Wednesday, June 3, 2026

BRICUP

British Committee for the Universities of Palestine

BRICUP

British Committee for the Universities of Palestine

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Cambridge scholar explains why UK universities are complicit in the genocide in Gaza

admin056 mins

3 June 2026

Aneeza Pervez of Clare Hall, Cambridge, has written an important article on the present crisis, implicating UK universities in the continuing genocide in Gaza. Below is a link to Pervez’s recent lecture, followed by her article. The original article can be found on Taylor and Francis online.

Witnessing silence: the Palestinian genocide, institutional complicity, and the politics of knowledge

Aneeza Pervez

Received 17 Feb 2025, Accepted 26 May 2025, Published online: 10 Jun 2025

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the complicity of academic institutions in the ongoing Palestinian genocide, arguing that silence actively sustains settler colonialism, erases Palestinian narratives, and inflicts psychological harm. Drawing on Galtung’s structural violence and Butler’s concept of grievable lives, it critiques the selective engagement of universities with geopolitical crises, exposing colonial hierarchies. Using autoethnography as a decolonial method, it foregrounds lived experiences of institutional repression and censorship. It calls for the social sciences to reject performative inclusivity, explicitly condemn Israeli apartheid, support Palestinian scholarship, and hold institutions accountable to their professed commitments to equity and justice.

Introduction

Despite the severity of the ongoing Palestinian genocide, the response of UK higher education institutions has been characterised by a conspicuous absence of direct engagement, with few formal statements acknowledging either the scale of violence or its disproportionate impact on Palestinian communities. The displacement and erasure of Palestinian communities is not incidental but forms part of a sustained settler-colonial strategy aimed at ethnic cleansing and territorial domination (Pappé Citation2006). This silence cannot be understood as mere neutrality; rather, it functions as an institutionalised form of structural violence, one that pressures scholars – particularly those from marginalised backgrounds – into self-censorship and political reticence. As a Muslim academic situated within UK higher education, I have experienced the dissonance of witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe while navigating the professional and psychological risks associated with public advocacy for Palestinian rights. As Falk (Citation2017) argues, international silence and legal equivocation regarding Palestinian rights reflects not only geopolitical bias but the erosion of principled engagement with justice—an erosion mirrored within academic institutions that claim neutrality while tacitly endorsing impunity. This study is guided by the following question: How does institutional silence in UK academia contribute to the reproduction of colonial violence, and what are its psychological, professional, and epistemic consequences for scholars engaged in Palestinian advocacy?

Universities, frequently framed as bastions of critical inquiry and social justice, simultaneously operate as gatekeepers of epistemic legitimacy, often reinforcing global hierarchies through selective recognition of suffering. The sharp contrast between widespread institutional solidarity with Ukraine and the marked silence surrounding Palestine reveals longstanding racialised and geopolitical biases that render Arab and Muslim lives less grievable (Butler Citation2004). Communications from academic institutions that gesture toward inclusivity—while avoiding explicit reference to the genocide—exemplify what Mbembe (Citation2001) describes as the necropolitical consolidation of colonial power through silence, a pattern evident in other settler-colonial contexts (Falah Citation2021; Volinz Citation2020).

This paper contributes to existing literature by centring the lived experiences of marginalised scholars within academia, using autoethnography as a decolonial method to critically examine institutional complicity. Drawing on Galtung’s (Citation1969) theory of structural violence, this study examines how academic silence not only facilitates the erasure of Palestinian narratives but also sustains the broader architecture of settler colonialism. The exclusion of Palestinian scholarship and the suppression of pro-Palestinian discourse within academic spaces reflect the structural barriers that scholars face, as seen in the experiences of Steven Salaita and David Miller (Chamlee-Wright Citation2019; Hakim et al. Citation2022; Miller Citation2021; Salaita Citation2015). This exclusion is consistent with what Massad (Citation2006) has described as the persistence of Zionist frameworks that dominate scholarly discourse on Palestine, delegitimising resistance narratives and institutionalising the marginalisation of Palestinian epistemologies. Moreover, as a developmental psychologist, the institutional erasure of Palestinian children’s suffering is particularly troubling, highlighting the contradictions within universities that profess commitments to child welfare, rights, and global justice, yet remain complicit in silencing the experiences of Palestinian communities (Rabadi, Zvulun, and Maoz Citation2023; Veronese, Mahamid, and Bdier Citation2023).

This study adopts autoethnography not only as a method of inquiry but as a form of epistemic resistance, challenging dominant colonial epistemologies within the social sciences by foregrounding situated knowledge and reflexive critique. Autoethnographic methods enable an analysis of the psychological toll of enforced silence, while offering a legitimate academic approach to knowledge production that centres the voices of those often excluded from scholarly discourse (Smith Citation1999; Hamdonah and Joseph Citation2024). The repression of pro-Palestinian scholarship and student activism signals an urgent need for methodologies that resist colonial violence and support structural accountability within academia (Daoud, Alfayumi-Zeadna, and Jabareen Citation2018; Maitland, Jones, and Taylor Citation2012). By illuminating the lived realities of scholars marginalised for their political commitments, this paper aims to contribute to the broader field of decolonial scholarship and to advocate for meaningful institutional reform grounded in anti-colonial justice.

Unheard voices and colonial violence: theoretical perspectives on silence and psychological harm

The ongoing silence within UK higher education regarding the Palestinian genocide functions not as a neutral omission but as a structured and patterned response that perpetuates colonial violence, particularly toward racially and politically marginalised scholars. Galtung’s (Citation1969) theory of structural violence provides a critical framework for understanding how institutions maintain systems of oppression by systematically erasing Palestinian narratives while amplifying dominant voices. In this context, institutional silence acts not merely as caution, but as a mechanism of exclusion—an active form of harm that legitimises epistemic hierarchies. The absence of public statements or solidarity concerning Palestine contrasts sharply with institutional responses to other global crises, revealing what Mbembe (Citation2001) describes as necropolitical governance—where institutions determine which lives warrant mourning and which are rendered invisible (Arar Citation2017; David and Idan Citation2020; Kobakhidze and Samniashvili Citation2022). Structural violence, as conceptualised by Galtung (Citation1969), refers to the systematic ways in which social structures harm individuals by preventing them from meeting their fundamental needs. In the context of Palestinian advocacy, this violence manifests through institutional silence, which operates as a subtle yet powerful form of harm. Yet, this silence is not random; it reflects deeper geopolitical power structures that shape the value ascribed to different lives. To explore this dynamic, we turn to Mbembe’s (Citation2001) concept of necropolitics, which examines how colonial systems allocate life and death by determining which lives are seen as grievable and which are rendered invisible. Within UK higher education, this process becomes evident when public statements are selectively issued for other crises while Palestinian suffering is sidelined.

