Literature Review

Key Themes and Analysis

The Landscape of Student Activism

Historical Context of Student Activism

Student activism in the United States has always had a profound impact on national dialogue for a number of issues by shifting public perception, demanding policy changes, and challenging institutional and governmental authority. Throughout U.S. history, students and their activism have wielded significant power by bringing awareness to issues in ways others could not. As such, the student protests against the genocide in Gaza over the past year are part of a long history of overwhelming student influence on the broader history of the United States. In 1970, escalations of a student protest against the Vietnam War at Kent State University led to a three day stand off with the Ohio National Guard armed with tear gas and military grade weapons (Lewis & Hensley, 1998). Ultimately, the National Guard killed four Kent State students on May 4th, 1970, and injured nine more (Lewis & Hensley, 1998). The National Guard shootings at Kent State live on in national memory as a tragedy, and remain a grave lesson for both the U.S. government and university administrators. Additionally, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1969, the Black Student Movement shut down the campus to demand the creation of a Black Studies Department and the recruitment of more Black professors and students. This demonstration, a part of a national mobilization at universities, was met with violent police involvement and institutional disciplinary actions, with the local police beating and jailing students, while many faced expulsion from the university (Lenoir & Luce, 2024). In 1964, the Berkeley Free Speech Movement led by Mario Savio countered new campus regulations that had banned political activities near campus by protesting, organizing sit-ins, and occupying Sproul Hall (Aichinger, 2009). Success in changing and even removing problematic school policies demonstrate the unique capacity of student organizing to mobilize large-scale movements that command national attention while highlighting the inclination of universities to mobilize police and hamper free speech.

Student Activism on Palestine and other Global Issues

These previous student movements set an important precedent for today's pro-Palestine campus movement. As students constructed large scale pro-Palestine demonstrations on university and college campuses across the country, many scholars noted strong connections to past anti-colonial and anti-war movements. At Columbia University in 1968, students occupied Hamilton Hall to demand an end to the university's violent gentrification of Harlem as well as the United States involvement in the Vietnam War (Kaiser, 2024; CCCCT). Later, in 1985, students named it Mandela Hall to protest South African apartheid. On April 30, 2024, pro-Palestnian protestors occupied Hamilton Hall renaming it "Hind's Hall" in honor of six-year old Hind Rajab who was killed alongside her family by Israeli forces in Gaza (Al Jazeera, 2024). Student activists at over 100 schools assembled encampments to demand divestment, with some success. Universities such as University of California, Riverside addressed investment transparency while agreeing to not only begin a process to review endowment investments, but also terminate a study abroad program to Israel within the business school. In other cases, university police and state troopers used pepper spray, tear gas, and batons to attack students while administration hampered free speech through restrictions on student organizations and events. History reveals that student encampments have been a powerful tactic for disrupting college campuses, most notably during the anti-apartheid movement, which contributed to the passage of the Anti-Apartheid Act in 1986, and for exposing universities' ties to injustice while demanding immediate institutional accountability (Lenoir & Luce, 2024).

Trends in the Nature and Scale of Activism

The current pro-Palestine student movements represent an amalgamation of emerging digital activism and historically informed tactics of physical disruption. Technology has taken a pivotal role in student activism, as a means of spreading information and garnering support and national attention. The Black Lives Matter movement, represented on social media by the slogan #BlackLivesMatter represented an important shift in organizing capabilities; using popular sites such as Twitter and Facebook, activists were able to exponentially increase involvement and awareness of their struggles and facilitate broader connections for in-person activism (Lee, 2018). Additionally, behind the scenes dialogue on campuses concerning the creation of inclusive spaces for students of color has fostered greater empowerment of student voices and emphasized the importance of marginalized voices in institutional settings (Tobar, n.d.). These recent precedents of student activism have broken the ground for pro-Palestine student organizers to amass large movements via digital awareness and campaigns, with which they could hold more effective in person protests. Gopalan (2024) writes about the unique ability of the pro-Palestine student movements, and specifically the encampments, to create a crisis on campus which captured the attention and concern of national media. Additionally, Gopalan (2024) writes about the abilities of the pro-Palestine student movements to shift in tactics from encampments to occupying buildings as escalations, as well as study-ins and sit-ins when the administration has cracked down harshly, the intended goal being to make their presence known in spite of harsh university backlash.

