass surveillance is possible helps administrators who want to quell good trouble. 

What are the real threats to campus safety? 

We hope these protests (and any other actions) will be nonviolent and have published a list of nonviolent methods for resistance as a starting point for discussion. Violence is not a good excuse even in crackdowns of this type, and it's a losing strategy for all sides--other than the right wing--who want chaos and hope to bait others. It takes great planning, discipline, and strategy not to take the bait. At the same time, we hope campus administrators will take the problems of sexual assault, hate crimes and other forms of violence, as well as the threats of mass shootings, more seriously than they have.

Related links: 

Democratic Protests on Campus: Modeling the Better World We Seek (Annelise Orleck)

Methods of Student Nonviolent Resistance

Wikipedia Community Documents Pro-Palestinian Protests on University and College Campuses

Dangerous Spaces: Sexual Assault and Other Forms of Violence On and Off Campus

One Fascism or Two?: The Reemergence of "Fascism(s)" in US Higher Education

A People's History of Higher Education in the US?

Letter to an incoming freshman

“Repression on Grounds: A Virtual Town Hall on May 4 and Its Aftermath” (Faculty for Justice in Palestine)

(Charlottesville, VA)

In the aftermath of the violent repression of the encampment protests at UVa in May by police and administration, and with issues about first amendment rights at UVa still unresolved, faculty at the University of Virginia will host: “Repression on Grounds: A Virtual Town Hall on May 4 and Its Aftermath” on Sunday October 6 from 11 am -12:30 pm EDT. The town hall will be virtual.

Participants can register for the event here: https://tinyurl.com/56r54kus

The town hall will address violent break up of the pro-Palestinian encampment on May 4, 2024
by military-style police in riot gear and its aftermath. But rather than seeing this as a defeat,
organizers will share what they have learned since the summer and chart a path forward for
pro-Palestinian activism at UVA and nationally, including renewed calls for divestment from
Israel and genocide. The town hall will address:
- What happened on 5/4;
- What has happened since 5/4;
- Suggested steps moving forward;
- National framing;
- Disclosure, divestment & how to get involved
- Q&A

As Israel’s genocide in Gaza intensifies to include Lebanon, members of Faculty for Justice in
Palestine and allies will highlight the moral urgency of the moment and discuss the role student,
faculty, staff, and community activism and pressure has to do in achieving an arms embargo
against Israel and charting a path towards Palestinian sovereignty. With free speech and
academic freedom under fire across the nation and in the Commonwealth, It’s time to hear from
faculty, staff and students what is really going on with regards to freedom of speech, academic
freedom and protest rights at Jefferson’s University. 

As we enter into another academic year, questions of politics, both domestic and international,
are central to the work we do at the university. It is critically important that faculty, staff, and
students maintain the right to speak freely on these issues without risking the kinds of retaliation
they've seen in the last several months.

Contact: Faculty for Justice in Palestine, UVA. fjp.uva@gmail.com

 

Related links:

Elite Universities on Lockdown. Protestors Regroup.

What caused 70 US universities to arrest protesting students while many more did not?

Campus Protests, Campus Safety, and the Student Imagination

Democratic Protests on Campus: Modeling the Better World We Seek (Annelise Orleck)

Methods of Student Nonviolent Resistance

Wikipedia Community Documents Pro-Palestinian Protests on University and College Campuses

One Fascism or Two?: The Reemergence of "Fascism(s)" in US Higher Education 

A People's History of Higher Education in the US