MADRID – In recent months, a wave of suspensions, layoffs and disciplinary actions against scholars and students related to Palestinian activities have shaken university campuses across the United States.
From elite institutions such as Columbia and Harvard to small local universities that are not exposed to media scrutiny, administrative responses to protests, political expressions have begun to uncover troubling patterns, such as lockdown, silence and systematic exclusion.
Rather than isolated cases, these measures reflect the broader logic that some analysts describe in biopolitical terms: control, surveillance, and management of social groups through neutralization of what is considered politically dysfunctional or intimidated. In the name of institutional order, many universities have traditionally been presented as spaces for critical thinking and pluralism, but have adopted an increasingly responsive attitude towards dissent, especially when openly challenging Israeli policies or expressing solidarity with the Palestine.
Columbia University offers a clear illustration of this shift. Following intense external pressure, the Ministry of Research in the Middle East was placed under administrative oversight, raising serious concerns about academic autonomy. At the same time, pro-Palestinian student organizations have been suspended, and professors critical of Israeli violence have lost their position.
One of the most striking cases is the case of Iranian jurist Helier Dotaggi, who was removed from her post after being tied up to an organization accused of anti-Israel rhetoric. Doutaghi argues her dismissal is directly related to her public stance on Gaza’s military attacks.
“Universities are becoming a space of surveillance and oppression,” she said publicly. “In collaboration with state oppressive devices, these agencies are setting dangerous new precedents for national engagement rules.”
The current campaign of academic oppression unfolds at US universities – targeting Muslim professors and students who denounce Gaza genocide in particular can be interpreted through the theoretical lens proposed by Judith Butler in the analysis of so-called “gender fantasies.” According to philosophers, certain terms are stripped of their original meaning, such as the “gender” of anti-gender discourse, transformed into flooring substances, and transformed into all powerful symbols that can project all social illnesses. They stop explaining concrete reality and instead act as emotional catalysts: mobilization of fear, channelling of frustration, lawfulness of oppressive policies.
Similar dynamics are currently working under the term “anti-Semitism.” That “anti-Semitism” produced comparable effects of instrumentalization by segments of US political and academic institutions. Rather than identifying actual expressions of hatred, anti-Semitism accusations are increasingly being developed as a tool to condemn and punish criticism of Israel, particularly when such criticism comes from Muslims, Arabs, or global Southern voices.
Within this new framework, any Muslim scholar, or simply a critical of Israeli violence, will be reattacked again as a political “illusion.” It is a questionable, ideological, pervasive subject whose existence is perceived as a threat to institutional stability, campus security, or free consensus. Their professional records, intellectual rigor, or subtle arguments become irrelevant. They turn into neutralized targets.
This symbolic mechanism serves a broader, deeper, authoritarian logic. Universities do not serve as spaces for critical investigations, but have been redefined as a zone of objections in all forms related to Palestine, especially when articulated by racialized or Islamic voices. This operation is covered in the language of “tolerance”, “coexistence”, or “security”, despite the essential principles of academic freedom being effectively empty.
In this context, Islam is portrayed as an invasive, unstable, an invasive, unstable, an invasive, unstable, particularly political Islam against Gaza’s genocide, an existential threat to Western civilization and national identity. Carefully manufactured and completely detached from the living reality of Muslim communities, this “Ghost of Islam” functions as a scapegoat of the media and political environment, as it is increasingly shaped by fear and doubt.
The results are familiar. The rhetoric of terrorism and national security is developed to discipline discourses of challenging the status quo from an ethical and political perspective. It is important to remember here that “terrorism” is not just a descriptive category, but is more of a normative tool than anything else. Labeling something as terrorism is to cause immediate effects. A repertoire of oppressive practices – sensorship, persecution, detention, deportation, and even physical violence are stimulated and justified by the existence of constructed threats that are rarely questioned.
From a debate perspective, “terrorism” serves as a sign of exclusion. It identifies “others” (wild people, wild people, internal enemies) and symbolically expels them from the political community. Once dehumanized, actions against them become not only justified, but also necessary for the preservation of order.
What is happening at American universities today is not just a conflict between academic freedom and institutional governance. It is a visible symptom of deeper drift, with concepts like “terrorism,” “anti-Semitism,” and even “security” weaponized to justify the systematic exclusion of critical voices. Especially if those voices belong to Muslim students or scholars or allies of Palestinian causes. Under the rhetoric of order, neutrality, and tolerance, the regime of ideological surveillance is integrated, redefineing the boundaries of what can even be said or thought within the academic field.
This is not an isolated or circumstance phenomenon. It is part of a broader global attack on all forms of objections that challenge the foundations of western geopolitical power. In this context, Palestinian behaviorism has become a major target with its historical, ethical and political weight.