Institutions often defend this silence by invoking the principle of neutrality, suggesting that academic spaces must avoid taking political stances to maintain scholarly integrity (Altbach Citation2016). Proponents of this approach argue that neutrality fosters open dialogue and shields institutions from accusations of political bias. However, as Butler (Citation2009) contends, neutrality in contexts of ongoing violence is itself a political act—one that implicitly aligns with dominant geopolitical interests. Silence, in these circumstances, is not an expression of impartiality but a form of complicity that sustains epistemic hierarchies. The institutional decision to remain neutral on the Palestinian genocide, while publicly condemning other forms of violence, reveals the selective application of this principle and underscores its colonial underpinnings.

This structural violence is closely connected to Fraser’s (Citation1990) concept of misrecognition—the systematic denial of individuals and communities as full participants in social and epistemic life. Palestinian scholars and their allies often encounter deficit-based framings that position their work as controversial or politically disruptive, thus excluding them from opportunities for funding, publication, and institutional support. As Said (Citation1984) has argued,Western knowledge systems routinely marginalise subaltern perspectives in favour of narratives aligned with dominant geopolitical interests (Maoz and McCauley Citation2011; Shahar et al. Citation2016). This epistemic marginalisation is not unique to the Palestinian context; it parallels the broader erasure of Indigenous narratives in settler-colonial nations such as the United States and Canada, where histories of violence are frequently absent from educational curricula (Tuck and Yang Citation2012). Positioning Palestinian erasure within this global pattern highlights the structural continuity of colonial violence across contexts. Epistemic exclusionis further maintained through what McGonigle Leyh (Citation2021) terms academic denialism—an institutional practice of rhetorical avoidance that suppresses politically sensitive narratives through euphemistic language and selective engagement. Denialism operates not only through overt censorship but through more insidious mechanisms, such as administrative communications that avoid naming the Palestinian genocide. For instance, institutional messaging that frames the violence as a ‘conflict’ rather than a genocide reflects this pattern, as the use of neutral, depoliticised language obscures the reality of asymmetrical violence. Such rhetorical evasions align with Wolfe’s (Citation2006) theorisation of settler colonialism as a structure dependent on the erasure of Indigenous presence and claims to sovereignty. These practices are reinforced through academic gatekeeping, where research on Palestine is labelled ‘too political’ and marginalised within high-impact venues (Nets-Zehngut Citation2016; Chaitin, Steinberg, and Steinberg Citation2017). This form of epistemic violence affects not only the production of knowledge about Palestine but also the emotional and professional well-being of those who engage in such work (Gillborn Citation2006).

Butler’s (Citation2009) concept of grievable lives further clarifies the mechanisms through which academic silence operates. Butler argues that the recognition of suffering is socially and politically mediated, with certain lives deemed more grievable than others. This pattern is observable in the contrasting institutional responses to global humanitarian crises. Higher education institutions frequently issue public statements of solidarity for crises perceived as politically neutral while maintaining silence regarding Palestine. This selective mourning reflects the geopolitically conditioned nature of institutional engagement with global suffering (Bhambra Citation2021). Tuck and Yang (Citation2012) argue that such patterns of selective recognition constitute a form of epistemicide—the systematic erasure of indigenous histories from dominant narratives. In academic contexts, the absence of public support for Palestinian scholars reinforces their marginalisation, rendering their lived realities less visible in institutional discourse.

The psychological impact of this systemic silencing is particularly pronounced for scholars advocating for Palestinian rights. Litz et al. (Citation2009) describe moral injury as the psychological distress that arises when individuals witness or participate in actions that violate their moral principles. This distress is heightened when institutions adopt depoliticised language to distance themselves from the political implications of the genocide. Bandura’s (Citation1999) theory of moral disengagement provides insight into this process, explaining how institutions rationalise inaction by framing silence as neutrality. Terms such as ‘balance’ and ‘objectivity’ are deployed to deflect attention from the asymmetries of power and suffering, thereby discouraging critical engagement with Palestinian narratives (Falah Citation2021; Reifen Tagar et al. Citation2013). These mechanisms not only alienate scholars from their ethical commitments but also shift the burden of responsibility from institutions to individuals, exacerbating psychological distress.

These intersecting theoretical perspectives—structural violence, misrecognition, academic denialism, selective mourning, and moral disengagement—illustrate how institutional silence is maintained as a colonial practice within UK higher education. The relationship between these processes is cumulative and self-sustaining: structural violence limits the visibility of Palestinian narratives, misrecognition devalues these narratives within academic discourse, academic denialism ensures their exclusion through rhetorical evasion, selective mourning reinforces this exclusion by prioritising more politically convenient narratives, and moral disengagement justifies these practices as necessary institutional policies. The result is an institutional culture in which Palestinian scholarship is not only marginalised but actively delegitimised—perpetuating a cycle of epistemic violence under the guise of academic neutrality.

Methodology: autoethnography as decolonial resistance

This study employs critical autoethnography as both a methodological framework and a decolonial act of epistemic resistance, used to examine institutional practices of complicity and censorship surrounding Palestinian advocacy within UK higher education. Positioned within anticolonial, feminist, and critical race traditions, autoethnography enables the interrogation of structural violence through situated, reflexive knowledge production. It challenges the epistemic hierarchies that structure academic legitimacy by foregrounding lived experience as a method of theorising institutional power and affective labour. As Smith (Citation1999) argues, decolonial methodologies disrupt the exclusions of dominant knowledge systems and resist the erasure of marginalised voices from academic discourse. By centring the analysis on institutional silence, emotional labour, and epistemic exclusion, this study provides a theoretically grounded account of how colonial power is reproduced through structural violence in higher education.

Rationale for methodological choice

Autoethnography was selected for its capacity to engage reflexively with the psychological, political, and institutional dimensions of academic silence. Ellis, Adams, and Bochner (Citation2011) describe autoethnography as a method that bridges the personal and structural, allowing the researcher to examine power and injustice through embodied experience. In the context of this study, it offers a means of articulating the psychological toll of Palestinian advocacy while linking individual experience to broader regimes of misrecognition and institutional erasure.

