The US government has opened an investigation into Emory University’s alleged discrimination against students with Palestinian, Muslim or Arab ancestry since 7 October, the Guardian has exclusively learned.
The US education department notified the Council on American Islamic Relations, Georgia, or Cair-GA, and Palestine Legal, a national organization, on Tuesday that it would be investigating claims made in an 18-page complaint filed on 5 April on behalf of students at the university in Atlanta, Georgia, under title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
The complaint is one of at least six title VI claims made in recent weeks regarding discriminatory treatment of Palestinian, Muslim and Arab students on US campuses; others include Columbia, Rutgers, University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
The students named in Emory’s complaint belong to the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group that has seen its share of controversy on campuses in recent months. Brandeis and Columbia suspended SJP chapters in December, after the national group called events of 7 October “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance”. PEN America, a freedom of expression group, called such language “deeply objectionable, and even incendiary … [but] typically protected by the first amendment and by many university policies”.
Claims of discrimination have also been made on behalf of students at Columbia and Rutgers; these complaints were filed in the last 10 days. Since 1 October, the education department’s office of civil rights has received 343 complaints containing what the agency calls “shared ancestry” allegations, compared with 42 in fiscal year 2022 and 62 in fiscal year 2023, a department spokesperson wrote in an email. The category includes antisemitic and Islamophobic claims.
The federal investigation of Emory is noteworthy in the context of the Atlanta university’s decision last week to call two police departments on to campus within three hours of protesters setting up a camp in favor of divestment from Israel and against a local police training facility colloquially known as “Cop City”. At the time, the response appeared to be the quickest use of police against the recent campus protests nationwide, and probably the first to involve police using Tasers.
Emory spokesperson Laura Diamond shared by email the university’s statement about the title VI complaint, which reads in part: “Emory does not tolerate behavior or actions that threaten, harm or target individuals because of their identities or backgrounds.”
Several Emory students who experienced incidents described in the complaint spoke to the Guardian using their first names. They and other students filed dozens of reports directly to the university over the last seven months regarding incidents on campus, only to be notified that their reports “had been received”.
“Our point is there’s a hostile environment on campus,” said Ibrahim, a junior. “We didn’t want to go through a civil rights investigation. It’s time-consuming for us as students. But they left us with no other choice.”
One incident described in the complaint occurred in early October. An alumnus doxed Ibrahim and Hidaya, also a junior, along with other SJP members, on LinkedIn. The alumnus called the group “terror-affiliated”, urging readers of the post: “Name them, shame them, and don’t hire them.” He also urged the university to expel them, according to the title VI complaint.
Students met on 12 October with a business school dean named Andrea Hershatter about the post. Hershatter “started the meeting by saying that when students say ‘Free Palestine’, they are associating themselves with terrorism, implying that advocating for Palestinian freedom and equality is a ‘terrorist’ act for which students may be criminally liable”, the complaint reads. The university official also urged the students to be “more understanding” of the alumnus, given the Hamas attack on Israel.
“That was insane,” Ibrahim said. “It was shocking,” Hidaya told the Guardian. “My parents were so worried. They asked: ‘Do you want us to take you out [of school]?’”
Four months later, in February, the complaint notes that the school opened an investigation into Hershatter. As of 26 March, when Cair-GA and Palestine Legal were completing their title VI complaint, the investigation had produced no result.
In another incident described in the complaint, on 1 March, a Palestinian student was leaving a Muslim Student Association meeting, “wearing her hijab and bookbag with a mini keffiyeh (Palestinian scarf) on it”. Four male students walked behind her, making “comments about how much they love the Israeli army and the ‘work’ that they have done and are doing, apparently referring to the tens of thousands of Palestinians that the army had killed at that point”, the complaint reads.
The student filed a bias report to the administration, writing: “I have had to watch my people die every day, and yet these people are proud to rub in that my people are being eliminated … It hurts and I’m so, so tired … Emory needs to call out these incidents that have kept on happening since October.”
