Season 2024 Episode 6 | 53m 51s | Video has closed captioning.
FRONTLINE and Retro Report tell the inside story of the protests dividing college campuses over Israel and the war in Gaza. The documentary investigates the polarizing debate over free speech, antisemitism, Israel and the Palestinians, and the political forces behind the crisis.
Aired: 06/11/24
>> College protests reaching a boiling point after days of an encampment on campus... >> NARRATOR: April 30, 2024.
(glass smashing, protestors shouting) Protestors condemning the war in Gaza had barricaded themselves in a building at Columbia University.
PROTESTORS (chanting): The people united will never be defeated!
>> NARRATOR: They demanded the school sever ties with Israel.
>> (chanting and clapping): I believe that we will win.
I believe that we will win.
I believe that we will win!
>> The protestors say on social media, if Columbia tries to remove them by force, the school will, quote, "have blood on its hands."
>> Less than 24 hours later, Columbia University called in the police.
>> It looks like a military-grade vehicle that is coming down Amsterdam right now with protestors on each side.
>> Okay, we see an officer approaching the window right now.
>> With guns drawn.
Guns drawn.
>> You know, it's, it's-- wow.
>> The first officer has entered the window.
People are screaming on the street in response.
(protestors screaming) >> I am now seeing the NYPD, dozens going in through the gate as well.
>> PROTESTORS: ♪ We shall not be moved ♪ (drill buzzing, protestors singing) (police whistling, metal clattering) >> (shouting): Down!
Stay on the ground!
Stay down!
>> NARRATOR: The clashes at Columbia that night were the culmination of months of chaos sweeping across American college campuses... >> (leading chant): Free, free Palestine!
>> NARRATOR: ...Ignited by a war on the other side of the world.
>> Oh, my God!
(protestors screaming) >> Terrorists!
You guys are terrorists!
>> All right.
>> NARRATOR: From the start... >> JACOBY: October 7, I think we start it there.
>> NARRATOR: "Frontline" and "Retro Report" have been following the escalating turmoil... >> We'll be taking the streets and sending a very clear message.
>> NARRATOR: ...talking to people on all sides of the divide... >> So many students actually seem willing to condone or even justify violence against Israel, violence against Jews.
>> NARRATOR: ...investigating how universities have responded... >> Our university rejects hate.
>> NARRATOR: ...how powerful interests joined the fray... >> Anti-semitism is spreading like wildfire >> JACOBY: What was it that prompted you to call those hearings?
>> NARRATOR: ...and how the conflict over the conflict ultimately spiraled out of control.
(people shouting) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> "Frontl ♪ ♪ >> We begin with breaking news.
The Israeli military is warning that a number of militants have infiltrated Israeli territory from Gaza.
>> Barrages of rockets being fired from Gaza, reaching as far as Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem.
They've never seen such an amount of rockets at the same time.
>> October 7 was the Jewish joyous holiday of Simchat Torah.
I'm an Orthodox Jew, meaning on the Sabbath, on Jewish holidays, I don't use electronics, including my phone.
Rumors began circulating that there was a terror attack in Israel.
I lived in Israel; I have four siblings who currently live in Israel; my grandparents, aunts, uncles.
So, I, I break the Sabbath for the first time in my life on the night of October 7, frantically trying to locate my siblings, seeing if, if they're alive or not.
I was not alone.
There were dozens of other Jewish students at Harvard doing the exact same thing, frantically locating their, their loved ones.
>> Hamas has launched a surprise attack within Israel's borders.
>> Palestinian gunmen are inside Israeli cities and towns.
(woman screams, men shouting, reporter speaking indistinctly) >> Active firefights going on in various Israeli cities and villages around Gaza.
>> This is, in fact, Israel's 9/11.
>> NARRATOR: The attacks would turn out to be the worst loss of Jewish life since the Second World War.
>> (speaking Arabic) >> NARRATOR: Hamas fighters killed more than a thousand people and kidnapped more than 200.
(engine rumbling) (rocket whooshes, explodes) >> Hamas will understand.
We will exact a price that will be remembered by them and Israel's other enemies for decades to come.
>> NARRATOR: Israel began launching airstrikes in Gaza.
>> ...the death toll in Gaza spiral as Israel continues to retaliate.
So far, at least 198 Palestinians have been killed... >> NARRATOR: In those very first hours, at Harvard, a group of Palestinian student activists began discussing how to respond.
>> I had a conversation with my dad that day, and he was like, "50,000 Palestinians will be killed because of what happened on October 7."
And I remember at the time being like, "Baba, you're crazy.
Like, that's not gonna happen," because we hadn't seen anything like that in our lifetime.
