Colleges, professors face backlash amid Israel-Hamas controversies on campuses

Multiple U.S. colleges and professors are getting entangled in controversy over their reactions to the Israel-Hamas war.

Stanford University had to release a statement after reports emerged of a “non-faculty instructor” who was said to have “addressed the Middle East conflict in a manner that called out individual students in class based on their backgrounds and identities,” according to the school.

Stanford’s Rabbi Dov Greenberg talked to CNN after he spoke to students involved in the incident, telling the outlet the instructor was justifying Hamas’s attack on Israel over the weekend that killed hundreds of civilians.

Greenberg said the students are “not doing well” after the instructor asked how many Jewish people were killed during the Holocaust. After a student responded with 6 million, the instructor said, “Israel is a colonizer,” and more individuals have been killed by colonization.

Nourya Cohen and Andrei Mandelshtam, co-presidents of the Jewish Student Association, said the instructor then had Jewish students raise their hands, made them move away from their belongings before saying his point was to show what Jewish people were doing to Palestinians, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

“Without prejudging the matter, this report is a cause for serious concern. Academic freedom does not permit the identity-based targeting of students. The instructor in this course is not currently teaching while the university works to ascertain the facts of the situation,” Stanford said in its statement, not naming the professor. 

Meanwhile, Yale professor Zareena Grewal is facing a petition to resign — signed by more than 40,000 people so far — after tweets she made regarding the conflict, which has left hundreds dead on both sides. 

“My heart is in my throat,” Grewal wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, Saturday after Hamas’s initial attack, according to the New York Post. “Prayers for Palestinians. Israel is a murderous, genocidal settler state and Palestinians have every right to resist through armed struggle, solidarity.”

Grewal has since taken her account private, shielding her tweets from the public.

Yale’s president condemned Hamas’s attack, but a university spokesperson also said Grewal has the right to post her own opinions on her social media.

“Yale is committed to freedom of expression, and the comments posted on Professor Grewal’s personal accounts represent her own views,” spokesperson Karen Peart told the student newspaper Yale Daily News.

Harvard has been one of the most controversial campuses in regards to the Israeli-Hamas war after 30 student-led groups initially signed a letter that said Israel was “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” 

While Harvard’s president did release a statement saying those groups do not represent the school’s leadership, some believe it was not enough.

Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer and his wife Batia are leaving the executive board for Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, the couple told CNN.

“Unfortunately, our faith in the University’s leadership has been broken and we cannot in good faith continue to support Harvard and its committees,” the couple said.

The move to quit the board “has been precipitated by the lack of clear evidence of support from the University’s leadership for the people of Israel following the tragic events of the past week, coupled with their apparent unwillingness to recognize Hamas for what it is, a terrorist organization,” the couple said.