(RNS) — More than a year after thousands of students were arrested for staging pro-Palestine protests on campuses across the country, some Muslim student activists and other advocates say they haven’t been cowed by crackdowns meant to limit their organizing, calling instead for the schools to be held accountable for what the activists see as restricting students’ free speech.
Many vow they will continue to push their universities to divest from Israeli companies.
“What is happening right now is not a symbol of defeat,” said Salma Hamamy, a recent graduate who was a prominent protest organizer at the University of Michigan. “It’s a symbol of the strength that we built in the previous year, that our movement was so effective that the repression had to take such a form.”
Since the campus protests were shut down, surveys of students have found that police crackdowns against largely peaceful demonstrations have left them feeling that speech rights are not secure on their campuses. Muslim students feel the least sure of their freedom to speak, according to a survey by the campus free speech group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
More than half (53%) of Muslim students surveyed from May 2024 to June 2025 said that the right to freedom of speech is “not at all” or “not very” secure on campus. Nearly half (48%) said the police response to campus encampments makes them feel “very” or “somewhat” …