Text messages showed Hagerty texting the student encampment organizers’ faculty liaison, management professor Nour Kteily, who pledged to get those organizers “some amazing wins.”

By Jessica Schwalb, The Washington Free Beacon

Northwestern University provost Kathleen Hagerty, who suggested she would be willing to boycott Israeli products to make a “deal” with student encampment organizers, will leave her post by the end of the academic year, Northwestern announced.

Hagerty, who has served as Northwestern’s chief academic officer since 2020, said she will “move on to the next phase of my career with full confidence that the University will continue to support world-class teaching and research.”

Northwestern will “soon name a search committee” to identify her replacement, and Hagerty “will help with the transition to the new provost.”

The announcement comes in the wake of another top Northwestern leader’s departure: Michael Schill, who last spring became the first university president to strike a deal with encampment organizers.

He faced intense scrutiny for doing so, including from the House Committee on Education and Workforce, which released a transcript of its August interview with Schill on September 4, the same day Schill resigned.

The interview centered on Schill’s response to the encampment, but Schill was not the only university leader implicated in the committee’s investigation.

Text messages cited in the interview showed Hagerty texting the student encampment organizers’ faculty liaison, management professor Nour Kteily, who pledged to get those organizers “some amazing wins.”

Hagerty told Kteily that if the students “really cared about actual divestment” from Israel, one of their demands to end the encampment, “then they need the patience to actually do the work and make it happen.”

She also told him it would be “pretty easy” to boycott the sale of Sabra hummus on campus, adding, “I’m all for making a deal.”

Schill defended Hagerty, telling the House committee that Hagerty viewed the encampment as a “teachable moment” and does not support a boycott against Israel.

Advocacy groups like the Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern disagreed, calling for her resignation.

The group applauded Hagerty’s stepping down, saying in a Friday statement that it “caps years of institutional decline at a university now facing federal investigations, frozen research funding, and mounting congressional scrutiny for its handling of antisemitism.”

The Trump administration froze nearly $800 million in federal funding for Northwestern in April amid a Department of Education investigation into anti-Semitism at the school.

The Department of Health and Human Services launched its own civil rights probe of Northwestern one month later, citing “systemic concerns” about the school’s ability “not to discriminate against Jewish students.”

Illegal anti-Israel protests have continued at Northwestern this year.

Activists vandalized the building that houses the school’s Holocaust center as Jewish students observed Passover in April, writing messages like “Death to Israel” and “Intifada Now!” in red spray paint.

Around the same time, the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter held an anarchist training session in which members studied propaganda from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist group, urging them to “build an Intifada” and “destroy amerika.”

Northwestern maintains a satellite campus in Hamas-friendly Qatar, which opened in 2008.

Its contract with Qatar effectively forbids students and faculty from criticizing the Qatari regime, Schill’s House interview revealed.

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Defense attorney Amir Makled said the attorney general was trying to turn free speech into a crime.

By The Associated Press

State prosecutors dropped felony charges Monday against seven people accused of trespassing and resisting police a year ago during the break-up of an anti-Israel encampment at the University of Michigan.

Attorney General Dana Nessel said she believed the cases were strong but suggested her office was worn down by criticism and other factors.

She noted that a judge in Washtenaw County still hadn’t decided whether to send the cases to a trial court despite multiple hearings.

“Baseless and absurd allegations of bias have only furthered this divide,” said Nessel, a Democrat, who added that “distractions and ongoing delays have created a circus-like atmosphere.”

The encampment on the Diag, a traditional site for campus protests, was cleared by police in May 2024 after a month. The university said the camp had become a threat to safety, with overloaded power sources and open flames.

Defense attorney Amir Makled said Nessel was trying to turn free speech into a crime.

“We sent a clear message to both Lansing and to Washington, that the people still rule, and that public pressure compels the rule of law to be upheld,” Makled said Monday.

Protesters had demanded that the school’s endowment stop investing in companies with ties to Israel. The university insisted it has no direct investments and less than $15 million placed with funds that might include companies in Israel.

The post Michigan drops charges against anti-Israel campus protesters appeared first on World Israel News.

On April 30, 2024, anti-Israel protesters at Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall took university employees hostage, damaged the building, and were ultimately met with law enforcement, leading to nearly 100 arrests.

EXCLUSIVE: Inside the “Museum of Terror” created by anti-Israel student groups at Columbia University—an exhibit of praise for Hamas hang gliders, training for campus protesters, and the tools used to break into Hamilton Hall last April.

