A Boston federal judge said at a hearing May 29 that she planned to issue a preliminary injunction that blocks the Department of Homeland Security from revoking Harvard‘s ability to enroll foreign exchange students.
The comments from U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs came as the Trump administration attempted to walk back its May 22 directive that immediately revoked Harvard‘s participation in a federal exchange student program.
The database, which is operated by the Department of Homeland Security, tracks the immigration status of international students and is used by universities to maintain information about the students’ enrollment.
The SEVIS revocations occurred alongside visa cancellations for many students, putting them ultimately at risk for deportation, multiple attorneys representing students have said in court documents. The DOJ continues to claim that SEVIS changes did not cause visa terminations.
The Trump administration began to cancel visas and launched deportation proceedings in March, which initially targeted students who participated in protests against the Israel-Hamas war on college campuses last year.
(April 10, 2025)
Hundreds of Arab and Jewish students gathered on Tuesday, April 8, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to protest the war in Gaza as they accused Israel of committing genocide. The university initially approved the anti-war protest but then decided to cancel it due to the “inability to guarantee the protesters’ safety” and “concerns about a violent eruption during the demonstrations.”
On Tuesday, Hadash students’ cells, in the universities of Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv and Haifa, together with partners in the struggle against fascism and occupation – initiated a series of protests against silencing “massacre and war.” The protesters waving signs and banners in Hebrew and Arabic that read, “Stop the War” and “Stop the genocide.”
Lawyers for Khalil said they plan to keep fighting. The judge gave them until April 23 to seek a waiver.
Dozens of students take part in a protest at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, calling for an end to the war in Gaza and accusing Israel of committing genocide.
Footage from the scene shows students holding signs reading “stop the genocide” and “stop the war” and chanting in Arabic.
Academia for Equality is a members‘ organization working to promote democratization, equality, inclusion, representation, and access to higher education for all communities living in Israel/Palestine. We believe that furthering our mission in academia will promote justice and equality in our society and region as a whole. Recognizing the rights of both peoples in Israel-Palestine according to international law, we struggle against the complicity of Israeli academia with the occupation, war, and apartheid, strive for academic freedom, and stand against the silencing of critical voices in Israel and the wider academic world. We criticize the neoliberalization and fascization of academic life and the degradation of academia as a public institution. We combat all forms of discrimination and exploitation in academia; abusive labor relations, sexual harassment, abuse of power and marginalization of minority groups. Our collective activities, bringing together faculty and students of all ranks, identities and groups across institutions in Israel-Palestine and internationally, seek to lay the foundations for solidarity across class and institutional differences in a range of intersecting struggles aimed at changing the face of academia and society.
Academia for Equality published a call to Israeli scholars to reject US President Donald Trump’s attacks on students and academic freedom under the false pretense of “combatting antisemitism.” Academia for Equality is an organization with 800 Jewish and Arab academics in Israel members organization working to promote democratization, equality, inclusion, representation, and access to higher education for all communities living in Israel and Palestine.
The call said: “We, Israeli professors, educators, researchers, graduate students, and members of academia, hailing from diverse disciplines and backgrounds, possessing diverse political views, living in and outside Israel, are deeply concerned about the recent actions undertaken by the US Administration against Columbia University and other US universities. We are alarmed by the persecution of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian students and faculty, including the illegal arrests and threats to deport activists without any specific charges or due process, at times in clear violation of court orders, especially under the pretext of combating antisemitism.
On Saturday, ICE agents abducted Palestinian activist and recent Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil from his home.
Several Jewish organisations are protesting at Trump Tower in New York – in support of detained Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil.
Police have arrested several protesters.
Dozens of Jewish demonstrators are inside the building – and chanting slogans in support of Palestine.
Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent US resident, is facing deportation via a rarely used foreign policy law. He is a Palestinian student who has been organising along with fellow pro-Palestinian supporters. Mahmoud has US residency via a green card which are rarely revoked without a criminal conviction. Khalil has no such criminal conviction and is instead facing deportation regardless because the US government:
has reasonable ground to believe that your presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.