>> NARRATOR: They were members of a group called Harvard Law School Justice for Palestine.
And for years they had been protesting Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
>> So we felt like it was necessary to get out some sort of statement, like, immediately, because we saw what was happening, and we felt like there were two, like, really urgent needs.
One was to, like, contextualize what's happening.
And two, we were scared, and we felt like there was a real urgent need to warn people to, um, stand in unwavering, you know, solidarity against retaliation that was going to kill thousands of people.
>> NARRATOR: The statement, signed by a coalition of more than 30 student groups at Harvard, began with the line "We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence."
There was no mention of Hamas.
>> It's this idea of, like, if something horrific happens, why and what are the circumstances that lead someone to do something like this?
And where does that responsibility lie?
And when we're talking about Palestine and the circumstances in which Palestinians are living, it's, it's, they are living under Israeli oppression.
And what is happening, um, is they're, they're in a pressure cooker.
And you think what is a response that could occur in this pressure cooker?
>> JACOBY: Did you contemplate whether to mention Hamas at all?
>> It just didn't really seem like the purpose of our statement.
Like, I think, again, we wanted to contextualize it in a broader structure.
I think Hamas is a, like, manifestation of the structure.
>> I was appalled when I saw that letter.
The absolute last thing you do is you blame the victim.
>> NARRATOR: The statement caused an outcry on campus.
>> Within a couple of hours of the statement being released, it was all anyone could talk about.
>> Totally whitewashing all responsibility of the people actually engaged in the violence, which is... >> One of the worst parts of October 7 was not just the horrific terror attack, but it was the fact that our friends and classmates were justifying it.
You know, that, to me, is something that I can never really shake off.
You know, we Jewish students at Harvard did not have time to mourn.
We did not have time to, to discern exactly what was happening.
We immediately had to go on, on the defense to explain that what was happening was, was horrific, was the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, that Israel not only has a right, but has an obligation to defend itself.
>> Deep divisions in the Middle East are currently dividing the Harvard University campus.
>> NARRATOR: The conflict over the conflict had begun.
>> Those were pro-Hamas letters.
There were many celebrating the... >> NARRATOR: Harvard was at the epicenter.
>> You can really sense a charged atmosphere here at Harvard.
>> NARRATOR: How the university would respond would set the stage for the months of turmoil to come.
>> The statement was met with outcry from several alumni, including Texas senator Ted Cruz, who tweeted, "What the hell is wrong with Harvard?"
>> NARRATOR: Almost immediately, there were calls for Harvard to condemn the student groups' statement.
>> I thought that any responsible institution would immediately say, "We condemn this letter.
"We want to meet with the students who wrote this letter.
"We want to make clear to them that this is not acceptable at an institution of higher education."
>> NARRATOR: Rabbi David Wolpe, a visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School and one of the most influential rabbis in America, thought the student statement amounted to antisemitism.
>> I don't think there's any question that the letter was antisemitic because it is inconceivable to me that any other group of people in the world could have gone through the brutality that the Israelis endured and have had people say, "Well, it's their fault."
I was appalled and shocked but not entirely surprised because I had seen this ideology before.
I knew it existed.
I'm referring to the problem of deep animosity towards Israel and derivative animosity towards Jews.
>> NARRATOR: Harvard's newly appointed president, Claudine Gay, initially made no public comment.
Then, a major escalation.
On October 9, one of Gay's predecessors, the former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, launched an attack on social media.
He wrote, "I am sickened.
"I cannot fathom the Administration's failure to disassociate the University and condemn this statement."
>> He's saying he's never felt more alienated and disillusioned by what is happening now.
>> NARRATOR: The posts made Claudine Gay and Harvard headline news.
>> Good for Larry Summers, incidentally, who immediately came out strongly in support of common sense.
>> Here he was turning to social media to shame and embarrass and pressure the current president who, who had literally been in office doing that job for a few months.
At Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad thought the students' statement was an inappropriate way to make their point.
But he was troubled by Summers' attack.
>> Larry Summers had a huge bully pulpit and was spending as much of his political capital as possible to say that what's happening at Harvard University is unacceptable, this university cannot continue down this path, and, uh, ultimately, that Claudine Gay was doing a terrible job.
>> NARRATOR: Later that day, Claudine Gay, who declined our requests for an interview, released Harvard's first public statement.
It didn't condemn the students as Summers was demanding.
Instead, it called for "dialogue and empathy... "at a time of unimaginable loss."
>> It was a general expression of concern about what had happened in the Middle East and an affirmation that, in this moment, people will have different points of view, um, that we have to respect each other's different points of view.
>> NARRATOR: The statement did little to calm the situation at Harvard.