The FP’s @SulkinMaya reports. pic.twitter.com/spgCiVYhY9

— The Free Press (@TheFP) January 6, 2025

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Nearly 30% of protesters had a job rescinded in the last six months, and 70% say they were asked about protest involvement at job application interviews.

The post WATCH: No need to apply – College protesters face job application scrutiny appeared first on World Israel News.

The news was met with disappointment from Jewish Harvard students and leaders.

By Dion J. Pierre, The Algemeiner

Harvard University has “downgraded” the disciplinary sanctions it levied against several pro-Hamas protesters it punished for illegally occupying Harvard Yard and roiling the campus for nearly five weeks, The Harvard Crimson reported on Wednesday.

The shocking development will likely erase the good will Harvard regained by appearing to embrace an approach to discipline that would deter future unruly behavior as well as the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hate incidents the protesters perpetrated throughout the school year, which damaged the reputation of the institution and prompted a slew of lawsuits and federal investigations.

Per the Crimson, “The most severe probation charge will last for just one semester, a remarkable change from the initial punishments which required at least one student to withdraw from the college for three semesters. Some students who were initially placed on probation in late May also had the length of their probations reduced.”

For a time Harvard University talked tough about its intention to dismantle a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” — a collection of tents in which demonstrators lived and from which they refused to leave unless Harvard agreed to boycott and divest from Israel — protesters had set up on campus, creating an impression that no one would go unpunished.

In a public statement, interim president Alan Garber denounced their actions for forcing the rescheduling of exams and disrupting the academics of students who continued doing their homework and studying for final exams, responsibilities the protesters seemingly abdicated by essentially taking an early summer break to participate in the demonstration.

Harvard then began suspending the protesters following their rejection of a deal to leave the encampment, according to The Harvard Crimson.

Before then, Garber vowed that any student who continued to occupy the section of campus would be placed on “involuntary leave,” a measure that effectively disenrolls the students from school and bars them from campus until the university decides whether they are allowed back.

The disciplinary measures were levied one day after members of Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP) created a sign featuring an antisemitic caricature of Garber as Satan, and accused him of duplicity.

During Harvard’s commencement ceremonies in May, reports emerged that some students had been banned from graduation and receiving their diplomas.

However, Harvard, as well as the organization responsible for the encampment, HOOP, always maintained that some protesters would be allowed to appeal their punishments, per an agreement the two parties reached, but it was not clear that the end result would amount to a victory for the protesters.

Unrepentant, HOOP on Wednesday celebrated the revocation of the suspensions on social media and, in addition to suggesting that they will disrupt the campus again, called their movement an “intifada,” alluding to two prolonged periods of Palestinian terrorism during which hundreds of Israeli Jews were murdered.

“Harvard walks back on probations and reverses suspensions of pro-Palestine students after massive pressure,” the group said.

“After sustained student and faculty organizing, Harvard has caved in, showing that the student intifada will always prevail … This reversal is a bare minimum. We call on our community to demand no less than Palestinian liberation from the river to the sea. Grounded in the rights of return and resistance. We will not rest until divestment from the Israeli regime is met.”

The news was met with disappointment from Jewish Harvard students and leaders, many of whom have met with lawmakers to discuss their experiences with antisemitism there.

“What?! Harvard reverses the very few suspensions they gave to students who harassed Jews and called for violence,” tweeted Harvard student Shabbos Kestenbaum.

“Antisemitic classmates consider this a victory, declaring ‘long live the intifada.’”

The Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance added, “It’s fine to ignore Harvard’s rules as long as you’re putting Jews in their place … if you’re targeting any other group, you will be disciplined.”

The past year has been described by experts as a low point in the history of Harvard University, America’s oldest and, arguably, most important institution of higher education.

Since the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas across southern Israel, the school has been accused of fostering a culture of racial grievance and antisemitism, while important donors have suspended funding for programs.

In just the past nine months, its first Black president, Claudine Gay, resigned in disgrace after being outed as a serial plagiarist; Harvard faculty shared an antisemitic cartoon on social media; and its protesters were filmed surrounding a Jewish student and shouting “Shame!” into his ears.

According to the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Harvard has repeatedly misrepresented its handling of the explosion of hate and rule breaking, launching a campaign of deceit and spin to cover up what ultimately became the biggest scandal in higher education.

A report generated by the committee as part of a wider investigation of the school claimed that the university formed an Antisemitism Advisory Group (AAG) largely for show and did not consult its members when Jewish students were subject to verbal abuse and harassment, a time, its members felt, when its counsel was most needed.

The advisory group went on to recommend nearly a dozen measures for addressing the problem and offered other guidance, the report said, but it was excluded from high-level discussions which preceded, for example, the December congressional testimony of former president Gay — a hearing convened to discuss antisemitism at Harvard.