ADC has answered the call of several students for legal support against repression and discrimination by their universities, and more support is needed.
On Dec. 11, over a dozen NYU students and faculty dropped flyers and hung banners throughout the Bobst Library while 13 people sat in on the administrative floor of thelibrary. The actionists were demanding a meeting with administrators, who had, in the spring during the Gaza solidarity encampment movement at NYU, promised students to disclose the university’s endowment, including all its investments in weapons manufacturers and ties to Israel and companies that profit off its occupation of Palestine.
The direct action was organized by student group Shut It Down NYU, which challenges what it sees as NYU’s ties to imperialism. Not only were the students’ demands ignored, but yesterday, 11 of them were suspended for a year on the pretext of participating “in coordinated and collective disruptive action” — the non-violent action at the library. Several more NYU students are currently going through disciplinary proceedings that could result in similar punishments.
Here is the press release we received from Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine:
(December 17, 2024)
In the petition, Adalah Attorney Salam Irsheid argued that the law is clearly racist in intent, especially given the widespread persecution and criminalization of hundreds of Palestinian citizens by Israeli authorities and other entities since the outbreak of the war 7 October 2023, for merely expressing entirely lawful opinions. The law’s deliberate vagueness, and the fact that it only addresses “incitement to terrorism”—which is used almost exclusively to target Palestinians—while excluding incitement to violence or racism, highlights its discriminatory purpose. By granting broad, unchecked powers to political and administrative authorities, the law enables punitive actions to be taken against Palestinian educators for expressing views that fall outside the mainstream consensus, thereby severely undermining their basic right to freedom of expression. Adalah further argued that the law breaches the principle of the separation of powers, as it grants the Education Ministry the authority to infringe on teachers’ rights to freedom of expression and occupation, effectively requiring a determination of whether they have committed a criminal offense, even if no charges have been filed against them.
Hadash MKs opposed the proposed legislation, calling it “dime-store fascist populism and McCarthyism.” According to Hadash MK Aida Touma-Sliman, “The Knesset is advancing two bills targeting critical students and professors, aimed primarily at Palestinian and leftist voices in academia. These bills seek to silence any remaining voices resisting the government’s policies of occupation and war. This marks another step in the fascist agenda to suppress any real opposition to the extreme right. Heads of universities, professors, and students recognize the danger of such legislation and are voicing their opposition.
On past week, the Knesset plenum, in a preliminary reading, passed a proposed law that would amend the Students Rights Law, allowing most Israeli higher education institutions to implement gender separation. MK Son Har-Melech proposed the law, which 55 members of the Knesset (MKs) supported and 45 MKs opposed.
The bill was attacked during the debate in the plenum by Hadash-Ta’al MK Ahmad Tibi, who retweeted a statement by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) arguing that its purpose was “to regulate the discourse in schools and to harm teachers whose statements and worldview do not coincide with those of the education minister and the political parties controlling the Education Ministry.”
“The purpose of the law is to threaten teachers and principals of Arab schools, to mark them and make them a target for surveillance and persecution,” the rights group stated, arguing that the tools already at its disposal before the current law were “adequate and sufficient.” “The law severely violates the rights to expression, employment and pedagogical autonomy of teachers and administrators,” it added. The teachers’ unions also opposed the bill.
As American scholars and higher education administrators, we are deeply committed to the pursuit of truth, justice, and the common good—both in our classrooms and research, and in the broader world we engage with daily. Since October 2023, the Biden-Harris administration has failed to uphold fundamental human rights and the principles of knowledge, truth, and humanity. Their material support for genocidal atrocities has devastated entire communities in Palestine, leading to the loss of countless families in Gaza over the past year, and undermined the core values the United States professes to uphold globally. Under Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee for President, every university has been bombed and destroyed in Gaza, more journalists have been killed than in any other conflict in recorded modern history, and the death toll is projected to exceed 186,000 according to The Lancet. Under Biden-Harris, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has prosecuted violations of the 1948 Genocide Convention, and declared Israel‘s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, unlawful, along with its associated settlement apartheid regime.