>> I don't see why the president could not have issued a statement that both supports Israel, supports Palestine, while denouncing Hamas as a terrorist organization.
>> I went to the Hillel to be with the students and to hear what they were saying.
And I saw genuine fear.
And they showed me some of the messages that they were getting on the internal student channels, which were awful, and were filled with antisemitic images and with some veiled and not-so-veiled threats.
And that's when I recognized that this was not going to go away.
>> NARRATOR: With many in the Jewish community now expressing concern about antisemitism on campus, another powerful voice weighed in.
On October 10, Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund manager and Harvard donor, called for the university to publish the names of the students from the groups that had signed the controversial statement.
>> Bill Ackman is saying, "Look, if you're one of these students, "I want to know who you are, "because in the business world, we ain't gonna hire you."
>> NARRATOR: Several groups retracted support for the statement.
>> When they're first presented with the consequence, they fold like a lawn chair.
And that's what these Harvard students did.
>> NARRATOR: Although the students who wrote it stood firm on blaming Israel, they clarified that they opposed "all violence against all innocent life."
>> We're getting constant, constant calls from unknown numbers... >> NARRATOR: But students were already being doxxed, with their names and personal information posted online.
>> A digital billboard parked right outside Harvard University is attracting a lot of attention.
(camera shutter clicking) >> NARRATOR: At the same time, a conservative watchdog organization sent a billboard truck to Cambridge, branding the students as "Harvard's Leading Antisemites."
>> If they're ashamed of what they did and want to apologize, we'll remove them.
If they're proud of what they did, they should thank us.
>> NARRATOR: Lea Kayali and Tala Alfoqaha were both targeted.
They said calling them antisemitic was an unfair smear to distract from their criticism of Israel.
>> I got a text of someone screenshotting a tweet from the president, I think, of the Accuracy in Media company, which is the company that runs the doxxing trucks, who was gleefully saying that he has our addresses and is going to send the trucks to our homes.
>> This is disgusting.
This is sickening.
>> You know, like, we wouldn't wish what happened to us, but also what happened to our, our fellow students on anyone.
People got death and rape threats directly to their phone lines, um, lots of online harassment and threats.
I mean, it... >> It felt like every hour there was a new crisis.
>> NARRATOR: As her friends were dealing with the doxxing, Israa Alzamli got news about relatives she had in Gaza.
>> I, like, have a very vivid memory of, like, sitting in a doxxed student's house and, like, writing emails with her, like, trying to help her.
She had, like, lost her job.
And, and at the same moment, I got a text message from my dad saying, like, four more people in my family died.
Like, here are their names.
Here's the link where you can read about who died.
Like, people... like my family was dying.
Like my family is dying.
And then I was like, things are also like hell here.
It's like, I, like, it was just like an un... it was, like, truly an unbearable situation in, like, so many different ways.
>> Leadership at Harvard in the hot seat now.
>> NARRATOR: Amid mounting pressure about her leadership... >> You're worried about offending somebody?
We're talking about the slaughter of civilians.
This... >> NARRATOR: ...and anger and fear among students on all sides... >> Some are even now calling it "Hamas Harvard."
>> NARRATOR: ...Claudine Gay tried once again to quell the controversy.
>> Harvard's president says in her third message... >> NARRATOR: On October 12, she issued a video statement.
>> Our university rejects terrorism.
That includes the barbaric atrocities perpetrated by Hamas.
>> NARRATOR: She had made it clear the students who'd blamed Israel for October 7 were not speaking for Harvard, but she stopped short of rebuking or punishing them.
>> The president of Harvard should have come out a lot earlier saying that we don't support terrorist groups.
>> NARRATOR: It led to charges of a double standard from some Jewish students, like Shabbos Kestenbaum.
>> This is a university that, shortly after the murder of George Floyd, not only condemned white supremacy and racism, but said that, as an institution, Harvard was going to do all they could to rid themselves of white supremacy.
It really animates the hypocrisy that is at the center of Harvard University, where every minority group gets to be coddled, every minority group gets to have trigger warnings and safe spaces, but Jews do not count.
>> (crowd chanting): Free, free Palestine.
>> Free, free Palestine!
>> (crowd in response): Free, free Palestine!
>> This protest inside Harvard Yard attracted over 250 supporters of Palestine.
>> NARRATOR: Harvard students began coming out in protest against Israel, fueling the charges of antisemitism.
>> Why have American colleges become so antisemitic?
>> I just want to be clear that everything that is said on this campus that is a critique of Israel is not, in my opinion, antisemitic.
>> NARRATOR: Some of Professor Muhammad's students were at the protests, and he took issue with how they were being characterized.
