Anti-Palestinian Racism Prevalent Across University and College Campuses

Universities and colleges across the US are committing racist aggressions against Palestinians and their allies and it must stop.

May 9, 2024 – Students of diverse racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds at Columbia University organized a protest on the campus lawn of their university several weeks ago. Their request was for Columbia to divest from companies with ties to Israel because of Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children and civilians including indiscriminate bombing, using starvation as a weapon of war, and denial of humanitarian assistance. Additionally, they are protesting Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands, apartheid, acts of genocide and grave human rights violations.

Instead of supporting their students’ attempts to end violence and human rights abuses, Columbia University officials reacted with racism. They deemed peaceful protestors as inherently “threatening” and called the police to arrest and forcibly remove students. This action compelled thousands of students on hundreds of campuses throughout the country to rise up in support of Palestinian human rights and freedom.

Anti-Palestinian racism is a distinct form of racism that “silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes, defames or dehumanizes Palestinians or their narratives.”¹

This is not the first time students have protested to encourage their universities to divest. Student-led protests have led to divestment from fossil-fuel companies and from South Africa during apartheid. Nor is this the first time students have been arrested for standing against human rights abuses and crimes against humanity. Students believe, however, that they are being treated differently now. Our research on anti-Palestinian racism shows they might be right.

Through our work as pediatricians and mental health specialists, we began to realize that anti-Palestinian racism was affecting many more people than just the few Palestinians in the US.

One of the most profound examples came from a middle school counselor that reported a Jewish student who was horrified by the killing of Palestinian children in Gaza. The student felt isolated and alone in his concern, was too afraid to speak out and was experiencing mental health effects.

In order to better understand the prevalence and impact of this form of racism, we conducted a nation-wide study.² The results were astonishing.

We found that anti-Palestinian racism was pervasive with almost 90% of respondents experiencing or witnessing this form of racism.³

We also found that it occurred in the most significant sectors of society, including school, from faculty, staff and students and at work from supervisors and colleagues. 

This is manifesting across campuses all over the country. Defamation of Palestinian students and their non-Palestinian allies with slander that they are inherently antisemitic for standing up for Palestinian rights is pervasive.⁴ These racist claims can be seen across media outlets, speeches of elected officials, and in the response of school leaders. Abu Laban and Bakan wrote “Palestinians are victim-blamed, by discourses which [wrongfully] present them as … ‘anti-semitic’, and ‘undemocratic’.”⁵

The students at universities are themselves identifying and attempting to combat this form of racism with Jewish student protestors joining the frontlines and calling out “this attempt to weaponize antisemitism.”⁶ ⁷ This racism manifested in brutal attacks by pro-Israel pro-war backers on peaceful student protestors at UCLA.⁸

Anti-Palestinian racism is a form of Cultural Racism.

Cultural Racism is a societal-wide racism that centers Whiteness as the standard, the norm, and regular, while relegating Black, Indigenous, and Brown people to racial stereotypes. There are numerous forms of Cultural Racism that are perpetuated regularly as normal discourse in numerous US society sectors, including the media, education, law, healthcare, and entertainment.⁹

Cultural Racism against Palestinians can take the form of stereotypes that wrongly characterize Palestinians as violent, hateful or as being un-American. Assuming Palestinians are inherently against Israel as a country rather than against Israel because it is an oppressive, apartheid state that has shown plausible evidence of genocide is another form of anti-Palestinian racism. This is rooted in false beliefs and false narratives.

The college students, professors, and staff who are advocating for Palestinian human rights are experiencing this form of cultural racism as they advocate for the human rights of Palestinians and condemn the violence and starvation tactics the Israeli government is using as weapons of war. Pro-Palestinian rights is not the same as being anti-Israeli or anti-Jewish and many Israelis and Jewish people support Palestinian rights. Anti-Palestinian racism propagates an “us versus them” mentality that is meant to silence discourse.

Anti-Palestinian racism is distinct from Islamophobia and affects people regardless of their race, religion or ethnic background.

Another form of anti-Palestinian racism, erasing the human dignity of Palestinians, is being implemented at every level: individually, institutionally, by organizations on-campus and by outside groups. This creates fear which contributes significantly to the silencing and erasing Palestinians and their narratives.

The APRRG study found anti-Palestinian racism to be pervasive with almost 90% of respondents reporting experiencing or witnessing this form of racism¹⁰ and almost three quarters feeling isolated, alone or afraid.

Students are being targeted on an individual level by increased policing, arrests, intimidation and fear tactics on campuses throughout the country.¹² On-campus organizations have sent messages stating protestors are “fostering hate and discrimination” although protestors have made it clear that they are attempting to end hate and discrimination, stop violence and uphold the human rights of Palestinians.

Rhetoric like this creates fear, dehumanizes Palestinians and their allies and contributes to an atmosphere that propagates racism and hatred. It also completely ignores the fact that many Israelis, the majority of Americans and the plurality of Jewish people in America do not support the horrific crimes the Israeli government is inflicting on Palestinians and are in favor of a permanent ceasefire.

“At its core, [anti-Palestinian racism] aims to censor and erase Palestinians and their narratives from the public sphere either directly through punitive measures or indirectly by eliciting fear of punitive measures to deter anyone from sharing Palestinian narratives.”¹²

Finally, outside organizations are contributing to this form of racism with attempts to intimidate and censor Palestinian voices and narratives. For example, some organizations identify accusations of “silencing” as antisemitic.

However, silencing of Palestinian voices is a documented form of anti-Palestinian racism.¹³

In addition, Human Rights Watch recently described the systemic silencing of Palestinian voices by Meta. In another example, the ACLU discussed the “Unconstitutional Silencing of Pro-Palestinian Groups.” In fact, in a letter to Congress, Jewish students who support Palestinian human rights also talked about being silenced.

Almost three quarters of our study respondents reported mental or physical health effects from experiencing or witnessing anti-Palestinian racism.¹⁵

To be sure, universities need to protect all their students but that is not what they are doing. In fact, they are doing the exact opposite by actively propagating racism against their students, faculty and staff, increasing fear and adding to the well known and harmful effects of cultural racism.¹⁶

By equating advocacy for Palestinian rights with threats to Jewish rights, organizations and individuals effectively erase the dignity and humanity of Palestinians and their allies. These attempts, to derail and distract from the injustices and inequality Palestinians face every day, aim to dehumanize and demoralize Palestinians and their allies.

Professor Spain Bradley of UCLA once said, “Racism is a tool of oppression that has global reach. It works by dehumanizing individuals and communities, not only by denying their inherent equality and dignity, but doing so on the basis of a constructed category of race, designed for the very purpose of separating humans into a hierarchy, meant to permanently elevate some and suppress many.”¹⁷

This racism needs to stop immediately. Instead, colleges and universities need to protect the students who are actively advocating for an end to violence against Palestinians. They must raise awareness of anti-Palestinian racism. Rather than deploying militarized police to intimidate and arrest their students, they should actively create and implement plans to end racism against Palestinian students and their allies. In addition, they need to recognize the harmful mental and physical effects of anti-Palestinian racism and provide support services for those affected by it.

By learning about, understanding and recognizing anti-Palestinian racism, colleges and universities can better combat this pervasive and pernicious form of cultural racism against Palestinians and their non-Palestinian allies.