This election, on November 5th, the Democratic Party—once again with Kamala Harris at its center—has repeatedly sought our votes by positioning itself as the „lesser evil,“ urging us to abandon our moral convictions out of fear of a second Trump term under Republican leadership. Let us be clear: there is no „lesser evil“ when both parties are complicit in the same atrocities. And there is no lesser evil when they are complicit in genocide. Kamala Harris has actively funded and endorsed genocide, and we cannot reward such leadership with a Harris-Walz ticket. While the Republican Party under a Trump-Vance ticket offers no meaningful alternative, it is the Democratic Party, under Kamala Harris, that has actively supported and sanctioned these international crimes against humanity since October 2023. They must not be rewarded.
The Abandon Harris Campaign announces that an academic letter calling on Americans to vote third party in the upcoming election is quickly gaining traction across higher education institutions nationwide. Titled “A Call by American Academics to Vote Against Genocide on November 5, 2024: Vote to Abandon Harris – Vote Third Party,” the principled letter condemns the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel’s actions in Gaza and urges voters to hold Kamala Harris accountable at the ballot box. The letter and its signatories can be found at voteagainstgenocide.org.
Several missiles were also located near the Dead Sea, near where Israeli nuclear facilities are located. It wasn‘t clear whether they were intercepted by Israel or the US, according to the report.
One missile hit in the vicinity of a school in the town of Gedera, with photos of the aftermath showing a massive crater in the ground and major structural damage to the nearby buildings.
(09.05.2024)
There were again pro-Palestinian protests at universities in Amsterdam and Utrecht overnight.
(08.95.2024)
Police in Amsterdam began breaking up the occupation of University of Amsterdam buildings in the city center on Wednesday. The Binnengasthuis and other university buildings were squatted a day earlier by hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had marched there from the university’s Roeterseiland campus on Tuesday afternoon.
(07.05.2024)
Some 125 activists were arrested as police broke up a pro-Palestinian demonstration camp at the University of Amsterdam in the early hours of Tuesday, as protests that have roiled campuses in the United States spread into Europe.
(07.05.2024)
Demonstrations have taken place in Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam and Belgium, where students have set up encampments and called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Violent clashes erupted in Amsterdam and authorities said at least 125 people were detained. In Berlin, students formed a human chain to protect their camp while police detained several people. The protests are in response to Israel‘s bombardment of Gaza.
(07.05.2024)
Berlins Regierender Bürgermeister Kai Wegner (CDU) hat die FU-Besetzung durch pro-palästinensische Aktivisten verurteilt. „Wir dürfen auch an den Hochschulen nicht wegschauen, wenn antisemitische Parolen und Judenhass an den Universitäten verbreitet werden“, sagte der CDU-Politiker am Dienstag. Er sei der Universität für ihr Vorgehen sehr dankbar: „Ich finde dieses konsequente Vorgehen völlig richtig.“
Auch Wissenschaftssenatorin Ina Czyborra (SPD) verurteilte die Besetzung des FU-Hofes scharf.
German police broke up a protest by between sixty and eighty pro-Palestinian activists who had occupied a courtyard on Freie Universität Berlin’s campus on Tuesday, May 7.
“An occupation is not acceptable on the FU Berlin campus,” university president Guenter Ziegler said.
– The initial arrests sparked a movement on college campuses across the country, including at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and the University of California, Los Angeles.
– More than 2,100 protesters have been arrested at colleges and universities in recent weeks, including students, faculty, and outside agitators.
Middle East Eye examines three of the most pervasive myths that have sought to discredit the pro-Palestine movement on campuses
n the past 10 days, pro-Palestinian protest camps have appeared at seven universities around Australia – from Melbourne and Sydney in the country’s southeast, to Adelaide in its center, and Perth along the western coast.
They were erected in solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli siege in Gaza and student protesters in the United States.
And it’s not just Australia.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal‘s office said such protests would be dealt with using „total rigour“, adding that 23 university sites had been „evacuated“ on Thursday.
Students in dorms craned their necks and shakily stretched their iPhones out windows to observe the impending attack.