So frustrated were a “majority” of AAG members with being an accessory to what the committee described as a guilefully crafted public relations facade that they threatened to resign from it.

Harvard must still tend to outstanding issues which resulted from the events of this past academic year. A congressional investigation of its handling of antisemitism is ongoing and six Jewish students are suing it for allegedly ignoring antisemitism discrimination.

In April, attorneys representing the school attempted to have the suit tossed out of court, arguing that the plaintiffs lack legal standing.

“Without minimizing at all the importance of the need to address energetically antisemitism at the university, plaintiff’s dissatisfaction with the strategy and speed of Harvard’s essential work does not state a legally cognizable claim,” said the motion to dismiss, as quoted by The Crimson.

“Consequently, the amended complaint should be dismissed.”

Shabbos Kestenbaum, one of the plaintiffs in the case, has vowed to see the litigation through to the end.

“Harvard’s meritless motion to dismiss our lawsuit only proves our point: It has never taken the concerns of us Jewish students seriously, and has no plans to start now,” he said in a statement.

“We will continue to apply maximum pressure in both the court of law and the court of public opinion … We hope that donors and prospective students follow closely.”

The post ‘Harvard has caved in’: Pro-Hamas demonstrators celebrate ‘student intifada’ after school ‘downgrades’ punishments appeared first on World Israel News.

Wesleyan agreed to ‘review’ the possibility of an academic boycott of Israeli institutions, disclose its investments in what SJP called the ‘military industrial complex’ and Israeli companies.

By Dion J. Pierre, The Algemeiner

Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, has agreed on terms for ending a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on campus that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) had lived in for nearly a month, the school’s president, Michael Roth, announced.

According to details of the agreement shared by SJP, no one will be punished for violating school rules to hold the protest, a condition on which the group insisted in its original list of demands.

Wesleyan has also agreed to create scholarships for “displaced” Palestinian students, form a working group comprising anti-Zionists which will “review” the possibility of an academic boycott of Israeli institutions, disclose its investments in what SJP called the “military industrial complex” and Israeli companies — a provision of the deal the school has already satisfied —and consider investment recommendations by an anti-Zionist group of students and faculty.

“Later this month, representatives from the pro-Palestinian protest will meet members of the Investment Committee,” Roth said in a statement issued on Friday.

“In the fall, the Committee for Investor Responsibility (CIR) — a standing representative body of students, faculty, alumni, and staff — will be able to propose changes to the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) framework for investment/divestment for consideration by the board at its fall meeting.”

SJP openly disputed Roth’s account of the agreement on Tuesday, denying that it stipulated their abstaining from staging protests at the school’s upcoming commencement ceremonies.

Roth said, “The protesters agreed not to disrupt reunion and commencement events. Individuals who refuse to comply will be suspended and face legal action,” to which SJP responded by accusing him of communicating threats.

“Wesleyan President Michael Roth wrote that we agreed to not [sic] disrupt reunion and commencement,” SJP wrote on social media. “This is a lie. There is no language in our agreement preventing protesting this weekend, and we would never compromise our right to protest Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.”

The end of the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” at Wesleyan came several weeks after Roth chastised the protesters for vandalizing school property and threatened the perpetrators with “suspension, expulsion, and legal charges.”

He did not, in Friday’s statement, disclose the status of the university’s investigations into those acts.

Wesleyan is not the first school to accede to key demands put forward by anti-Zionist protesters. Indeed, campus antisemitism expert and founder of antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative Tammi Rossman-Benjamin told The Algemeiner on Tuesday that the role of faculty in forcing similar outcomes at other colleges needs to be scrutinized.

“These developments are not organic,” Rossman-Benjamin explained, noting that a highly esteemed Wesleyan professor — J. Kēhaulani Kauanui — is an active proponent of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

In 2013, Kauanui was the “architect” of an American Studies Association resolution to adopt BDS, which ultimately passed, and she is the principal founder of Wesleyan University’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) chapter.

“In fact, she was teaching a course this semester on Anarchy in America and ‘shared her expertise’ with the encampment students a couple of weeks ago,” Rossman-Benjamin continued.

“In addition, two Wesleyan faculty leaders — chair of Wesleyan’s Educational Policy Committee (EPC) Joseph Weiss and committee member Margot Weiss — are also founding members of the school’s FJP chapter, which has committed itself to endorsing and promoting academic BDS. Not surprisingly, according to the agreement with student protesters, the EPC gets to nominate three faculty to a working group which will determine the fate of Wesleyan’s study abroad programs in Israel.”