Other qualitative approaches such as phenomenology or critical discourse analysis were considered but ultimately rejected. While these methods are well-established, they offer limited scope for exploring the affective and political complexities embedded in the researcher’s dual role as scholar and advocate. Autoethnography, by contrast, facilitates a decolonial critique that situates the researcher within, rather than outside, the structures under analysis (Jones Citation2005; Adams, Ellis, and Jones Citation2017). It acknowledges the entanglement of subjectivity and power, enabling a form of inquiry that resists the false binary between objectivity and rigour.

Data collection

The data for this study were derived from three primary sources, selected to capture the affective, discursive, and institutional dimensions of Palestinian advocacy within UK higher education.

The first source comprised a curated set of over fifty reflexive journal entries, written between December 2023 and December 2024, which documented interactions with institutional staff, advocacy efforts, and critical reflections on institutional responses. These entries were recorded contemporaneously and provide insight into the psychological, professional, and emotional labour associated with navigating institutional silence and repression.

The second data source consisted of email correspondences—also spanning December 2023 to December 2024—including both official communications and informal exchanges with colleagues and institutional representatives. These emails were purposively selected for their illustrative value, capturing rhetorical strategies, euphemistic framings, and silences used to avoid explicit reference to the Palestinian genocide. They offer insight into how institutions managed dissent and geopolitical sensitivity through language and tone.

The third source included real-time or near-contemporaneous recollections of academic events such as meetings, public talks, and lectures that reflected or shaped the institutional climate around Palestine-related discourse. These accounts, also compiled between December 2023 and December 2024, were recorded immediately or shortly after each event to preserve both descriptive detail and affective immediacy.

All data were selected through purposive sampling, with priority given to episodes that vividly exemplified institutional mechanisms of epistemic exclusion, affective regulation, or political sanitisation. The analytic utility of each data point was assessed in relation to the study’s conceptual framework. Saturation was reached when new entries and reflections no longer generated substantially novel insights into the intersecting themes of structural violence, misrecognition, and academic denialism.

Analytical approach

Thematic analysis, as outlined by Braun and Clarke (Citation2006), was employed to examine the data through a recursive, inductive process that remained grounded in both the empirical material and the study’s theoretical commitments. Given the nature of the dataset—which comprised journal entries, institutional emails, and real-time recollections—this approach enabled a close reading of the structural, emotional, and discursive patterns shaping institutional silence.

Familiarisation began through repeated readings of the full dataset, which spanned interactions, internal reflections, and institutional communications recorded between December 2023 and December 2024. Particular attention was paid to moments of affective dissonance, rhetorical deflection, and disciplinary surveillance. Initial coding combined semantic and latent strategies, generating descriptive codes such as ‘no formal statement,’ ‘emotional regulation,’ ‘euphemistic framing,’ and ‘anticipatory self-censorship.’ Codes were applied systematically across the dataset and refined through memo-writing to capture recurring tensions and interpretive threads.

These codes were then clustered into conceptually related groups and developed into candidate themes. Manual indexing and spreadsheet-based tracking supported this process, allowing cross-referencing between data types. Themes were reviewed for coherence and distinctiveness and tested against the guiding theoretical concepts—structural violence (Galtung Citation1969), misrecognition (Fraser Citation1990), necropolitics (Mbembe Citation2001), and academic denialism (McGonigle Leyh Citation2021). This iterative process ensured that the thematic structure was analytically sound and theoretically meaningful, rather than merely descriptive.

Theme naming followed a process of refinement and reflective writing, resulting in analytic categories such as ‘selective institutional mourning,’ ‘affective burden of silence,’ and ‘gatekeeping through neutrality.’ These themes were not simply observations but conceptual tools for interrogating how silence, complicity, and regulation operate within the academy.

To preserve the complexity of lived experience and ensure fidelity to the layered nature of institutional dynamics, the analysis drew on techniques from layered autoethnography (Jones Citation2005; Adams et al. Citation2017). Vignettes were used to anchor the analysis in specific institutional encounters, while temporal layering allowed me to trace shifts in institutional response and my own positioning over time. Theoretical reflections were embedded throughout the analytic process, not as post-hoc justification but as part of the interpretive logic itself. These strategies were integral to the analysis—not simply modes of representation—and enabled a deeper engagement with how structural violence and epistemic exclusion are enacted and internalised.

Themes were developed not as static categories but as relational and cumulative, reflecting the interlocking nature of institutional complicity. The final thematic structure was carried forward into the findings, where personal experience and structural critique are placed in direct conversation.

Researcher positionality

As a Muslim woman of Pakistani heritage working in UK higher education, my positionality is inseparable from the themes of this study. The institutional silence I analyse is not an abstract phenomenon but one that I have encountered directly—through surveillance, deferral, and emotional containment in response to my own advocacy for Palestinian justice. My racial, religious, and political identifications have shaped not only how I experience institutional life, but also how I am read within it: as both hypervisible and out of place.

Rather than framing this positionality as a source of bias, I approach it as a site of epistemic insight. The entanglement of subjectivity and structure is central to the analytic approach taken here. I do not claim neutrality—indeed, I reject the institutional expectation that objectivity requires emotional detachment or political disinterest. Instead, I situate this research within a long-standing tradition of minoritised scholars using lived experience as a means of theorising institutional power, affective labour, and academic complicity (Ahmed Citation2013; Gunaratnam Citation2003; Smith Citation1999).

Throughout the research process, I engaged in sustained reflexive practice—not to achieve distance from the data, but to remain accountable to it. Regular journaling, discussions with trusted colleagues, and positionality mapping supported a process of checking not only what I saw, but how I was positioned to see it. This critical self-awareness informed both the analytic decisions and the ethical care with which this work was conducted.

Ethical considerations

Although this study draws exclusively on my own experiences and publicly available institutional materials, ethical responsibility was central to the research process. Formal ethical approval was not required, as no third-party participants were directly involved. However, ethical rigour was upheld throughout through a commitment to relational accountability, care, and confidentiality.

To protect the anonymity of colleagues, students, and institutions, identifying details were removed or altered in ways that preserved the integrity of the events while preventing recognition. Pseudonyms were used where necessary, and contextual information was adapted with caution to avoid compromising the analytic substance of the findings.

Given the nature of the material—particularly the emotional and psychological strain associated with revisiting moments of institutional silencing and professional vulnerability—emotional safeguarding was built into the research process. This included taking intentional breaks during analysis, documenting emotional responses reflexively, and discussing moments of distress with trusted peers. Ethical care, in this context, extended beyond procedural compliance to a wider ethos of responsibility—towards myself as researcher, towards those implicated in the narrative, and towards the communities for whom this work carries representational stakes.

