Two reports issued Wednesday by organizations that advocate for Palestinian rights ring alarm bells about what they characterize as organized and widespread efforts to suppress debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on American campuses.
The first of the two reports, “The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the U.S.,” jointly produced by two legal organizations, Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights, outlines a wide array of actions by universities, government bodies and Israel advocacy organizations to “censor, punish or otherwise burden advocacy for Palestinian rights.” Although the report is not limited to college and university campuses in its scope, Palestine Legal says that the overwhelming majority of requests it receives for legal assistance — 89 percent in 2014 and 80 percent in the first half of 2015 — involve students or scholars.
Read more in Inside Higher Ed.