We clung tighter to one another as they approached us, and seized us like rag dolls and slammed us into the hallowed ground of brick and concrete. But unlike rag dolls, we bleed, we crack, we bruise, we feel.
Arrests piled up at several colleges, 14 Princeton University students launched a hunger strike, and police raided an NYU encampment Friday in the latest battles on college campuses that have pitted university officials against their own students over the war in Gaza.
We raise our hats out of respect for them, as these protests in the universities and streets of the western world and the Global South keep the flame of hope burning in the souls of our people who long for freedom and justice.
These protests indicate profound, radical changes that separate an ageing American generation that blindly supports Israel and a new generation that promotes justice in Palestine and demands an end to the Israeli occupation and to the war on Gaza.
They represent the future of America and its bright face, the emergence of which we have long awaited.
For over seven hours, zionist aggressors hurled gas canisters, sprayed pepper spray, and threw fireworks and bricks into our encampment. They broke our barriers repeatedly, clearly in an attempt to kill our community.
Campus safety left within minutes, external security the university hired for “backup” watched, filmed, and laughed on the side as the immediate danger inflicted upon us escalated. Law enforcement simply stood at the edge of the lawn and refused to budge as we screamed for their help. The only means of protection we had was each other. WE KEEP EACH OTHER SAFE.
For over seven hours, zionist aggressors hurled gas canisters, sprayed pepper spray, and threw fireworks and bricks into our encampment. They broke our barriers repeatedly, clearly in an attempt to kill our community.
Campus safety left within minutes, external security the university hired for “backup” watched, filmed, and laughed on the side as the immediate danger inflicted upon us escalated. Law enforcement simply stood at the edge of the lawn and refused to budge as we screamed for their help. The only means of protection we had was each other. WE KEEP EACH OTHER SAFE.
Despite the danger, we refused to engage standing by the principles of our encampment—self defense. For all the school’s pretense of student safety, we have experienced an unprecedented amount of violence and hatred while they stood by. The university’s hypocrisy all too apparent, as signs of this escalation were reported, documented, and indicated early on. The zionist attacks, their use of chemical weaponry, their hatred, their destruction, are but a microcosm of the genocide in Gaza. The university would rather see us dead than divest.
Keep all eyes on your comrades, mobilize to Columbia. If you are free, come to protect the encampment.
c/o Peter Holley, Texas Monthly
We, the undersigned organizations, stand in solidarity with the students nationwide and globally who are bravely protesting in encampments and otherwise to condemn Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza–actions which human rights organizations, a federal U.S. court, and the International Court of Justice have said “plausibly” constitute genocide.
(,,,)
In solidarity,
350.org US
18 Million Rising
198 methods
Adalah Justice Project
Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
AF3IRM
Afghans For A Better Tomorrow
Alliance of Baptists
American Baptist Churches USA
American Friends Service Committee
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)
American Muslim Bar Association
American Muslims for Palestine (AMP)
Americans for Justice in Palestine Action (AJP Action)
Arab American Civic Council
Arab American Institute
Asian American Advocacy Fund
Better to Speak
Beyt Tikkun: A Synagogue without Walls
Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU)
Blue Future
Borderlands for Equity
Borderlands Resource Initiative
Brooklyn For Peace
CAIR Action
CAIR California
CAIR Minnesota
CAIR Oklahoma
CAIR-WA
California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Cameroon American Council
Carceral Tech Resistance Network
Ceasefire Democrats
Ceasefire Now NJ
Center for Constitutional Rights
Center for Protest Law & Litigation @ Partnership for Civil Justice Fund
Chicago Area Peace Action
Chicago Faith Coalition on Middle East Policy
Christians for a Free Palestine
Civic Ark
Civil Liberties Defense Center
Clockshop
CommonDefense.us
Communities United for Status & Protection (CUSP)
Council on American-Islamic Relations
CWA-News Guild Local 38010
Defending Rights & Dissent
Delaware Democratic Socialists of America