Findings

The findings of this study reveal three interrelated patterns of institutional complicity within UK higher education concerning Palestinian advocacy: (1) institutional silence and selective recognition, (2) the psychological toll of emotional labour, and (3) the epistemic exclusion of Palestinian narratives. These patterns, identified through thematic analysis of personal journals, institutional communications, and reflective accounts, illustrate how silence is not an incidental byproduct of institutional caution but an active mechanism that suppresses critical engagement with Palestine while imposing significant psychological and professional burdens on scholars advocating against injustice. The following sections explore these patterns, demonstrating how they collectively sustain colonial power within academic spaces.

Theme 1: institutional silence as structural violence and performative inclusivity

Thematic analysis revealed that institutional silence surrounding the Palestinian genocide within UK higher education is not a passive omission, but an active and patterned form of structural violence. Drawing on Galtung’s (Citation1969) framework, structural violence manifests through the systematic deprivation of recognition, resources, and moral legitimacy for marginalised groups. In this context, silence operates as a form of epistemic regulation—one that erases Palestinian narratives while preserving institutional reputations. This silence was consistently coded across journal entries, institutional communications, and meeting reflections, and was frequently accompanied by performative inclusivity—surface-level gestures that assert institutional commitment to human rights while carefully avoiding substantive engagement with Palestinian suffering.

The analysis of institutional communications demonstrated a recurring pattern of rhetorical avoidance. One prominent example was the institution’s only official reference to recent violence, which described the events as a ‘conflict in Gaza and Israel,’ omitting any mention of genocide or the asymmetrical violence experienced by Palestinians. This framing not only obscures the underlying settler-colonial dynamics but actively produces a false impression of equivalence. Mbembe’s (Citation2001) theory of necropolitics is relevant here: institutional silence, and its sanitising language, becomes a tool through which some lives are rendered grievable and others are quietly dismissed. A journal entry recorded at the time illustrates the emotional toll of this framing: ‘The word ‘conflict’ felt like a deliberate erasure. It reduced the ongoing genocide to an abstract dispute, sidestepping the brutal reality faced by Palestinian communities.’

This dynamic extended beyond formal communications to academic interactions. In a departmental meeting focused on global conflicts, an attempt to raise the psychological trauma experienced by Palestinian children was met with a reminder to maintain ‘balance and objectivity.’ This response exemplifies what Butler (Citation2009) describes as the differential distribution of grievability—the conditions under which some losses are recognised as publicly mournable, while others are institutionally erased. The silence around Palestine, when contrasted with swift institutional expressions of solidarity in response to the war in Ukraine, further highlights this discrepancy. One entry recorded at the time reads:

When the Ukraine crisis emerged, the institution responded almost overnight with statements of solidarity. With Palestine, there was only silence. The message was clear: some lives are deemed worth mourning, while others are quietly dismissed.

Such moments were repeatedly coded as instances of selective recognition and discursive containment, illustrating how performative inclusivity is not incidental but part of a broader institutional strategy to manage political risk. Vague references to ‘all affected communities’ create an illusion of impartiality while implicitly reasserting boundaries around who can be publicly named and supported. As Bhambra (Citation2014) argues, such gestures reveal the persistence of colonial logics in contemporary academic institutions. This became particularly evident in my own experience when a university-wide communication initially listed named support staff for Israeli students, while omitting any reference to Palestinian or Arab students. My name was only added later, and only after I formally requested to be included to support all students impacted by the violence. This incident was coded under both institutional selectivity and erased support roles and reflects how institutional neutrality can operate as a gatekeeping mechanism.

The expectation of objectivity, however, is not consistently applied. Statements on other conflicts adopt clear moral positions, while Palestine is subjected to heightened scrutiny and rhetorical sanitisation. This selective application of neutrality reflects what McGonigle Leyh (Citation2021) describes as academic denialism—a mode of institutional communication that conceals political stakes under the guise of impartiality. The effects of this denialism are not abstract. They manifest in an atmosphere of anticipatory self-censorship. One journal entry records: ‘I found myself rehearsing every sentence before meetings, trying to find language that wouldn’t sound ‘too political.’ The pressure to stay neutral felt like a slow erasure of my voice.’

This entry, coded under anticipatory censorship and affective containment, demonstrates how silence is internalised through professional and psychological discipline. The emotional dissonance created by these dynamics aligns with Litz et al.’s (Citation2009) concept of moral injury—the distress experienced when individuals are required to act in ways that violate their ethical commitments. In this case, institutional silencing compelled a kind of emotional self-regulation that resulted in a sustained sense of alienation.

Across the dataset, this theme of institutional silence—maintained through selective language, performative inclusivity, and rhetorical discipline—emerges not as a passive absence but as an active mode of epistemic exclusion. Abstract and depoliticised language does not merely fail to name Palestinian suffering; it actively delineates the boundaries of what can be said, who can be supported, and whose rights can be publicly defended. This discursive gatekeeping reinforces colonial hierarchies by positioning Palestine as a subject too controversial to engage—thereby perpetuating the very logics this research seeks to expose.

These findings demonstrate how institutional silence functions as a patterned form of epistemic regulation—sustained through rhetorical discipline, performative inclusivity, and affective containment—that ultimately reaffirms colonial hierarchies within the academic sphere.

Theme 2: emotional labour as a structural burden of advocacy

The second key theme to be developed during the analysis was the pervasive emotional labour required to advocate for Palestinian rights within UK higher education. This labour was coded consistently across journal entries and reflective accounts and was especially prominent in contexts involving self-censorship, institutional surveillance, and uneven expectations of professional comportment. Rather than representing a purely personal response to institutional pressure, this labour operates as a structurally induced burden shaped by norms that privilege political neutrality over ethical accountability.

Hochschild’s (Citation1983) concept of emotional labour offers a useful lens here, describing the internal effort required to regulate emotions and present an acceptable public self in environments that discourage political dissent. Across the dataset, emotional regulation was a dominant pattern, particularly in relation to language use and tone when discussing Palestine. This was frequently compounded by racialised perceptions of advocacy work. For example, one journal entry notes: ‘Every time I mention Palestine, I feel the weight of unspoken suspicion. It’s not the words themselves that draw attention but the fact that I, a visibly Muslim academic, am saying them.’