Rossman-Benjamin warned that these professors proclaim their anti-Zionist views in the classroom, radicalizing students while introducing them to antisemitic ideologies and others which trample academic freedom.

“It undoubtedly took lots of faculty clout to ‘convince’ Roth — who has been a vocal opponent of academic BDS, calling it a ‘repugnant attack on academic freedom’ — to cave to student demands, demands that directly harm and violate the rights of Jewish students, not Israeli students or Israeli faculty, but US students,” she said.

“Not only is this faculty behavior wholly and shamefully unprofessional and antithetical to the educational and scholarly mission of the university, it is breathtaking in its hypocrisy. These same faculty who cry free speech and academic freedom every chance they get have dedicated themselves to shutting down the free speech and academic freedom of their students and colleagues who want to study in or about Israel, or who identify with the Jewish state. This abuse must be exposed and stopped.”

Earlier this month, Northwestern University in Illinois agreed to establish a new scholarship for Palestinian undergraduates, contact potential employers of students who caused recent campus disruptions to insist on their being hired, and create a segregated dormitory hall that will be occupied exclusively by Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Muslim students.

It also agreed to form a new investment committee in which anti-Zionists students and faculty may wield an outsized voice.

Days later, Brown University in Rhode Island announced that it will hold a vote on divesting from companies linked to Israel in exchange for the students disassembling their encampment and abstaining from holding more protests until the school’s commencement on May 26, according to the Brown Daily Herald.

The student newspaper added, however, that the university will not “at this time” drop criminal charges filed against 41 students who illegally occupied an administrative building in December.

At least one school president, Mike Lee of Sonoma State University, has been disciplined for agreeing to boycott and divest from Israel.

After announcing his committing to subject “all” the university’s financial endeavors to SJP’s scrutiny, implement a full academic boycott of Israel — including shutting down study abroad programs in the Jewish state — create a “Palestinian” curriculum within the department of ethnic studies, and issue a statement calling for a “permanent cease-fire in Gaza,” the California State University (CSU) system, of which Sonoma State University is a member, said the next day that Lee was placed on administrative leave.

CSU chancellor Mildred García described his actions as “insubordination.”

The post Wesleyan University brokers deal to end anti-Israel encampment, conceding to key demands appeared first on World Israel News.

University president Sally Kornbluth walked back twice on her promise to remove the protesters from the area.

By Jessica Costescu, The Washington Free Beacon

In the run-up to an annual Israeli Independence Day celebration at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, university president Sally Kornbluth assured student organizers that an unauthorized anti-Israel encampment—located in the same area where the Jewish students planned to hold their event—would be cleared in time.

It wasn’t, prompting school officials to walk back their promise and press the Jewish students to reschedule or relocate the event, messages obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show.

On April 24, Kornbluth privately told student leaders of the MIT Israel Alliance, Talia Khan and Eitan Moore, that the encampment would be removed within four days, Khan and Moore said.

The MIT Israel Alliance had reserved the same campus lawn occupied by the unauthorized protesters, Kresge Oval, for its May 7 Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration.

“President Kornbluth assured us in private communications that the encampment would be removed in time for our Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration,” Khan and Moore wrote in a Monday letter to MIT administrators.

But Kornbluth went on to push back her deadline to clear the encampment—first to May 1 and then to May 3, according to Khan and Moore.

Then, on May 5, MIT Office of the President chief of staff Aaron Weinberger told the group that the school would not be able to “bring the encampment to an end … in time for the event on Tuesday afternoon.” He asked the students to move the celebration.

“We can offer two options: May 7 on Hockfield Court or May 14 on Kresge oval, as originally requested,” Weinberger wrote in an email, which was obtained by the Free Beacon.

“Either way, we will work with you to ensure you have the support you need for a successful event.”

The Jewish students responded defiantly, vowing on Monday to “continue with our celebration as planned.”

That same day, Kornbluth directed anti-Israel protesters to “leave the encampment peacefully by 2:30 p.m.”

While some obliged, a small group remained in the encampment as the student organization behind it, MIT Coalition Against Apartheid, called for reinforcements to “defend” the area.

Around 6 p.m., protesters breached a fence surrounding the encampment, flooding the lawn, and remained overnight.

By Tuesday afternoon, the encampment remained intact. MIT Israel Alliance went ahead with its event anyway, which it held just outside a fence meant to contain the unauthorized protesters in the encampment.

MIT put the fence back up after protesters stormed it Monday, according to a student.

