For more than a year, the world has been witnessing the genocidal massacres committed by Israel against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where tens of thousands have been killed, including university students and teachers, and academic institutions have been completely destroyed.

Amid this bloody carnage, student voices are rising from within American universities, accusing the administrations of their educational institutions of direct complicity in supporting the occupation, not only through silence, but through funding and direct investment in companies contributing to the genocide.

Reports issued by the American Friends Service Committee revealed that many American universities have investments worth billions of dollars in funds that contain shares in weapons companies supplying equipment to the Israeli army. For example, according to an analysis conducted by the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2022, Harvard University invested nearly US$500 million in Lockheed Martin, one of Israel’s largest arms suppliers.

The organisation “WhoProfits” also stated that Columbia University holds shares in Caterpillar, which provides bulldozers used to demolish Palestinian homes. These figures reveal how students’ tuition and grant money are turned into direct financial support for the Israeli war machine.

In this context, student Cecilia Colfer said during her graduation speech at George Washington University:

“I am ashamed to know my tuition is being used to fund genocide. I’m going to say that again. I am ashamed to know my tuition is being used to fund this genocide.”

This statement reflects a shift in student awareness that now links American education with the colonial system oppressing Palestinians and redefines the relationship between the student and the educational institution not only as an academic one, but also as a political, financial, and moral relationship.

But the universities have not stopped at silence, they have resorted to suppressing the students exposing these complicities. Instead of opening an honest discussion, the administrations moved under the pretext of preserving “protocols” and “behavioural regulations,” as happened at George Washington University, which apologised not for supporting genocide, but because the student “violated the ceremony’s rules”. This institutional hypocrisy contradicts the principles of academic freedom that these universities claim to protect.

Colfer pointed this out in her speech, saying:

“Despite repeated calls from students and faculty to disclose all endowments and investments by the university and divest from the apartheid state of Israel, the administration has refused to negotiate in good faith. Instead, they have repressed anyone with the courage to point out the blood on their hands.”

Here, Colfer is not attacking the protocols themselves, but their use as a tool to silence dissenting voices, in a scene that reproduces colonial power within the university space.

Legally, the suppression of free speech in American universities constitutes a violation of the US Constitution itself, which guarantees the right to peaceful expression under the First Amendment. Nevertheless, administrations use pretexts such as “disrupting university order” to justify disproportionate punishments like expulsion or arrest.

In the case of “Hampshire College v. Defenders of Palestinian Rights” (2023), a federal court ruled that the university’s sanctions against protesting students were “arbitrary” and violated their Constitutional rights. But despite these precedents, universities continue to use their political influence to justify repression.

These practices are not isolated. At Columbia University, dozens of sit-in students demanding a boycott of the occupation were arrested. At universities such as Harvard and NYU, students were expelled and student unions were suspended because of their pro-Palestinian activism. These measures reveal a double standard in dealing with freedom of expression, especially when it concerns victims of colonialism.

While American graduates celebrate their achievements, their Palestinian counterparts are deprived of their most basic rights. Thousands of students in Gaza have been denied access to education due to bombing or forced displacement. Colfer said in her speech:

“I cannot celebrate my own graduation without a heavy heart, knowing how many students in Palestine have been forced to stop their studies, expelled from their homes, and killed for simply remaining in the country of their ancestors.”

With this statement, Colfer shifts the stance from a personal level to a level of solidarity and humanity that transcends geography and identity.

In the face of this complicity, calls within universities for boycott and divestment campaigns are growing, as a continuation of the BDS movement. These calls encourage students to apply moral pressure on their universities through actions such as refusing to donate after graduation or demanding transparency in investments. Colfer concluded her speech with a clear call, saying:

“Until then, I call upon the class of 2025 to withhold donations and continue advocating for disclosure and divestment. None of us are free until Palestine is free.”

Here, the graduation platform turns into a platform of struggle, and the call to withhold donations becomes a tool of collective resistance.

In recent months, the confrontation between universities and the US Government has escalated, especially after the Trump administration threatened to cut federal funding to Harvard University because of its support for pro-Palestinian protests. Matters did not stop there; the Trump administration issued a decision preventing the university from enrolling international students in what was described as an “unprecedented escalation,” under the pretext of what the administration called “antisemitism” on campus.

The university rejected these pressures and filed a lawsuit. In a significant development, a federal court issued a temporary ruling preventing the government from implementing its decision. These events confirm that the battle between political authority and academic institutions is still ongoing and that universities face a real test in their commitment to intellectual freedom.

What is happening here cannot be separated from the broader political context in the United States, where universities have shifted from independent institutions, supposedly protecting freedom of thought, into arenas managed under state agendas and alliances. In the face of the US administration’s unconditional support for Israel, universities find themselves subject to political and financial blackmail to either align with the state’s narrative or face sanctions and funding cuts.

The Trump administration’s decision to prevent Harvard from enrolling international students under the pretext of “antisemitism” is nothing but a clear expression of this deviation; where the accusation is used as a political weapon to suppress any pro-Palestine stance, even if it comes in the form of peaceful criticism from within the academic campus.

Historically, American universities have not been isolated from political issues, they have always been a central arena in battles for social change. From civil rights movements to protests against the Vietnam War to the anti-apartheid boycott campaign in South Africa, students played a pivotal role in shaping American political consciousness.

But what is striking today is that support for Palestine, despite using the same peaceful and historical tools employed in those movements, is met with unprecedented repression, revealing the double standards in the very concept of “academic freedom”. It seems that this freedom is protected only when it aligns with the official American narrative and collapses when it deviates.

Hence, what we are witnessing is not merely a clampdown on opposing student voices, but a reshaping of the university’s role itself, from an independent critical space into a tool within the structure of political domination. The universities, once known as centres of thought, creativity and protest, are today reduced to bureaucratic institutions that fear sanctions and prefer silence over confronting power. Amid this decline, the voice of Colfer and those who followed in her path stands as a testament to the remaining conscience within academic halls losing their ethical purpose day by day.

In the end, Colfer’s speech is not just a passing protest, it is a historical document exposing the contradiction between the values American universities claim to uphold and their actual practices. As she said at the end of her speech:

“None of us are free until Palestine is free.”

The question that remains is: will these universities choose to stand on the side of justice, or will they continue playing the role of silent partners in war crimes? The answer will not come from the administrations, but from the students who refuse to let their universities become tools for repression and war funding.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.