>> Students on campus were protesting in defense of Palestinians.
And I, you know, those, those students are not genocidal.
They just don't believe Israel has a right to occupy Gaza and the West Bank in the way that it has.
>> There's a pro-Palestine rally... >> NARRATOR: As Hamas continued to hold hostages, and the death toll in Gaza soared... >> (shouting): From the river to sea... >> NARRATOR: Protests were spreading.
>> From Arizona State to Indiana to George Mason and many more... >> NARRATOR: Debate over one of the world's most intractable and complex conflicts was now gripping American college campuses.
>> They're about erasing one people and replacing it with another.
>> You cannot expect people who have been oppressed for 75 years to sit down in their rooms, write poetry, and not fight back.
>> We want Israel to be able to defend itself from terrorism.
>> NARRATOR: The rhetoric would quickly grow more heated.
>> You guys are (muted) Nazis.
>> You're the one killing Jews.
>> You support genocide.
>> NARRATOR: Students shared images from Gaza as a rallying cry... >> WOMAN (in video, crying): ...thousands of people around.
>> NARRATOR: ...and sounded alarms about anti-Muslim and anti-Arab incidents.
>> His hateful screams of "(beep) you and your people" still echo in my ears.
>> NARRATOR: Jewish students reported a wave of antisemitic incidents.
>> An angry slur and stereotype-laden assault.
>> NARRATOR: On many campuses, posters of Israeli hostages were ripped down.
>> Why are you, why are you tearing that down?
>> NARRATOR: At Tulane University, a melee broke out at one protest.
(people screaming) >> Whoa, whoa, whoa!
>> (shouting): What the (muted) is wrong with you?
>> (shouting): Terrorists!
You guys are terrorists!
>> NARRATOR: Yasmeen Ohebsion, a Tulane student, was there.
>> You guys are terrorists!
>> Students on the other side were flipping us off, telling us that we smelled, and we should go back to the showers.
People saying, "(muted) Israel."
A woman who did not seem to look like a student at all approached me and looked at me as I was holding an Israeli flag um, and having my Magen David necklace on, and then she said, "(muted) you, Jew."
(bomb explodes) >> NARRATOR: By this point in the Gaza War... (man shouting) ...Israel's military had killed thousands of Palestinians.
(people shouting) >> More than 9,000 Palestinians have been killed since... >> NARRATOR: Harvard students were ramping up their anti-war efforts.
>> Right now we have hundreds of people who have come out to get on buses to go join the national march on Washington.
We'll be taking to the streets and sending a very clear message that we demand a ceasefire, we demand an end to the siege on Gaza.
>> Three, two, one.
Cheese.
(cheering) (cheering continues) >> Thousands are flooding D.C. right now, marching against the war in Gaza.
Organizers are expecting up to 30,000 people or so from all across the country.
(protestors chanting "Guilty") >> NARRATOR: The Harvard students joined thousands of other students and protestors, demanding a ceasefire and protesting America's longstanding economic and military support for Israel.
>> You're buying the guns that childrens are dying from, the rockets where families are burning under the rubble.
>> Guys, make some space!
Make some space!
>> NARRATOR: The growing protest movement was appealing to students who saw the war in Gaza as a struggle for liberation linked to other American social justice causes.
>> As a Black person in America, we understand that these struggles are intertwined.
>> Not another nickel, not another dime!
>> We can't have free Black people with a free Palestine.
>> (chanting): Israel bombs, U.S.A. pays.
>> (chanting): How many kids did you kill today?
>> They see children being maimed and, and buildings exploding.
And I think that's the single largest driver of the protests.
But it fits into this broader complex that does connect to race.
They see this as part of a broader worldview of the oppressed and the oppressors.
>> NARRATOR: "Wall Street Journal" reporter Douglas Belkin has been covering the protests and how they have exposed a generational divide for some on the issue of Israel.
>> People over probably 40, maybe 50, watched Israel or understand that Israel was, first of all, created out of the ashes of the Holocaust and then attacked, and was sort of the underdog in '48 and again in '67.
They had these, these fights for survival.
But what the younger folks have grown up with, is Israel as a mature country that has the most powerful military in the region, and they see Israel as a bully.
>> (chanting): We don't want no two states.
>> (chanting): We don't want no two states.
>> (chanting): We want 48.
>> (chanting): We want 48.
>> NARRATOR: As they had been doing on their campuses, the protestors in D.C. were using provocative chants with meanings that were being highly contested.
>> (chanting): There is only one solution.
>> (chanting): There is only one solution.
>> (chanting): Intifada revolution.
>> NARRATOR: One was for global intifada, or "uprising," which many of the students embraced as a call for Palestinian liberation after decades of occupation.