Although the student met with an assistant director of equity investigations on 18 April, the school has done nothing in response to the incident, according to Azka Mahmood, executive director of Cair-GA.
Other incidents described in the complaint include: “an Emory parent verbally accosted a visibly Black Muslim student, accusing them of supporting Hamas” at an 11 November “bake sale … to fundraise for the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, a humanitarian organization that provides medical assistance”.
Similar patterns are playing out on other campuses, according to organizations behind other complaints. At Columbia, “students wearing a keffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian scarf, have been harassed in person, physically, and verbally; spat at; doxed; and stalked”, according to the 37-page federal complaint filed on 25 April.
The Columbia complaint, filed on behalf of four students, three of whom are Palestinian, describes “six months of anti-Palestinian harassment and bigoted actions”, according to Radhika Sainath, senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal.
“Columbia University is engaged in a very aggressive crackdown against Palestinian students and their allies,” Sainath said. “This is not allowed under law.”
The complaint also highlights the administration’s different treatment of Muslim, Arab and Palestinian students when compared with Jewish students. It describes a 6 March on-campus event titled “Israel as a Law-Abiding, Liberal Democracy in Wartime”, in which a speaker stated, “There is a difference between fighting against enemies and animals,” according to the document.
“Comparing Palestinians to animals is a racist, dehumanizing anti-Palestinian trope,” the complaint reads.
“At the event […] students noticed that statements that panelists made, including using the terms ‘Arabs’, ‘Palestinians’ and ‘Hamas’ interchangeably, seemingly equating Arabs and Palestinians with Hamas, and referring to civilian casualties as ‘unfortunate, inevitable collateral damage.’ Despite complaints from students, Columbia did not condemn this racist anti-Palestinian language, or language that killing of Palestinians is inevitable.”
Meanwhile, the complaint asserts, Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, issued statements condemning antisemitism on 27 October, 1 November and 18 March. On 27 October, Shafik began a statement expressing shock about incidents of antisemitism on campus. She said: “I want to reiterate that antisemitism, like any form of bigotry, is an assault on everything we stand for at Columbia … Palestinian, Muslim, or Arab students have also been subjected to harassment and targeted by doxing.”
The 18 March statement was sent out “after students read out names of Palestinians killed by Israel at a vigil at the law school [...] The statement noted that the protest ‘left many Jewish attendees feeling uncomfortable and unwelcome.’”
At Rutgers University in New Jersey, there has been “doxing and verbal and physical intimidation” of Palestinian students and their allies, said Selaedin Maksut, executive director of Cair-NJ. “It feels like there’s nothing being done to address this. Students’ concerns are not being taken seriously.”
Jannine Salman, a third-year Rutgers law student, helped write the 57-page title VI complaint filed on 23 April over “Rutgers’ deliberate indifference to a hostile learning environment on its campuses for students who hold, are perceived to hold, or are affiliated or associated with Palestinian identity”.
Salman described being doxed by fellow law students, who wrote to an email listserv that “these students support Hamas terrorists”. She and other students met repeatedly with deans, chancellors and a bias team, she said: “We asked for redress and accountability – and got nothing.
“People have been given the green light to see anyone associated with [Palestinians] as terrorists,” she added.
The Rutgers complaint also describes a 26 February incident in which a law student, Salman said, accelerated her car and drove straight at Salman in a campus parking garage. She jumped out of the way; the car’s side mirror brushed her arm. Salman complained to the administration, with no result. She asked Rutgers police for camera footage, and was denied – twice.
Azka Mahmood, at Cair-GA, hopes the investigation of Emory helps “make sure that the systems put in place against bias are used for everyone across the board – so we can produce a comfortable, equitable place for Palestinian, Muslim and Arab students in the future”.
Maksut, at Cair-NJ, said he hopes the title VI complaints help address “silencing in the name of antisemitism. As Americans, it is our responsibility to speak up.”