This excerpt was coded under ‘racialised scrutiny’ and ‘anticipatory self-monitoring’, illustrating how emotional labour is shaped by intersecting systems of surveillance and racialisation. This affective burden is compounded by what Puar (Citation2007) refers to as ‘homonationalism’ and securitised racialisation—processes through which Muslim bodies are constructed as perpetual threats, making any expression of political solidarity inherently suspect within institutional frameworks. Furthermore, Fanon’s (Citation1963) analysis of colonial suspicion provides a useful framework here, as it captures how racialised subjects are cast as politically suspect within dominant institutions. The expectation to depoliticise Palestine-related discourse was a consistent theme across institutional and interpersonal settings, resulting in significant affective and cognitive strain. As one entry put it: ‘I found myself softening language in my writing—even when the terms ‘genocide’ or ‘settler colonialism’ were empirically accurate—because I feared it would be seen as too political.’

This process reflects Festinger’s (Citation1957) theory of cognitive dissonance, wherein individuals experience psychological discomfort when holding conflicting values—in this case, between ethical commitments to justice and institutional norms of depoliticised neutrality. Moreover, this form of self-censorship aligns with what Hochschild identifies as the suppression of authentic emotional responses to meet externally imposed norms. In this case, institutional neutrality operates not as an abstract principle but as an affective discipline imposed on scholars through both policy and interpersonal dynamics.

The emotional burden was further intensified by the absence of public solidarity from colleagues. While support was sometimes offered privately, the lack of visible allyship exacerbated feelings of isolation. This dynamic was thematised through codes such as ‘isolated resistance’ and ‘invisible advocacy labour.’ Herman’s (Citation1992) concept of moral injury—the psychological distress caused by witnessing the betrayal of shared moral commitments—helps explain the impact of these absences. Furthermore, this pattern reflects broader neoliberal trends in higher education, where institutions increasingly govern through reputational risk and punitive containment rather than explicit censorship, particularly in relation to racialised and politicised forms of dissent (Wacquant Citation2009). One entry reads:

The silence of colleagues who privately support me but publicly distance themselves makes the emotional labour feel heavier. It’s like being handed a burden to carry alone.

These interpersonal dynamics were not exceptional but reflective of broader institutional conditions that render Palestinian advocacy both risky and unsupported. Mbembe’s (Citation2001) necropolitics is useful here, as the denial of institutional recognition becomes a mechanism through which marginalised scholars are expected to carry the affective cost of resistance without institutional protection or legitimacy.

Supporting students emerged as another recurrent subtheme. As a lecturer, the emotional labour of mentoring students engaged with Palestine-related topics involved managing both their vulnerability and institutional caution. One journal entry captured this dual responsibility: ‘I carry not just my own fears but also my students’ hopes. I want to empower them to speak out while shielding them from the consequences I know all too well.’

This was coded under ‘protective emotional labour’ and speaks to what Ahmed (Citation2013) terms the ‘burden of diversity work’—the expectation that minoritised staff will foster inclusion while absorbing the affective costs of institutional failures. This dual responsibility of advocacy and protection, carried out in conditions of silence and precarious employment, frequently led to emotional exhaustion and professional disillusionment. This aligns with findings on secondary traumatic stress, where individuals indirectly exposed to trauma through empathetic engagement—such as with students or affected communities—experience similar psychological strain (Bride Citation2007).

The findings demonstrate that emotional labour in the context of Palestinian advocacy is not an individualised phenomenon, nor a matter of personal resilience. Rather, it is a structural outcome of institutional complicity—embedded in policies, professional expectations, and reputational risk management. The codes that clustered under this theme—such as ‘strategic restraint,’ ‘emotional containment,’ and ‘vigilant mentoring’—reveal how the appearance of neutrality is sustained through the disproportionate emotional and psychological costs borne by minoritised scholars. This resonates with Jamison’s (Citation2024) analysis of institutional betrayal, where psychological harm is compounded when individuals experience a breach of trust from institutions that claim to uphold justice and care.

This burden is compounded by the structural precarity that characterises much of academic employment. Fixed-term contracts, limited recourse for grievance, and the absence of institutional protection for politicised scholarship exacerbate the risks involved in Palestine-related advocacy. As Ahmed (Citation2013) argues, diversity is often performed through surface-level commitments that mask the disproportionate burdens placed on those who embody or resist dominant norms.

Theme 3: academic gatekeeping and systemic barriers

The third analytic theme highlights the role of academic gatekeeping as a structural mechanism of exclusion, particularly for scholars engaged in Palestinian advocacy within UK higher education. Across the data, this theme was developed through codes such as ‘discursive constraint,’ ‘institutional risk management,’ and ‘pre-emptive censorship,’ which together illustrate how fear of scrutiny, judgement, and professional retaliation shapes the academic environment. These conditions compel scholars to adopt self-censorship as a protective strategy, not merely in response to institutional caution, but as a consequence of structurally embedded constraints that reflect broader sociopolitical forces.

The current political context in the UK significantly contributes to these dynamics. The Prevent strategy, for example, has been widely criticised for its disproportionate targeting of Muslim communities (El-Enany Citation2020), and contributes to a climate in which advocacy for Palestine is read through the lens of national security. One journal entry illustrates this ongoing anxiety: ‘Even the act of writing feels defiant, as though each word carries the risk of professional isolation.’

This excerpt, coded under ‘self-monitoring’ and ‘political precarity,’ reflects the internalisation of surveillance and the reputational risks associated with Palestine-related research. Gatekeeping in this context does not take the form of explicit censorship alone but includes subtle institutional and interpersonal signals that shape what is considered acceptable academic inquiry.

Wolfe’s (Citation2006) theorisation of settler colonialism as an ongoing structure rather than a historical event is analytically useful here. Within academia, settler colonial logics persist in the marginalisation of Palestinian perspectives. This is evident in the limited availability of research funding, the strategic vagueness of ethics protocols and grant calls, and the discomfort surrounding the inclusion of Palestinian case studies in curriculum design. One reflective entry captures this discomfort: ‘Whenever I mention Palestine, the room feels heavier. People nod politely but quickly move on, as if engaging too deeply might invite controversy.’

This vignette, coded under ‘affective avoidance’ and ‘reluctance to engage,’ exemplifies how discursive norms are shaped by institutional power. Gatekeeping functions not only through the absence of institutional support but through the emotional atmospheres that discourage engagement.

Both explicit and implicit mechanisms contribute to this landscape. Explicitly, the absence of dedicated funding streams and the cautious language of institutional communications deter researchers from engaging with Palestine. Implicitly, rhetorical appeals to ‘balance’ and ‘objectivity’ operate as coded expectations that frame pro-Palestinian scholarship as politically charged and potentially destabilising. McGonigle Leyh’s (Citation2021) concept of academic denialism is particularly useful here, describing how institutions promote an illusion of neutrality to avoid confronting politically sensitive issues. As Hameiri and Nadler (Citation2017) argue, confronting historical injustice requires collective acknowledgment of harm—yet institutional discourse often favours avoidance over engagement, particularly in contexts where complicity would demand structural accountability. This dynamic is evident in one journal entry: ‘I know I need to make the language less confrontational for it to pass through the necessary channels. But every time I do, I feel like I am erasing the very people I’m trying to support.’