>> (chanting): Intifada revolution!
>> (chanting): Intifada revolution!
>> NARRATOR: For pro-Israel students, it was a call for violence, evoking years of Palestinian terror attacks against Jews.
>> (chanting): Intifada revolution!
>> NARRATOR: Another was for Palestine to be liberated "from the river to the sea."
>> (chanting): From the river to the sea!
>> (chanting): From the river to the sea!
>> (chanting): Palestine will be free.
>> (chanting): Palestine will be free!
>> That's the main chant, that's the main chant of the Palestinian liberation struggle, because historic Palestine has been occupied from the river to the sea since 1947 and '48.
It's like critical to our understanding of Palestinian identity, liberation and, and struggle.
>> (chanting): From the river to the sea!
>> NARRATOR: But it stirred up fear and anger for supporters of Israel, who saw it as a call for the eradication of Israel as the Jewish homeland and refuge from persecution.
>> The river to the sea chant is ambiguous in the following way.
The "Wall Street Journal" had a wonderful article, "Which River, Which Sea?"
Most students had no idea.
They thought they were chanting for peace.
But the ones who knew, knew, and have started increasingly to chant it in its original Arabic, which is "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab."
>> (chanting in Arabic): >> (crowd repeating in Arabic): >> (chanting in Arabic): >> (crowd repeating in Arabic): >> In other words, no Jews.
And so for the people who know what they're saying, they know what they're saying.
>> (chanting): From the river to the sea!
>> It's very difficult knowing that your classmates are chanting for the eradication of the state where half my family lives.
>> (chanting): From the river to the sea!
>> (chanting): From the river to the sea!
>> I mean criticism of the war in Gaza is not antisemitic.
>> Free, free Palestine!
>> But the line in the sand is, when you question the right of Israel to exist as a state, when you question the right of Israel to defend itself, that is antisemitism.
>> NARRATOR: With the escalating protests, university administrators across the country were facing the challenge of how to respond to the rhetoric and division on their campuses.
>> In earlier times of political protest-- for example, about the Vietnam War-- the student body often was very united-- against the administration, but often very united-- but this time it's student against student.
It's faculty member against faculty member.
>> NARRATOR: Carol Christ is the chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley; a school with a long history of student protest.
>> Two conflicting protests happening at the same time at U.C.
Berkeley.
>> I think a protest is... it's certainly within the DNA of Berkeley, and the right of public protest, it's really absolutely essential to a democracy.
What was complicated about this protest was the way in which for some people protesting, it shaded into kinds of prejudice-- antisemitism, Islamophobia-- even though, you know, the center was legitimate political statement.
>> (chanting): Free, free Palestine!
>> NARRATOR: For university leaders like Christ, the protests presented a critical dilemma: balancing free speech with the need to prevent harassment and discrimination, which they are required to do under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
>> Everyone has a right to feel welcome, to feel comfortable, to feel that they can enjoy the, the opportunities that the university has without discrimination or bias.
But sometimes that runs athwart of free speech protections.
You are protected, as you well know, in saying some pretty abhorrent things.
(crowd clapping to a beat) >> (chanting): Free, free Palestine!
>> (chanting): Free, free Palestine!
>> (chanting): Free, free, free Palestine!
>> (chanting): Free, free, free Palestine!
>> Look at this!
Look at this baby!
You killed him!
Look!
Look!
>> NARRATOR: This dilemma played out vividly on the campus of Columbia University in New York City.
>> (chanting in Hebrew) >> NARRATOR: Columbia had been divided from the beginning of the crisis.
The day after October 7, a prominent Middle East studies professor described the Hamas attacks as "innovative" and wrote that they were a "stunning victory" for the "Palestinian resistance."
(camera shutter clicking) Tens of thousands of people signed a petition demanding he be fired.
>> (chanting): From the river to the sea!
>> NARRATOR: Columbia's two main pro-Palestinian student groups also came out publicly after the attacks, saying they stood "in full solidarity with Palestinian resistance."
>> A large rally held this evening at Columbia University, students there telling us they are protesting the antisemitism happening on campus.
>> (speaking Hebrew) >> NARRATOR: We spoke to Jewish students at Columbia in late October.
Benjamin Weiss, a freshman, was attending a pro-Israel rally.
>> You see people supporting terrorism on campus and that makes you unsafe.
And so I think it's about laying down the line, and saying, "Here is where we say 'no.'
"When you support Hamas, this is not okay.
"This is not, you know, acceptable on our campus."
>> We here at Columbia can play the long game.
