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Pro-Israel Politicians and Donors Assault Academic Freedom in America

Widespread student protests on the US campuses against Israel's genocidal war in Gaza are being labeled antisemitic by pro-Israel politicians and donors. They have now joined forces to intimidate the leadership of top American universities. President Liz MaGill of the University of Pennsylvania has already been forced out. Leaders at Harvard and MIT are also under threat. The Pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Brandeis Center have called on 200 college presidents to investigate pro-Palestinian student groups. Faculty members and instructors at several public and private colleges have either been placed on leave or fired for comments about the conflict, according to Bloomberg columnist Noah Feldman. These actions are a direct assault on the academic freedom in America, with long term negative consequences for the world's most admired institutions of higher education.

Pro-Palestine Protest at UCLA. Source: Daily Bruin

Academic Freedom:

Academic freedom is about free exchange of ideas on campus by students and faculty. It is considered essential for learning. Limiting this freedom hurts pursuit of excellence which has helped American colleges and universities become the envy of the world. This freedom must be defended by all Americans to maintain the excellence of institutions of higher learning in America.

US Congress:

GOP politicians see these pro-Palestine protests on US campuses as a fundraising opportunity. Harvard alumna Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) aggressively questioned presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT to score points with the Israel lobby. “At Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment?” asked — to which Gay twice responded that “it depends on the context.”

GOP politicians like Stefanik are deliberately conflating slogans such as "From the River to the Sea, Free Palestine Free" with call for genocide of Jews. In fact, this chant is only about ending the long brutal Israeli Occupation of Gaza (along the Mediterranean Sea) and the West Bank (of the Jordan River).

Jewish Donors:

Several Jewish donors of major private sector universities have either cancelled their donations or threatened to do so over the Pro-Palestine protests. Investors Bill Ackman and Ross Stevens have been among the most vocal pro-Israel donors at Harvard and Penn. They both called for the ouster of the presidents of these universities over what they call "antisemitism" on campuses.

The aggressive behavior of Jewish donors is serving to reinforce the antisemitic stereotype of wealthy Jews. As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich put in a Guardian Op Ed: "As a Jew, I cannot help but worry, too, that the actions of these donors will fuel the very antisemitism they claim to oppose – based on the perilous stereotype of wealthy Jewish bankers controlling the world".

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion:

Some right-wing politicians and donors have attacked DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programs as the cause of what they call "antisemitism" on campuses. These programs help bring in faculty and students from under-represented groups to colleges and universities that have traditionally been almost entirely white. They blame DEI because many new students from minority background tend to sympathize with Palestinians who they see as oppressed. Many of them see Israel as a "Western settler-colonialist oppressor par excellence", according to the Wall Street Journal.

Israel has long been seen as a settler colonial state . It was established by the displacement of the indigenous population of Palestinians and their replacement by Europeans, similar to places like America and Australia. This process of Israel's creation was endorsed by top British politicians like Winston Churchill.

“I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger,” former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill told the Peel Commission in 1937, “even though he may have lain there for a very long time.” He denied that “a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the Black people of Australia,” by their replacement with “a higher grade race.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 7, 2026 at 10:04am: In her memoir, View from the East Wing, former First Lady Jill Biden revealed that she regularly left Post-It notes on the bathroom mirror urging former President Joe Biden to stand firm against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Following news coverage of the devastating conflict in Gaza, one of her notes simply read, "Net has to stop". The following morning, before a scheduled phone call between the two leaders, she left another message stating, "Be strong. Don't let BN use your goodness". [1, 2, 3]
———-

Yes, former First Lady Jill Biden reveals in her memoir, "View from the East Wing", that she used sticky notes on their mirrors to privately urge Joe Biden to push back against the Israeli Prime Minister. [1]
The Post-It Note Messages
Dr. Biden details her inner turmoil while watching the devastating news from Gaza in the spring of 2024. She used Post-It notes to communicate her geopolitical advice to the President, leaving the messages on their bathroom mirror: [1, 2]
In one instance, after seeing news out of Gaza, she left a note that read: "Net has to stop".
Before a scheduled discussion with the Israeli leader, she scrawled a follow-up note reading: "Be strong. Don't let BN use your goodness". [1, 2, 3, 4]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/jill-biden-memoir-prov...

"Be strong," she wrote in a note to Joe in spring 2024 in advance of a meeting with the Israeli prime minister. "Don't let BN [Benjamin Netanyahu] use your goodness."

Comment by Riaz Haq 2 hours ago: Whistleblower alleges political pressure in antisemitism probes of schools | AP News

https://apnews.com/article/trump-harvard-justice-department-brown-c...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Trump administration task force created to combat antisemitismpushed for settlements with Ivy League universities despite government investigations that were rushed and incomplete or that failed to establish legal violations by the schools, a former Justice Department lawyer alleged in a whistleblower disclosure obtained by The Associated Press.

The complaint alleges that the investigations into some of the nation’s most prestigious academic institutions were designed to strong-arm the schools into cutting deals for political purposes. Outcomes of the investigations were “predetermined, without regard to the evidence” in a “politically mandated effort” to extract money from schools through settlement demands and funding freezes under the pretext of rooting out antisemitism, the complaint alleges.

The work of the multi-agency task force, launched by the Justice Department under then-Attorney General Pam Bondi in February 2025, was “marked by extraordinary procedural irregularities, predetermined outcomes without factual or legal support” and disregard for the law and Constitution, lawyers for the former government attorney wrote in seeking watchdog investigations into their client’s complaints.

The complaint taps into a broader public discussion about the administration’s efforts to confront allegations of antisemitism at colleges, a problem that received renewed attentionduring campus protests over Israel’s war in Gaza that some Jewish students said made them feel unsafe. President Donald Trump returned to the White House with a goal of rooting out antisemitism that he said had gone unchecked during the Biden administration, but critics have called his government’s response heavy-handed and said it infringed on free speech rights and coerced concessions from public institutions.

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