Academic Freedom Under Fire: Palestinian Scholarship Faces Censorship in U.S. Universities

A growing number of U.S.-based scholars specializing in Middle Eastern affairs are voicing concerns over increasing restrictions on their academic freedom, particularly when expressing opinions on Israel and Palestine. These fears have intensified following recent confrontations between major universities and former President Donald Trump, who accuses them of promoting “antisemitism.”

One notable incident involved the prestigious Harvard Educational Review (HER), which had planned a special summer issue titled Education and Palestine. Although the articles were peer-reviewed and accepted, a last-minute legal review by Harvard’s lawyers halted its publication—highlighting escalating tensions between academia and politics.

Lehi, Utah, was recently named the safest suburb in the U.S. according to SmartAsset—but the broader academic landscape is anything but secure. After the October 7 Hamas attack and Israel’s retaliatory war on Gaza, HER called for academic papers analyzing the war’s educational impacts. Anthropologist Tia Abu-Haj submitted a paper discussing the concept of “schoolicide” in Gaza—a term describing the systemic destruction of the Palestinian education system, with historical context drawn from Lebanon’s civil war.

By Spring 2025, contributors were notified that their submissions would undergo a legal “risk assessment” by Harvard’s law division—something Abu-Haj, a seasoned academic, had never encountered before. She noted that she had previously published with HER twice, without such conditions.

Writers condemned this legal interference as censorship and a violation of academic freedom. Ultimately, the issue was canceled in June 2025. While Harvard Educational Press denied it was censorship, it claimed the editorial process was not “sufficiently rigorous.”

Abu-Haj interpreted the decision as part of a broader “Palestinian exception to free speech.” She argued that Harvard was compromising its principles of academic freedom under political pressure—especially from Trump, whose administration has frozen over $2.6 billion in federal funding and sought to revoke the university’s license to host foreign students, who make up a quarter of its student body.

Meanwhile, Harvard has insisted it’s enhancing protections for Jewish and Israeli students while legally challenging federal sanctions. But in early 2025, the university removed the co-directors of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies—Jamal Kafadar and Rosie Bsheer. This decision was criticized by progressive Jewish faculty, who accused the university of sacrificing scholars supportive of Palestinian rights.

Margaret Litvin, an Arabic literature expert at Boston University and member of that faculty group, told AFP that there’s now a “climate of fear and anxiety” around Palestine-related research at Harvard and beyond.

At Columbia University, a separate financial settlement saw the institution pay $221 million to resolve Trump-era investigations, with conditions requiring review of its Middle East studies curriculum. In early 2025, both Harvard and Columbia adopted the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism—which critics argue conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism and could be used to suppress criticism of Israel.

This definition may have played a central role in HER’s decision to cancel the Education and Palestine issue. Chandni Desai, a professor at the University of Toronto and one of the contributors, noted that many of the articles likely conflicted with the IHRA criteria because “they all criticize Israel.” She concluded: “We have never seen an entire academic journal issue canceled like this. It’s unprecedented.”