University of Brimingham threatens to expel two students for pro-Palestine activism

As the Committee for Academic Freedom reports, the University of Birmingham is threatening to take extreme action against two pro-Palestine students – just the latest attack on pro-Palestinian activists on British campuses. 9 February 2025 Two University of Birmingham students face expulsion after participating in protests Two students at the University of Birmingham may be…

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Jewish academics at Rutgers University denounce “Zionist hegemony” in America

7 February 2025 A group of Jewish academics at Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey, have published an open letter, reprinted below from Mondoweiss, vigorously denouncing Zionist racial supremacists who until now have largely dominated politics on American campuses. To judge from developments on the Rutgers campus, where the faculty union has just overwhelmingly…

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US Middle East Studies Association (MESA) challenges Columbia University’s hostile treatment of Professor Franke

1 February 2025 MESA, representing nearly 2,800 academic specialists on the Middle East and North Africa, has set out the circumstances that led to Professor Katherine Franke’s displinary investigation at Columbia University and the extremely one-sided approach taken by the administration in its letter calling for justice. The MESA letter is reprinted here from Informed…

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AHA Executive Council veto popular motion on Israel’s scholasticide in Gaza

29 January 2025 Members of the American Historical Association at their AGM earlier this month overwhelmingly supported a motion condemning Israel’s systematic destruction of schools, universities and archives and its mass killing of students and faculty: its “scholasticide” as it deserves to be known. But despite having adopted a motion in 2008 condemning the invasion…

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Israeli disruption of West Bank universities has intensified since 7 October 2023

28 January 2025 Ashjan Ajour (pictured), a Palestinian scholar, describes in this article published in Truthout, the worsening predicament of Palestinian universities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as the result of deliberate Israeli obstruction and violent settler activity. Israel’s intention to destroy higher education in Palestine is clear, but what is equally clear is that…

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Kenneth Roth deplores Harvard’s decision to adopt IHRA definition

26 January 2025 As recently reported, the Harvard University administration has caved in to pro-Israel pressure by agreeing to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism in student disciplinary hearings. This definition is now commonly accompanied by eleven “illustrations”, seven of which refer not to Jews but to Israel, whose purpose is…

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