Delawareans for Palestinian Human Rights
Detention Watch Network
Disciples Palestine Israel Network
Diverse & Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Multicultural Ministries (DRUUMM)
Doctors Against Genocide
Dream Defenders
Dutch Scholars for Palestine
Eindhoven Students 4 Palestine
En Conjunto
Faith for Black Lives
Faith in Texas
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Fight for the Future
For All
Freedom Oklahoma
Freedom To Thrive
Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA)
Future Coalition
Gen-Z for Change
Gender Justice Action and Gender Justice
Get Free
Global Campaign to Reclaim People‘s Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power & Stop Impunity
Green Mountain Solidarity With Palestine
Green New Deal Network
Greenpeace USA
Hawai‘i for Palestine
Health Justice Commons
Highlander Research and Education Center
Hindus for Human Rights
Historians for Peace and Democracy
IfNotNow Movement
IfNotNow New Jersey
Immigrant Defense Project
Immigrant Justice Network
Immigrants Act Now
Indiana Center for Middle East Peace
Institute for Policy Studies New Internationalism Project
Interfaith Ceasefire
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
International Mayan League
InterReligious Task Force on Central America
Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)
Islamophobia Studies Center
Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Jewish Voice for Peace
Jewish Voice for Peace-Hawai’i
Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ)
Just Foreign Policy
Justice Democrats
Just Futures Law
Justice for All
Kairos USA
Libyan American Alliance
LittleSis / Public Accountability Initiative
Living Water Inclusive Catholic Community
Long Island Progressive Coalition
Make the Road Nevada
Malaya Georgia
Massachusetts Peace Action
Mennonite Action
Mennonite Action WA
Migrant Roots Media
Minnesota Peace Project
Mondoweiss
Movement for Black Lives
MPower Change Action Fund
MSA West
Muslim Advocates
Muslim Community Network
Muslim Counterpublics Lab
Muslim Power Building Project
Muslims for Just Futures
Muslims for Progressive Values
National Arab American Women’s Association (NAAWA)
National Iranian American Council
National Lawyers Guild
National Lawyers Guild – St. Louis Chapter
National Partnership for New Americans
New Hampshire Veterans for Peace
New York City Veterans For Peace
The New Justice Project Minnesota
North American Students of Cooperation
No Separate Justice
The Oakland Institute
Office of Peace, Justice, and Ecological Integrity/Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth
Our Revolution
Palestine American League
Palestine Legal
Palestinian Feminist Collective
Partners for Palestine
Pax Christi New York State
Pax Christi USA
Pediatricians for Palestine
Poverty Project at the Institute for Policy Studies
Presbyterian Church (USA), Office of Public Witness
Presbyterian Peace Fellowship
Progressive Democrats of America (PDA)
Project ANAR
Project South
Peace Action
Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice
Reparation Education Project
Reviving the Islamic Sisterhood for Empowerment
Rising Majority
RootsAction Education Fund
The Social Justice Center
Sound Vision
Starr King School for the Ministry
Students and Faculty for Justice in Palestine at the University of Hawai’i (SFJP)
Sunrise Movement
Sur Legal Collaborative
TakeAction Minnesota
Tech Justice Law Project
The Gathering for Justice
The Hague Peace Projects
Transnational Institute
The Uncommitted National Movement
UndocuBlack Network
Unitarian Universalist Association
Unitarian Universalist Church of the Larger Fellowship
Unitarian Universalist College of Social Justice
Unitarian Universalist Mass Action
Unitarian Universalist Peace Ministry Network
Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
Unitarian Universalist Young Adults for Climate Justice (UUYACJ)
Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East
United Church of Christ Palestine Israel Network
United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR)
Until Freedom
US Campaign for Palestinian Rights
Veterans For Peace
We Are All America
The Whatcom Peace and Justice Center
Wind of the Spirit Immigrant Resource Center
Working Families Party
World BEYOND War
Young Democrats of America Black Caucus
Young Democrats of America Environmental Caucus
Youth Leadership Institute
A coalition of 185 social justice and religious groups published an open letter Monday expressing support for the campus protest encampments sweeping the country in opposition to Israel’s siege of Gaza, and calling on university administrators to end the brutal crackdowns of the student-led demonstrations.