>> NARRATOR: The recently appointed president of Columbia, Nemat "Minouche" Shafik, tried to defuse the tensions, calling for "common ground" but warning against "language that vilifies, threatens, or stereotypes entire groups of people."
>> The needle she has to thread is between speech rights for the students and the Title VI regulations, which say that students have a right to get an education unimpeded by harassment.
The problem that Shafik and all the college presidents have is that where that line gets drawn isn't written in stone anywhere, it's really not been adjudicated.
(crowd shouting) ♪ ♪ >> Fox Business Alert, we are back with billionaire investor and Omega Family Office Chair and C.E.O.
Leon Cooperman.
>> NARRATOR: On October 25, another prominent donor-- billionaire investor Leon Cooperman-- entered the fray.
>> Where are we in the world when 1,300 Israeli civilians... >> I think these kids at the colleges have (muted) for brains.
>> NARRATOR: Cooperman was part of a revolt by donors over the allegations of campus antisemitism.
>> We already have seen $150 million that would have come to the university, move away from the university.
>> NARRATOR: They were threatening to pull hundreds of millions of dollars.
>> I've given to Columbia probably about $50 million over many years, and I'm gonna suspend my giving.
I'll give my giving to other organizations.
>> The president of Columbia University called me up when I made my comment on TV, and I said, "Look, all you had to do is come out and say "the professor who praised Hamas does not reflect the views, "the views of the university.
"We would terminate him if we could, but he has tenure, "we can't.
"And there's no room for hate speech of any kind against any organized group on the campus."
Period.
Paragraph.
They didn't say that.
They equivocated.
>> JACOBY: To the pro-Palestinian students and professors that say that they're simply concerned about the war, they're not targeting Jews in particular, what do you say to that?
>> Bull (muted).
They're anti-Israel.
They're anti-Jews.
They're antisemitic.
That's my view.
>> JACOBY: And it's not more nuanced than that?
>> I don't know.
I'm not trying to be too intellectual here.
I don't think so.
>> Rallies underway at Columbia in solidarity with two student groups that have been suspended for the fall semester... >> NARRATOR: President Shafik soon ordered a crackdown on the protests.
>> This is a live look behind me at the hundreds of students gathered here in the center of campus.
>> NARRATOR: Columbia suspended the two groups that had come out in support of Palestinian resistance.
The university said they had been holding unauthorized protests, and noted an event that included "threatening rhetoric and intimidation."
One of the groups was Students for Justice in Palestine.
The other, Jewish Voice for Peace, a progressive Jewish group critical of Israel.
>> I mean, I think the administration really believed that if they came down hard, they would break the movement.
>> NARRATOR: Nadia Abu El Haj is the co-director of the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia.
She was an outspoken opponent of the crackdown and the characterization of the protests as antisemitic.
>> The space of the university is to protect students as they explore their political and intellectual commitments in this particular time in life where they're learning how to be an adult.
And unless they really cross a line into racism and harassment, they have the right to express what they believe, even if other students find it uncomfortable-making or offensive.
>> (chanting): From Korea to Palestine!
>> (chanting): From Korea to Palestine!
>> (chanting): Stop the U.S. war machine!
>> NARRATOR: President Shafik declined to be interviewed.
Her crackdown would backfire, fueling more conflict and division on campus.
>> I heard a lot of people say that it was a no-win situation.
>> NARRATOR: Jelani Cobb is the dean of the Journalism School at Columbia.
>> And it did seem like almost any kind of statement, anything that was like said or done, it was like kind of a quicksand situation where moving in any way, you know, only gets you deeper into it.
>> Minouche Shafik, open your eyes!
>> NARRATOR: In late November, we filmed with protestors who were continuing to turn out despite the suspension.
>> (chanting): Free, free Palestine!
>> As a movement we are feeling this massive suppression both on our Columbia's campus and in the country as a whole.
>> NARRATOR: Safiya, who was hiding her identity for fear of doxxing, was one of the organizers for Students for Justice in Palestine.
>> They want us to feel afraid and they don't want us to host these events on campus and they want to make us personally afraid that there will be consequences against us as individuals.
>> (chanting): While you're talking, bombs are dropping!
>> We're outside of Low Library right now as the event is going on.
And while we were protesting, administrators came and approached us and said to our legal liaisons that we were in violation of school policy.
>> (chanting): Columbia stands with apartheid!
>> And this just shows exactly the kind of suppression that we face.
(applause) >> NARRATOR: As the activists gathered outside the building, President Shafik was speaking at an event called The War in Gaza: Constructive Campus Conversations.
>> Here at a university, the question should not be what side are you on?
Instead, it can be what can we learn from history?
>> We have been notified that they can hear us inside!
