Anti-Palestinian Racism

Hello, everyone. My name is Danelle Curd, and I'm a researcher and analyst of Arab and Palestinian politics. Today, I want to read remarks I gave at an event about higher education, where I was invited to give the introductory remarks before a panel of experts were going to speak on the subject of higher ed around the world. And I was asked specifically to talk about attacks on academic freedom here in the United States. And I'm a good sport, always happy to be of service. So I did. But then I was accused after my remarks of downplaying anti-Semitism.

So for this episode, I want to read those remarks that I gave at this event. And then I'll explain why that accusation that was leveled against me is so insidious and harmful and outrageous and is part of a broader problem of rampant anti-Palestinian racism in the United States. Okay, here are the remarks I made at that event. Thank you all for attending this panel. I wanted to briefly situate this next discussion in the current political landscape and give a quick rundown of what has been happening. The news is so overwhelming, some of these details can be lost. First, I think most of us have heard of the Trump administration freezing funding for a number of universities. Many of these universities have entered into negotiations with the administration to

and agreed to make changes to the curriculum and internal structures in order to drop the investigations against them and release that funding. For example, Columbia University agreed to pay the Trump administration $ 220 million, punish 70 of its students in a variety of ways, including expulsion, and agreed to monitor and report their programs for, quote, unlawful DEI goals.

One of the ways Columbia has agreed to monitor their own departments, as The Intercept reported back in April, is by appointing a vice provost in charge of ensuring a balanced curriculum, that's in quotes, within the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department. So the faculty in that department will no longer run the department. As the Middle East Studies Association, in a statement back in March 2025, noted, placing the department under, quote, administrative receivership is a fundamental abrogation of the autonomy of university governance. Like at Columbia, a lot of these investigations and targeting of universities has focused on the presence of DEI programs and allegations of anti-Semitism.

The Trump administration has been aided by recent Supreme Court rulings, particularly the cases of Students for Fair Admissions v. the University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. These cases overturned the 2003 case of Greta v. Bollinger that had allowed higher education institutions to consider race in admissions.

Using this ruling, the Trump administration has gone after universities with programs that assist students of color, as well as initiatives focused on diversity. Allegations of anti-Semitism, especially in the wake of campus protests over the past two years, have also been used to attack universities. The American Association of University Professors, in partnership with the Middle East Studies Association, analyzed the data on the Title VI complaints around anti-Semitism, which have indeed ballooned over the past two years. In their report, titled Discriminating Against Dissent, they found that most government investigations of anti-Semitism, 78%, are prompted by complaints received from outside of university and college campuses, including from people

and organizations who have no relationship with the schools under investigation. Of the 102 complaints filed with the Office of Civil Rights that the report analyzes, all but one focus on speech critical of Israel. The report documents the surge in investigations since October 7th, 2023, with more investigations opened in the last two months of 2023, 25 investigations, than in all previous years combined, 24 investigations. Investigations broke record numbers in 2024, 39 investigations, and are on track to do so again in 2025, with 38 investigations as of September 30th.

This was back in 2025. So the Trump administration has used both of these things, DEI and anti-Semitism, to investigate universities. At the same time, they have also attacked the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Institutes of Health, all federal funding sources for the majority of research that happens at universities across disciplines, the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The Trump administration has additionally attacked foreign students and the processes by which they are able to get visas to study in the United States, which is another way to get at a major revenue source for many universities. Finally, and most recently, the Trump administration

put together what they called the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. This compact offers universities that sign preferential treatment for federal research money in exchange for agreeing to a list of conditions. Conditions include freezing tuition, capping international enrollment, requiring the SAT, and limiting faculty speech on political issues.

Only one university thus far has indicated their willingness to sign, the University of Texas at Austin, with most rejecting and a few expressing reservations. Whatever you personally think of these trends, I think what they make clear is that there is a concerted effort to change the trajectory and scope of higher education in this country. And members of the Trump administration have certainly made this explicitly clear. Vice President J.D. Vance, speaking to the National Conservatism Conference back in 2021, said, quote, We have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country, and that, quote, universities are the enemy. So this is the reality we are facing, and there is

an urgency in understanding how this impacts the quality of education in American universities for students, the quality of faculty research, the ability of universities to maintain their independence, and the role of universities in generating social mobility for marginalized people. Okay, so that's what I said in my introductory remarks before I turned it over to the speakers. Again, I was accused of downplaying anti-Semitism, and I was also likened to neo-Nazis.

Why?