This internal conflict, coded under ‘language adaptation’ and ‘strategic depoliticisation,’ reflects a recurring theme across the dataset: the emotional toll of softening or sanitising empirically grounded terms like ‘genocide’ or ‘settler colonialism’ in order to make research publishable or institutionally palatable.

Litz et al.’s (Citation2009) notion of moral injury further clarifies this psychological burden, where scholars experience distress as they are compelled to compromise ethical commitments to preserve institutional standing or professional viability. The dissonance between moral conviction and institutional expectation produces sustained cognitive and emotional strain.

Ahmed’s (Citation2013) theory of affective economies deepens this analysis by highlighting how discomfort is circulated within academic spaces to enforce epistemic boundaries. In one example, following a seminar in which the psychological impact of violence on Palestinian children was mentioned, a colleague offered the following: ‘Be mindful of how this might come across.’

Such moments were consistently coded under ‘disciplinary ambiguity’ and ‘tone policing,’ revealing how vague, seemingly supportive feedback functions as a form of social control. These subtle mechanisms shape what topics are perceived as risky and encourage scholars to pre-emptively regulate their own speech.

The implications of this gatekeeping extend beyond individual researchers. Across reflective accounts and student interactions, it became clear that this culture also influences how students interpret the boundaries of academic freedom. One student shared: ‘I worry that even writing about Palestine might lead to me being flagged as a troublemaker.’

This statement, coded under ‘perceived surveillance’ and ‘student silencing,’ illustrates how institutional discomfort with Palestine is transmitted to students, narrowing their sense of what constitutes legitimate inquiry. When institutions signal—through omission, euphemism, or targeted caution—that Palestine is too political for the classroom, they contribute to a climate of epistemic exclusion. Research has shown that Palestinian students in Israeli academic settings often adopt spontaneous strategies to manage intergroup tensions and perceived surveillance—strategies that reflect both psychological resilience and systemic vulnerability (Faibish et al. Citation2023).

Bhambra (Citation2014) argues that universities continue to act as gatekeepers of knowledge legitimacy, preserving colonial hierarchies by regulating whose perspectives are visible and whose are marginalised. The findings here affirm this argument: attempts to include Palestinian examples in teaching materials were frequently met with warnings about political sensitivity or the need for ‘balance.’ In one instance, a formal complaint was lodged by a student uncomfortable with the inclusion of Palestinian case studies, despite their clear pedagogical relevance. The institutional response, which included increased scrutiny of teaching content, further reflected the internalised culture of caution.

Academic gatekeeping in the context of Palestine operates through a network of policies, expectations, and affective cues that together produce a disciplinary regime. This mirrors broader patterns observed in educational institutions globally, where censorship often operates through institutional norms and the sanitisation of politically sensitive content (Ayuningtyas et al. Citation2023).This is not a failure of academic neutrality but its function—neutrality becomes the language through which colonial hierarchies are protected. The psychological costs of navigating this landscape—self-censorship, moral injury, and professional marginalisation—demonstrate that these dynamics are not simply interpersonal but systemic. To dismantle these forms of epistemic exclusion, institutions must move beyond rhetorical inclusion and implement concrete protections for politically engaged scholarship that challenges dominant geopolitical alignments.

Across the three interrelated themes—institutional silence, emotional labour, and academic gatekeeping—the findings reveal a coherent system through which UK higher education institutions reproduce colonial power by regulating how Palestinian suffering can be acknowledged, engaged with, or even named. Rather than constituting isolated experiences, these dynamics operate collectively: silence is maintained through rhetorical sanitisation; emotional labour is demanded of those who resist it; and gatekeeping mechanisms codify which perspectives are deemed academically legitimate. This matrix of discursive, affective, and structural control functions not only to suppress political advocacy, but to delineate the very boundaries of knowledge production.

Discussion

The silence surrounding the Palestinian genocide within UK higher education is not an absence of institutional response but an active mechanism of epistemic violence. Drawing on critical autoethnographic analysis, this study reveals how institutional silence, emotional labour, and academic gatekeeping intersect to sustain colonial hierarchies, marginalise Palestinian narratives, and impose disproportionate psychological burdens on scholars engaged in anti-colonial advocacy. These dynamics are not discrete but mutually reinforcing, forming a patterned cycle of complicity that is embedded in both institutional discourse and academic norms. This discussion situates these findings within relevant theoretical frameworks, examines how the institutional invocation of neutrality functions as a political project, and concludes with reflections on policy, praxis, and the structural changes required for anti-colonial accountability in higher education.

Institutional silence as structural violence

Institutional silence within UK higher education functions not as a neutral omission but as a patterned expression of structural violence. In Galtung’s (Citation1969) formulation, structural violence refers to the systematic deprivation of recognition, participation, and resources for marginalised groups. In this study, institutional silence—particularly around the Palestinian genocide—was consistently interpreted as a mechanism that maintains colonial power while preserving the institutional illusion of neutrality. This was evident across coded communications that professed generic commitments to human rights while omitting any reference to the specific and asymmetrical violence experienced by Palestinians.

This omission was not an isolated rhetorical oversight but part of a broader institutional logic. Depoliticised language, such as framing the genocide as a ‘conflict,’ was repeatedly observed across statements and internal communications. This linguistic strategy operates to obscure the settler-colonial dynamics underlying the violence. Mbembe’s (Citation2003) concept of necropolitics is particularly relevant here, illustrating how institutions participate in the geopolitical governance of suffering by designating which lives are publicly recognised as grievable. The findings indicate that Palestinian lives are systematically devalued through this selective silence. As Butler (Citation2009) argues, recognition of loss is never neutral; it is always mediated by dominant political interests. Institutional silence, in this context, becomes an active process of racialised dehumanisation.

These dynamics were not confined to formal communications but also permeated day-to-day academic life. Thematic codes such as ‘discursive discomfort’ and ‘deflected engagement’ were frequently applied to journal entries recounting academic meetings, seminars, and internal discussions. In these contexts, attempts to raise Palestinian suffering were often met with visible unease or redirection. This aligns with Tuck and Yang’s (Citation2012) notion of epistemicide, wherein settler institutions erase indigenous knowledge systems by rendering them unthinkable within formal discourse. The result is not only silence, but the enforcement of silence—a form of affective control that marks certain truths as professionally inadvisable.