University Responses to Activism

Analysis of University Policy Documents and Statements

While the recent student movements reminded the U.S. public of student power through their mass mobilizations and steadfast resolve to continue organizing, universities have responded unfavorably to the activists by establishing new policies limiting student protests and speech. Many universities including Columbia University, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and the University of Maryland have revisited their time, place and manner restrictions for student expression, implementing language which effectively prohibits student protests due to their vague and expansive qualities (Sainath, 2024; Hamilton, 2024). In many cases student expression must be approved by universities, and multiple institutions use the reasoning of ensuring access to buildings to justify these extreme oversights (Sainath, 2024). Under the time, place and manner umbrella, several universities including the University of Connecticut, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California, and Vanderbilt University have created policies that specifically ban student encampments or overnight demonstrations (Rosenband, 2024). Furthermore, colleges and universities have revised their student codes of conduct to restrict speech and practices that were a part of the student demonstrations: New York University and Barnard College implemented new conduct expectations that claim that certain uses of the word "Zionist" or "Zionism" violate anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, the University of Virginia and James Madison University now list requirements that students wearing masks identify themselves, and Cornell University instituted new specific disciplinary consequences for code violations (Rosenband, 2024). The new student codes regarding the use of "Zionist" and "Zionism" echo an emerging dialogue on campuses around antisemitism and discrimination as countless university administrators have labelled anti-Zionist student activism as antisemitic (Brown. 2025; Jones. 2024; Sainath, 2024). For example, Columbia University formed a task force on antisemitism with the goal of establishing new social norms on campus around a new definition of antisemitism which specifically includes Israeli identity and ties to Israel (Columbia University, 2024). According to Wald (2024) the move by universities to attack these student movement as antisemitic is based on a gross amalgamation of false history.

Patterns in Disciplinary Action

Along with sudden changes of policy and student codes of conduct in the months following the encampments movement, universities enacted various immediate disciplinary responses against student activists including use of intensified police force against students and institutional disciplinary actions. Police departments across the United States have arrested over 3,200 student activists in relation to the encampments and sit-in movements of last spring (Weill-Greenburg et. al, 2024). Most of these arrests were made in widespread sweeps of the student movements in which police frequently deployed tear gas and rubber bullets, causing severe injuries, such as on the UCLA campus, and Virginia Commonwealth University (Weill-Greenburg et. al, 2024; Crowd Counting Consortium, 2024). Along with threats of suspension and using the vague warning of the possibility of disciplinary hearings as a looming threat against student protesters, universities such as Pomona College, George Washington University, Princeton University, Vanderbilt University, and Washington University at St. Louis did actually suspend student protesters at the encampments (Gopalan, 2024; Treismann, et. al 2024). Sanaith (2024) argues that this treatment is unique and singles out the pro-Palestine student movement. The ways in which universities are hastily changing school policy to effectively ban certain political speech, and justify mass suspensions and disciplinary punishments for student pro-Palestine protesters did not happen in response to climate change protests which called for divestment using similar tactics (Sanaith 2024).

Example Case Studies

Universities around the U.S. made different decisions regarding student speech on campuses and presented a complicated narrative. The line between support and rejection of student free speech frequently blurred as universities pushed students to disassemble the encampments. At universities like UCLA and Columbia, quick and brutal police involvement shut down the encampments with little room for students to negotiate and present a picture of an administration that sought to end student speech at all costs (Gopalan 2024). Many universities which held negotiations, seemingly supporting student speech to the extent that they didn't immediately sweep encampments, did not however attempt to consider the student's most pressing demands for divestment, and sought rather to threaten punishments and offer minor concessions like representation and immunity (Gopalan 2024; Treisman et. al, 2024). Ultimately, these patterns revealed that while many universities agreed to negotiations, they did not intend to take the student's demands of divestment seriously, and sought rather to end the encampment through offering concessions. Further examples are highlighted in the University Profiles section of the report.

The Role of External Actors and Legal Considerations

Political and Donor Advocacy Groups

Lobbying groups have long influenced public discourse, policy making, and in the case of student protests, university environments on the topic of Israel and Palestine, At its core, lobbying is the act of persuading government officials by "attempt[ing] to influence some action proposed to be taken" (Garner, 2019). Since this is considered a form of petition to the government, this act is protected by the First Amendment, but is regulated by Congress using registration, mandatory reporting, and disclosures (Legal Information Institute, n.d.). The Israel Lobby was born in 1954, six years after the State of Israel declared independence, in response to the massacre of sixty Palestinian villagers in Qibya, aiming to defend the Israeli state on the international stage, but specifically the United States. It was dedicated initially to advancing Zionism, weapons sales, and government assistance to Israel. Organizations within the lobby include the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs, now named AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) (Rossinow, 2018). Professor Stephen M. Walt and John J. Mearsheimer at the University of Chicago and Harvard University highlight the abnormal intensity of Israel and the United States' relationship since the formation of the Israel Lobby. Israel has long been the leading recipient of U.S. foreign aid, particularly in military assistance, often receiving its entire annual appropriation at the start of the fiscal year. This aid is subject to limited oversight, even when used to support settlement activity in the West Bank. Support for Israel is often aligned with counterterrorism, often misrepresenting the narrative of Palestinian resistance as violent while diminishing the ongoing campaign to colonize the West Bank and Gaza Strip (Walt & Mearsheimer, 2006). The Israel Lobby works adamantly to silence pro-Palestinian speech in ways that suppress protected speech. Examples include: 1) AIPAC investing millions of dollars in campaigns against Congresswoman Cori Bush's and Congressman Jamal Bowman because they championed Palestinian justice in Congress (Khouri, 2024). 2) ADL welcoming a congressional resolution defining anti-Zionism as Anti-semitism while actively working with law enforcement to develop legal strategies to sanction Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) groups across the country (Guyer & Perkins, 2024). 3) Brandeis Center for Human Rights under Law suing students at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Columbia University accusing them of advancing Hamas's terror agenda in the United States and organizing antisemitic encampments and attacks on campus (Fellig, 2025).

