Universities’ donor-driven priorities block meaningful response to advocacy for Palestinian life.

Evidence

The unprecedented student encampments and demonstrations across the United States against Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians show us that our students are demanding more from their academic institutions—that they not be complicit in mass murder. While most US universities tend to prioritize financial interests and the ideological commitments of donors, thereby rendering it unlikely that the following recommendations would be implemented, they are worth spelling out. University administrators committed to social justice should begin by naming anti-Palestinian racism and stopping the obfuscation that ensues from using the term “Islamophobia.” Rather than focusing on the term “hate,” they should focus on how US and Israeli government policies impact interpersonal violence. They should acknowledge the vast asymmetries in US government and university support for Zionist students over those who advocate for Palestinian rights. They should refuse to cower to Zionist donors, tactics, and pressure, and actively denounce the smearing of student and faculty advocates of Palestinian life as terrorist supporters and antisemites. They should work to obstruct and dismantle hostile campus environments that promote anti-Palestinian racism and put an immediate end to the misuse of university disciplinary codes and procedures to punish those exercising their free speech rights. Above all, they should acknowledge Israel’s illegal military occupation of Palestine and its genocide in Gaza, refuse the normalization of Zionism, and reject the dehumanization of the Palestinian people. — Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophobia The…, 39

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to critiques of university donor influence and corporate capture of higher education in literature on academic capitalism and free speech debates. — connects to: The term Islamophobia obscures the specificity of anti-Palestinian racism. — Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophobia The…, 20; DEI procedures were used to punish pro-Palestinian faculty speech. — Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophobia The…, 23; Federal investigations of campus bias target antisemitism but ignore Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism. — Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophobia The…, 26 (+2 more)
• SEED: An essay angle: how ‘Islamophobia’ as a term functions as an obfuscating frame that erases anti-Palestinian racism — a terminological critique worth developing.

Broader Connections

• Campus DEI responses to October 7 systematically obscure Israel’s role in anti-Palestinian violence #corroborates (0.55) — Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophobia The…, 11