(crowd cheering, drumming) >> Minouche Shafik!
>> Minouche Shafik!
>> The more you try to silence us... >> The more you try to silence us... >> The louder we will be!
>> (chanting): The more you try to silence us, the louder we will be!
The more you try to silence us, the louder we will be!
The more you try to silence us, the louder we will be!
The more you try to silence us, the louder we will be!
The more you try to silence us, the louder we will be!
>> The presidents of Harvard, M.I.T., and the University of Pennsylvania will testify before the House Education Committee.
>> The best time for college presidents to have stood up for their Jewish students was October 7.
That did not happen.
The second best time is today.
>> NARRATOR: In December, a Republican-led congressional committee, citing what it called "antisemitic protests" confronted the heads of Harvard, M.I.T., and the University of Pennsylvania.
>> So really what you're going to see here is more of a kind of a public shaming, I think.
>> NARRATOR: President Shafik of Columbia was summoned too, but she was out of the country at the time.
>> We decided that the way to investigate what was happening on the campus was to start with the presidents of these universities because that was where the most egregious behavior was occurring.
It was really a concern for the safety of the Jewish students.
Good morning.
The Committee on Education and Workforce will come to order.
>> NARRATOR: North Carolina Republican Virginia Foxx chaired the hearings.
She said had a brief conversation with Claudine Gay beforehand.
>> What Claudine Gay said to me was, "What is your vision for this hearing?"
So I said, "Well, my vision is that you will get a spine "and that you will speak with moral clarity "about what's happening on your campus, "and that you will make some decisions that will stop the bad behavior that's going on on the campuses."
Today, each of you will have a chance to answer to and atone for the many specific instances of vitriolic, hate-filled antisemitism on your respective campuses.
>> NARRATOR: All of the presidents denounced antisemitism.
>> There is no place for antisemitism at Harvard.
>> NARRATOR: All supported Israel's right to exist.
>> Do you believe that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish nation?
>> Absolutely, Israel has the right to exist.
>> NARRATOR: Many of the questions also reflected a much broader set of conservative concerns about the direction of higher education.
>> What is the percentage of conservative professors at your institutions?
>> Would you allow President Trump, who is a graduate of UPenn, to speak at UPenn if a student group invited him?
>> NARRATOR: But the five-hour hearing would be remembered for the presidents' responses to a hypothetical question posed by Representative Elise Stefanik-- herself a Harvard graduate.
>> Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn's rules or code of conduct, yes or no?
>> If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment, yes.
>> NARRATOR: Throughout the exchange, the presidents struggled to explain the legal challenge of determining when protected free speech, however abhorrent, crosses the line into intimidation and harassment.
>> The presidents misunderstood the nature of the interchange, and they were prepared to go into a deposition, and it was much more like a Broadway play.
>> So, is your testimony that you will not answer yes?
>> If it is, if the speech becomes... >> Yes or no.
>> If the speech becomes conduct, it can be harassment, yes.
>> Conduct meaning committing the act of genocide?
>> There is an element of the current situation on campus that requires a detailed legal knowledge of what you are able to do in response to very specific actions that protestors are taking, and then there's an element of it that's speaking from the heart, and they did the former and not the latter.
>> And Dr.
Gay, at Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules of bullying and harassment?
Yes or no?
>> It can be, depending on the context.
>> What's the context?
>> Targeted at an individual.
>> It's targeted at Jewish students, Jewish individuals.
Do you understand your testimony is dehumanizing them?
Do you understand that dehumanization is part of antisemitism?
>> For me to watch the hearing was extraordinarily painful.
I turned to the person next to me and said, "This is a disaster."
I mean, it was obvious that legalistic, equivocating answers were sinking all of them.
>> Antisemitic rhetoric, when it crosses into conduct, that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation, that is actionable conduct, and we do take action.
>> So the answer is yes, that calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard code of conduct.
Correct?
>> Again, it depends on the context.
>> It does not depend on the context.
The answer is yes and this is why you should resign.
These are unacceptable answers across the board.
(gavel taps) >> We have heard for almost a decade now that speech is violence.
>> And now all of a sudden speech that promotes violence is protected speech.
>> NARRATOR: The hearings ignited a firestorm across the political spectrum.
>> We've got parents around this country thinking, are they about to send their kids off to college in an unsafe environment, where they can't even walk across campus?
>> NARRATOR: The presidents had been contending with pressure from students, faculty and donors.
>> Our institutions of higher learning have become institutions of liars earning big money for doing nothing.
>> NARRATOR: Now they faced an onslaught-- especially from the right.
>> Harvard has abandoned its classical motto, "veritas" meaning truth, all for racial politics.