“The Jewish and Israeli community at MIT … has undergone some of the worst violence, hatred, and injustice in the past 7 months,” Khan and Moore wrote in a Monday letter to Kornbluth, “and we have seen the MIT Administration stand idly by as classmates, lab partners, and even our professors praised the murder of our friends and family, called for violence against Jews, and most recently chanted ‘Death to Zionists’ on MIT campus.”

“You claim that if we are willing to wait just one more week, on top of the seven months we have already waited for you to act, you will finally support the Jewish community and take action against those calling for our deaths and the deaths of our loved ones,” the students continued.

“We don’t believe you. … We will hold our celebration of Jewish self-determination, as planned.”

Kornbluth’s failed attempt to clear the encampment—and shifting deadline to do so—comes as the president faces congressional scrutiny into her handling of campus anti-Semitism.

The House Education Committee formalized an investigation into MIT in March, roughly three months after Kornbluth appeared before the committee alongside then-Harvard University president Claudine Gay and then-University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill. The hearing was a disaster, and both Magill and Gay resigned in its wake.

Now, the committee, led by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), is in the process of obtaining internal documents regarding Kornbluth’s response to campus anti-Semitism.

In a March letter sent to Kornbluth, Foxx expressed “grave concerns regarding the inadequacy of MIT’s response to antisemitism on its campus,” citing “hypocrisy and selective enforcement of Institute rules.”

MIT did not respond to a request for comment.

In her Monday directive to disband the encampment, Kornbluth said student protesters who opted to leave voluntarily would avoid suspension.

Those who stayed in the encampment would face immediate suspension, she said.

Hours later, after protesters breached the campus lawn and retook the encampment, Kornbluth issued a Monday evening “update.”

She said most students “had left the enclosed tent area” on Monday afternoon before “a large number of outside demonstrators arrived” and caused a “surge.”

None of those demonstrators were arrested, Kornbluth said.

“As we write, about 150 students and others are standing in a circle around the tents and others are nearby chanting,” she said.

“While no arrests have been made on campus, police officers from MIT, Cambridge and the state remain on the scene to preserve public safety.”

“We have much work still to do to resolve this situation, and will continue to communicate as needed,” Kornbluth said.

Kornbluth has a history of walking back promises to discipline anti-Israel protesters.

In November, she threatened to expel students engaged in unsanctioned protests before opting to place those students on a “non-academic suspension,” which allowed them to continue attending class.

Kornbluth said she did so to protect foreign students, citing “serious concerns about collateral consequences for the students, such as visa issues.”

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Donald Trump praises “New York’s finest” for clearing encampment, retaking occupied building from anti-Israel protesters at Columbia University campus.

By World Israel News Staff

Former president Donald Trump offered strong praise for the New York City Police Department, after officers raided a building on the Columbia University campus which was illegally occupied by anti-Israel students, resulting in hundreds of arrests.

“New York was under siege last night,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Wisconsin, adding that the students and pro-Palestinian activists who broke into the building and briefly held a facilities worker hostage were “raging lunatics and Hamas sympathizers.”

Trump said that the police had acted bravely by retaking the Hamilton Hall building and clearing protesters from an illegal pro-Palestinian encampment on the site.

“The police came in and in exactly two hours everything was over,” Trump said. “They went in – they knocked it out – and they were incredible. They did a great job.”

He added that the police at work were “a beautiful thing to watch, New York’s finest.”

Trump called on other universities to follow Columbia’s lead and let law enforcement remove anti-Israel mobs from their institutions.

“I say remove the encampments immediately, vanquish the radicals and take back our campuses for all of the normal students who want a safe place from which to learn,” Trump said.

In an earlier media interview, Trump shared his suspicions that many of those present in the building and in the encampment were not students enrolled at Columbia.

Rather, Trump said, they appeared to be external assets that were being financially compensated for sowing chaos on campus.

“I really think you have a lot of paid agitators, professional agitators in here too, and I see it all over,” Trump told Fox News on Tuesday.

“You know, when you see signs and they’re all identical, that means they’re being paid by a source.”

The post Trump hails ‘beautiful’ arrests of Hamas supporters at Columbia appeared first on World Israel News.

Pro-Hamas rioters assault young Native Americans at UCLA’s ‘Liberated Zone’ for displaying a sign stating: ‘Hamas supporters unwelcome on Native lands’.”

The post WATCH: Native Americans, protesting against Hamas, assaulted at UCLA anti-Israel encampment appeared first on World Israel News.

Dozens of students camped overnight, with hundreds of students blocking them from police officers coming to disperse the protest.

The post WATCH: NYPD dispatched to Columbia University to disperse pro-Palestinian encampment appeared first on World Israel News.