Institutional defences of this silence often centre on the invocation of neutrality, premised on the belief that academic spaces must remain politically impartial (Altbach Citation2016). Yet the findings suggest that neutrality is applied selectively. As Butler (Citation2009) contends, neutrality in the face of ongoing violence is not impartial but complicit. Institutions that rapidly issued solidarity statements in response to events such as the war in Ukraine remained silent on the Palestinian genocide. This inconsistency was interpreted across the dataset as evidence of geopolitical alignment rather than institutional impartiality. Codes such as ‘selective recognition’ and ‘rhetorical asymmetry’ reflect this patterned differentiation in how institutional empathy is distributed.

The cost of this selective neutrality is not only epistemic but also psychological. Multiple data entries captured the emotional strain experienced by scholars advised to ‘maintain balance’ when discussing Palestinian trauma—despite using rigorous and established academic frameworks. Fraser’s (Citation1990) theory of misrecognition helps explain how such guidance operates as a form of exclusion. By framing Palestinian advocacy as inherently contentious, institutions deny affected scholars the right to fully participate in academic life on equal terms. Meanwhile, other forms of social justice work are welcomed within the bounds of institutional respectability.

The silence surrounding Palestine is not simply a lack of response—it is a patterned strategy that regulates what can be spoken, who is allowed to speak, and which forms of suffering are institutionally acknowledged. It is both a product of colonial structures and a practice that continues to uphold them. Within UK higher education, this silence works to contain dissent, obscure injustice, and maintain the appearance of neutrality while actively enabling complicity.

The emotional labour of advocacy

Advocating for Palestinian rights within UK higher education involves a sustained form of emotional labour that is structurally imposed and institutionally unsupported. This labour is not incidental to advocacy work; it is embedded within the expectations, constraints, and silences that shape academic life. As Hochschild (Citation1983) conceptualises, emotional labour entails the management of feeling to meet external demands—in this case, the professional, reputational, and interpersonal pressures that discourage open engagement with Palestine. The findings suggest that this labour is disproportionately borne by minoritised scholars, particularly those who are visibly Muslim or racially marked, and is sustained by broader institutional cultures of avoidance and reputational caution.

This burden is amplified by racialised forms of scrutiny. Drawing on Fanon (Citation1963), it becomes clear that racialised scholars are often treated as politically suspect when they speak about justice, particularly in relation to colonial violence. The data reflect how expressions of solidarity are read through lenses of suspicion, and how visibility as a Muslim academic intensifies perceptions of bias. Recent work by Hamdonah and Joseph (Citation2024) underscores this pattern, showing that Muslim academics face intensified scrutiny when addressing state violence or resistance to empire. Within such contexts, emotional labour becomes entangled with racialisation, producing a heightened need for self-surveillance and cautious navigation of academic discourse.

Beyond the personal toll, emotional labour also manifests in the informal responsibilities scholars take on to support students. The findings demonstrate that staff often felt obligated to help students address Palestine in their academic work, while shielding them from the institutional risks such engagement can attract. This aligns with Ahmed’s (Citation2013) critique of diversity work: the institutional expectation that marginalised staff will absorb the emotional and political costs of inclusion. Supporting students, in this context, becomes part of a broader affective economy in which emotional care is quietly outsourced and invisibilised.

This emotional burden also produces what Litz et al. (Citation2009) term moral injury—the psychological distress that arises when scholars are compelled to dilute or suppress their ethical commitments in order to meet professional expectations. The pressure to adopt ‘neutral’ language or avoid terms such as ‘genocide’ or ‘settler colonialism,’ despite their empirical and theoretical validity, contributes to a climate in which moral clarity is traded for institutional safety. This tension is not simply distressing—it also plays a role in sustaining institutional silence, as scholars withdraw or disengage to preserve their positions and wellbeing.

The emotional labour of advocacy, then, is not only a personal cost—it is a structural mechanism that enables institutional complicity. By placing the burden of care, restraint, and resistance on marginalised staff, higher education institutions avoid confronting their own political commitments. Rather than disrupting systems of power, emotional labour is folded back into them, becoming part of the infrastructure that maintains the very silences and exclusions it seeks to contest.

Academic gatekeeping as epistemic violence

Academic gatekeeping functions as a pervasive mechanism of epistemic violence, one that systematically marginalises Palestinian scholarship while upholding the appearance of academic neutrality. The findings suggest that gatekeeping is not confined to individual acts of censorship, but is embedded within institutional systems—funding decisions, peer review processes, and informal academic cultures—that work to regulate what can be studied, said, or legitimised. This institutional containment mirrors broader patterns of depoliticisation observed in Palestinian civil society, where resistance is increasingly channelled into apolitical, liberal frameworks that align with donor expectations (Alashqar Citation2018).These mechanisms do not operate independently of broader political contexts; they are shaped by the same colonial structures that govern geopolitical discourse.

Wolfe’s (Citation2006) theory of settler colonialism offers a useful lens for understanding how this exclusion is reproduced. Settler colonialism, as an ongoing structure rather than a historical event, relies on the continual erasure of indigenous and occupied peoples from dominant narratives. Within UK higher education, this logic is reproduced through the systematic sidelining of Palestinian perspectives in research design, publication, and curriculum. This aligns with what Maldonado-Torres (Citation2007) describes as the ‘coloniality of being’—the continuation of colonial domination through the regulation of who is allowed to know, speak, and exist within dominant epistemological frameworks.The findings indicate that research proposals centred on Palestine are often subjected to intensified scrutiny, with scholars encouraged to dilute political language or generalise their focus to avoid perceived controversy. This practice reflects Fraser’s (Citation1990) notion of misrecognition, whereby marginalised voices are denied full epistemic participation, and their contributions are rendered incompatible with the norms of academic legitimacy.

These dynamics extend beyond formal structures and into informal professional interactions. The findings highlight how scholars advocating for Palestine are often advised by colleagues to avoid contentious topics, alter their framing, or choose less politically fraught subjects—an institutionalised form of caution that serves to reproduce silence. McGonigle Leyh’s (Citation2021) concept of academic denialism captures this process: the strategic suppression of politically inconvenient knowledge through encouragements to self-censor. Rather than outright bans, institutions cultivate atmospheres in which certain topics are rendered too risky to pursue, too provocative to publish, or too divisive to teach. These conditions reflect a broader erosion of academic freedom, whereby political speech—particularly that which challenges dominant geopolitical alignments—is policed through institutional mechanisms of reputational risk and informal sanction (American Association of University Professors Citation2015; Weiner Citation2022).