Legal Threats and Legislative Interventions

In March of 2025, the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights sent letters to 60 universities warning of "potential enforcement actions if institutions do not fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus (U.S. Department of Education). Some schools mentioned included Arizona State University, Columbia University, Northwestern University, Rutgers University, and University of California, Berkeley (U.S. Department of Education). If passed in the Senate, The Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 (H.R.6090) would require the Office of Civil Rights to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) definition of antisemitism which conflates criticism of the state of Israel with antisemitism. The codification of this definition would reinforce hampering of free speech especially on campuses. On the state level, several bills have been introduced such as Senate Bill 470 and House Bill 465 in Florida which would strip students of financial aid " if they promote a foreign terrorist organization" (Atterbury, 2023). Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida even attempted to disband Students for Justice in Palestine insinuating they were providing material assistance to Hamas (Farrington & Binkley, 2023). In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott signed an executive order in March 2024 which directs universities to "review and update free speech policies to address the sharp rise in antisemitic speech" citing expulsion as an appropriate response to those that violate such policies (Govindarao, 2024). Furthermore, Senate Bill 326 and and House Bill 2102 would require universities to use the IHRA definition of antisemitism in their disciplinary policies making students receive the same punishment the universities enforces for actions "motivated by racism" (Priest & Dey, 2025). In New York, Logan Rozos, a graduating senior at New York University who veered from his original commencement speech to highlight the atrocities in Gaza (Offenhartz, 2025). Universities and state governments continue to wrongly associate slogans such as "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free" with antisemitism and opposition to the Israeli government and Palestinian liberation as terrorism. While they reinforce their commitment to protecting free speech, their actions directly oppose that or only protect a select few.

Federal Government Involvement and Trump-Era Precedents

The federal government significantly shapes political discourse while influencing how universities respond to pro-Palestine activism. The Biden administration response to protests was wholly inadequate and failed to recognize the vilification of pro-Palestinian student activists — framing protestors as violent and addressing rising antisemitism without mention of Islamophobia and both physical and online attacks on pro-Palestinian students. The Trump administration continues to further undermine protections through various pathways including executive orders, reviving dormant legislation, and federal funding threats. In January 2025, President Trump signed an executive order titled "Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism" that expands on Executive Order 13899 from 2019 directing government agencies to use and enforce the IHRA definition of antisemitism (Exec. Order No. 13899, 2019). This followed Executive Order 14161, which references the Immigrant and Nationality Act of 1952 and directs rigorous vetting of incoming "aliens" and their ideological beliefs to justify exclusion or removal of non-citizens (Exec. Order No. 14161, 2025). Scholars cite these measures as "authoritarian" and reflective of a "surveillance" state (Palestine Legal, 2025). Use of immigration enforcement has been key in the Trump administration's approach to repressing pro-Palestinian activism. The Immigrant Nationality Act mentioned in recent executive orders stems from the 1950 McCarran Internal Security Act which is rooted in excluding or deporting non-citizens on the basis of protecting U.S. national security interests (Campi, 2004). This law was historically invoked in the case of the LA 8 in 1987 — eight pro-Palestinian student immigrants who were arrested and targeted for deportation. More recently, students such as Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Madawi, Palestinian and Yemeni graduate students at Columbia University, and Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish Fulbright scholar at Tufts University, were detained and faced similar visa cancellations for leading pro-Palestine organizing or writing an op-ed about their university's response to Gaza protests (Quinn & Rosen, 2025). These cases underscore how immigration policy is once again being weaponized to silence dissent. Stripping federal funding from major universities is another tactic the Trump administration is using. On March 13, 2025, President Trump sent a letter to Columbia University's Board of Trustees threatening to cut off $400 million in federal funding unless the university adopted stricter disciplinary policies, placed the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS) department under federal oversight, and defined anti-Zionist activism as antisemitism. Columbia's acceptance of these demands marked increased federal intervention, undermining faculty autonomy and expanding institutional repression, including granting campus police arrest powers and banning protest face masks (Closson, 2025). The labeling of student protesters as "antisemitic mobs" functions to delegitimize and criminalize Palestine solidarity movements (Quilantan, 2025). Together, these state-led actions shape an institutional environment that suppresses student organizing, curtails academic freedom, and places constitutional rights, particularly freedom of expression, at serious risk.