For citing the report by the AAUP. In case people don't know, this is a very insidious trope of anti-Palestinian racism, often leveled at Palestinians. The idea that Palestinians are inherently anti-Semitic that they are akin to Nazis, that their identity is not a national one similar to every other nationality, but that Palestinian is a type of ideology centered on the hatred of Jews. That is anti-Palestinian racism. UC Berkeley's Department of Ethnic Studies has a pretty useful video on the subject, on how anti-Palestinian racism is predicated on the assumption that Palestinians are a threat to public order, and that it presupposes Palestinians, quote, do not enjoy the same rights to safety, and flourishing as others. Now, this overlaps

with racism against Arabs and white supremacy against people of color generally. It overlaps with Islamophobia, but it is also something distinct. There's a large literature on this. Dina Hurwitz and Walter White, writing for the American Bar Association, highlight how, quote, anti-Palestinian racism may also be Islamophobic, but importantly, not all Palestinians or all Arabs are Muslim. Just as not all Muslims are Arab, anti-Palestinian racism foments a distinct form of discrimination faced by Palestinians and those advocating for Palestinian rights, including non-Arabs and non-Muslims, for example Christians and Jews. Palestinians and their advocates encounter anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia, regardless of

whether they identify as secular, Muslim, Christian, Druze, or Jewish. End quote. The Arab Canadian Lawyers Association has a report also on this subject titled Anti-Palestinian Racism, Naming, Framing, and Manifestations. And they define it right on the first page. Quote, Anti-Palestinian racism is a form of anti-Arab racism that silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes, defames, or dehumanizes Palestinians or their narratives. Anti-Palestinian racism takes various forms, including denying the Nakba and justifying violence against Palestinians. failing to acknowledge Palestinians as an indigenous people with a collective identity, belonging, and rights in relation to occupied Palestine, erasing the human

rights and equal dignity and worth of Palestinians, excluding or pressuring others to exclude Palestinian perspectives, Palestinians and their allies, defaming Palestinians and their allies with slander, such as being inherently anti-Semitic, a terrorist threat-slash-sympathizer, or opposed to democratic values.

And finally, political scientists Yasmin Aboulaban and Abigail Bakan wrote a helpful essay on the matter for the Project on Middle East Political Science, which I will link in the show notes as well. They write, quote, Anti-Palestinian racism is a form of racism which does not say its name. Anti-Palestinian racism relies on various forms of coding to hide divisive, undemocratic practices of exclusion in an age where overt racism is considered ideologically distasteful. Now, they were writing a few years ago, so I'm not sure how distasteful it remains.

But let me continue. Quote, The complexity is furthered in that the language of anti-Semitism and Jewish suffering, language that addresses systemic racism against the Jewish people, is a central means through which to code anti-Palestinian racism and thereby suppress claims for redress. I am currently, while recording this podcast for you all, doing this thing where I'm going to greatly to prove that what I experienced isn't just in my head. It isn't just me being overly sensitive. That it isn't a situation where maybe the person who complained had a good reason. That this was anti-Palestinian racism. There is this huge body of work and so much evidence outlining what anti-Palestinian racism is. There's even an argument that

it animates broader Islamophobia in the United States. And it is a very real problem. But as Toni Morrison said, quote, So every time we take the accusation at face value and launch into justifications, into mustering all the evidence that the accusation is false, compiling the research and reports, That is a waste of time. Arguably, even this episode is me wasting my time in the way that racists intended.

But I also think there is an important function of discussing anti-Palestinian racism, both for this episode and for the broader discourse. The function is to start more immediately identifying it, pointing and calling it out, and distinguishing it as a separate thing that Palestinians in this country face. Because for Palestinians in this country, and a number of other countries, but I'm speaking about the United States here, the situation has gotten worse. And for Palestinian academics, which I can specifically speak to, the situation in higher education has gotten worse.

The Middle East Studies Association has launched something called the Academic Freedom Initiative, where they collect data on how institutions of higher education are cracking down on their employees and students in a variety of ways around the issue of Palestine. And let's be clear, they weaponize the issue of Palestine to take away faculty governance or any kind of independence.

whatever is left of it on these campuses. So for example, the Academic Freedom Initiative record 139 instances of employment retaliation. So that's the universities retaliating against their employees. With 46% of those who faced retaliation eventually terminated from employment altogether. According to the latest update on their website, August 20th, 2026, 62% of Title VI investigations at universities retaliated. about anti-Semitism were instigated by outside actors outside the university. And out of 116 events that they record universities interfering with, events related to Palestine, 55% were canceled. This is the state of affairs in higher ed. Anti-Palestinian racism is rampant, but it's also,

of course, rampant in other sectors and in our discourse. And last but not least, this country's official policies. But allies can refuse to allow this to go unchecked and can start to insist that this kind of racism is identified and not tolerated. So the racists wanted me to waste my time. But hopefully this can also be a call to action to stand up against anti-Palestinian racism more staunchly than before. Because we need it. That's all I have for you today. Thanks for listening.

It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions.

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