This denialism is particularly stark when juxtaposed with the growing institutional discourse around decolonising the curriculum. While many universities publicly champion the expansion of scholarly diversity, the findings of this study suggest that these commitments often function as non-performative acts (Ahmed Citation2013)—gestures that signal change without enacting it. The exclusion of Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian intellectual contributions from core academic texts and discussions persists, even in disciplines with deep historical ties to Arabic scholarship. These practices align with what Quijano (Citation2000) theorises as the ‘coloniality of power,’ wherein Eurocentric systems of knowledge continue to structure what is considered legitimate scholarship, marginalising perspectives that challenge dominant geopolitical narratives.This institutional discomfort with Palestine reflects what Said (Citation2003) describes as the production of knowledge through imperial logics—where academic legitimacy is shaped by geopolitical power and colonial histories. As Saliba (Citation2007) reminds us, foundational knowledge in fields such as mathematics, medicine, and philosophy is deeply indebted to Arabic intellectual traditions—yet these contributions are routinely absent from mainstream curricula. The persistence of this exclusion exposes the selective, politically expedient nature of contemporary decolonisation efforts.

In this context, academic gatekeeping is not simply a barrier to individual scholars. It operates as a disciplinary logic that delineates the boundaries of permissible knowledge, shaping how institutions respond to power, dissent, and colonial accountability. By restricting Palestinian scholarship—whether through funding limitations, professional risk, or institutional discomfort—UK higher education continues to reproduce the very hierarchies it claims to contest.

The interplay of silence, labour, and gatekeeping

The findings of this study illustrate that institutional silence, emotional labour, and academic gatekeeping are not discrete phenomena. Rather, they operate as interdependent mechanisms that collectively reinforce the marginalisation of Palestinian narratives within UK higher education. Their interplay reflects what Wolfe (Citation2006) describes as the structural logic of settler colonialism—a system that sustains its dominance by continuously adapting to suppress dissent and exclude indigenous perspectives from mainstream academic discourse.

Institutional silence creates the conditions for this cycle by framing Palestinian advocacy as reputationally risky and politically divisive. This framing not only suppresses institutional acknowledgement but also cultivates an environment of caution, where critical engagement is treated as transgressive. Within this climate, scholars are compelled to carry out extensive emotional labour—internally managing fear, frustration, and ethical conflict while externally supporting students navigating similar risks. This labour is not incidental; it is structured by the institution’s refusal to engage meaningfully with Palestine.

Academic gatekeeping consolidates this cycle by formalising what is considered appropriate knowledge and professional conduct. Through funding decisions, peer review processes, and informal social cues, institutions encourage avoidance, linguistic dilution, and strategic silence. These mechanisms work together to uphold an epistemic hierarchy that protects dominant narratives and limits the visibility, legitimacy, and institutional safety of Palestinian scholarship.

These processes do not merely reflect institutional complicity—they reproduce it. Silence enables containment; emotional labour absorbs the fallout; and gatekeeping ensures the boundaries remain intact. In doing so, UK higher education institutions perpetuate the very structures of exclusion that their public commitments to justice and decolonisation claim to dismantle.

Limitations and implications

This study offers a situated and reflexive account of how institutional silence, emotional labour, and academic gatekeeping intersect to marginalise Palestinian advocacy within UK higher education. The analysis is grounded in a single researcher’s lived experiences, analysed through a critical autoethnographic lens. As such, it does not claim generalisability, nor does it aim to represent all institutional or individual experiences. However, the patterns identified—selective recognition, moral injury, and epistemic denialism—reflect structural conditions that are not confined to one setting. Rather than presenting a universal account, this research seeks to contribute to a broader body of work documenting the ways in which higher education institutions participate in and perpetuate colonial violence. Its value lies in offering a theorised account that may be transferable to other contexts, particularly those involving minoritised scholars navigating politically sensitive terrains.

While autoethnography enables a depth of analysis often obscured in more distanced methodologies, its reliance on personal narrative does limit the scope of institutional perspectives that can be included. Further work could address this by bringing together multiple autoethnographic voices across institutions, disciplines, and identities, particularly those of scholars who are Palestinian, Black, Muslim, or racialised within the academy. Such collaborative accounts would allow for a more comprehensive mapping of how institutional complicity is experienced and sustained across the sector.

The implications of this study point clearly to the need for structural change. If higher education institutions are to move beyond rhetorical commitments to equity and decolonisation, they must begin by recognising the ways in which they actively participate in epistemic violence. Protecting scholars who work on Palestine requires more than gestures of support; it demands robust policies that offer protection against reputational risk, informal retaliation, and institutional isolation. This includes the development of transparent mechanisms for reporting censorship or harassment, the allocation of funding for decolonial research agendas, and a fundamental reassessment of how government-led frameworks—such as Prevent—have reshaped the boundaries of academic freedom and critical engagement.

Institutions must also commit to embedding Palestinian and other marginalised perspectives within the curriculum, not as a matter of representational inclusion, but as a necessary step towards epistemic justice. These perspectives should be treated as integral to disciplinary knowledge, not as politically fraught exceptions. Without such reforms, universities risk reinforcing the very colonial hierarchies they claim to dismantle.

Conclusion: breaking the silence—Reclaiming academic integrity

This study has examined how institutional silence, emotional labour, and academic gatekeeping work in concert to marginalise Palestinian advocacy and preserve colonial structures within UK higher education. These mechanisms, often disguised as professional caution or political neutrality, constitute a form of epistemic violence that not only erases Palestinian narratives but also disciplines those who seek to speak them. When institutions avoid naming genocide, suppress dissenting scholarship, and outsource the emotional cost of their silence to marginalised staff, they do not remain neutral—they reproduce harm.

To claim a commitment to academic freedom and social justice while refusing to confront these conditions is to engage in a politics of convenience. If universities are to maintain any claim to intellectual and ethical integrity, they must move beyond symbolic inclusion and take seriously the material consequences of their omissions. As Butler (Citation2009) argues, silence is never apolitical. Within the context of Palestine, it becomes a strategy of deferral—one that protects institutional reputation at the expense of truth and justice.

The responsibility for change lies not with those who are most impacted by institutional silence, but with those who benefit from its protections. Academic integrity cannot be sustained through neutrality that obscures violence; it must be reclaimed through deliberate, structural action. That responsibility is urgent—and it is long overdue.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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