This is the story of our time.
>> NARRATOR: Conservative political activist Christopher Rufo seized on the hearing.
>> This is hugely important, because in the span of just a few minutes, a few small video clips that were circulated in the media billions of times, for the first time, millions of Americans saw the empty nihilism that had taken over the heart of academic life.
Diversity, equity and inclusion, you may have heard this phrase... >> NARRATOR: Rufo had long argued that elite universities were corrupted by a progressive, left-wing ideology, obsessed with race and the promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion.
>> We are declaring war against the DEI bureaucracy, and, and I know I'm not going to stop until it's been abolished and until we salt the earth.
>> NARRATOR: Now, he argued that progressive ideology was at the heart of the campus antisemitism controversy.
>> It all stems from the logic of so-called intersectionality which deems any group with power, any group that has high achievements, the oppressor, and any group that is at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, the oppressed.
I want to recapture the institutions.
I want to enact a conservative counterrevolution in the United States of America, and I'm not going to stop until we do it.
>> Liz McGill has voluntarily resigned.
>> NARRATOR: Within days of the hearing, the University of Pennsylvania president resigned.
>> The congresswoman who led the questioning on Capitol Hill just posted a message on social media saying, "one down, two to go."
>> NARRATOR: Rufo and his allies kept up the pressure on Harvard.
>> What we are seeing here is an ideological fight and that people are using the emotions, the sentiments that have been let loose to advance their, you know, agenda.
>> NARRATOR: Randall Kennedy is a longtime professor at Harvard Law School.
He's defended Claudine Gay and Harvard against Rufo's criticisms.
>> These people, as far as I'm concerned, are very clever enemies of the university.
And they are perfectly willing to use anything at hand to advance their attack.
There has been a concerted and very effective effort to iron out complexity, make a very simple story.
There's been a concerted effort to make the university and the university society, university culture seem, you know, one-dimensional, "they all think this."
It's, it's ridiculous.
>> I'm never going to back down, I'm going to keep coming after the university.
>> NARRATOR: Rufo quickly took his campaign to a new level.
He published allegations that Claudine Gay had plagiarized sections of her dissertation years earlier.
>> I looked through what Christopher Rufo had assembled, it looks pretty bad to me.
>> We now have pressure from multiple angles-- reputational pressure, financial pressure, political pressure-- we really worked the squeeze, this kind of activist tactic; textbook.
>> Fox News alert; brand new allegations of plagiarism piling up against Harvard's embattled president Claudine Gay... >> NARRATOR: More allegations would surface.
Gay stood by her work, but acknowledged some citation errors.
>> It's not about the president; it's about the rot that has taken place throughout the campus for so long.
>> NARRATOR: Harvard said the errors it reviewed didn't amount to research misconduct.
>> We begin with a shake-up at the top of one of the nation's most prominent universities.
>> NARRATOR: On January 2, under a cloud of controversy, Claudine Gay resigned.
>> This is a long war, and this is only the opening gambit.
>> I thought that she had been upended by a very clever, absolutely ruthless campaign that gave voice to some very dangerous ideas.
>> NARRATOR: With two Ivy League presidents toppled in the space of a month, the pressure would now fall on a third.
>> Columbia stands guilty of gross negligence at best, and at worst has become a platform for those supporting terrorism and violence against the Jewish people.
>> NARRATOR: In April, Virginia Foxx's committee held another hearing, this time with Columbia's president, Minouche Shafik.
>> Trying to reconcile the free-speech rights of those who wanted to protest, and the rights of Jewish students to be in an environment free of discrimination and harassment has been the central challenge on our campus, and numerous others across the country.
>> NARRATOR: President Shafik took a very different approach from the other presidents.
>> Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Columbia's code of conduct?
Dr. Shafik?
>> Yes, it does.
>> President Shafik's approach to that hearing was to figure out how she was going to survive in a way that at least the presidents of Penn and Harvard did not.
She could have started by challenging the assumption that we are in a crisis.
What if Columbia is not a hotbed of antisemitism?
What if there's a debate on campus about whether antisemitism is a problem?
But for political expediency, that did not happen.
>> NARRATOR: She told the committee she was already taking a hard line on the student protestors-- and would continue to do so.
>> We have already suspended 15 students from Columbia, we have six on disciplinary probation.
>> I think the Jewish students by and large and folks who are in support of Israel felt like she had their back.
This was a high-wire act and she was trying to steer her institution through a really fine hole in a needle to make sure that she would bring some kind of calmness to it, but also placate the Republicans on the committee who were demanding that she crack down harder.
>> And I promise you from the messages I'm hearing from students, they are, um, they are getting the message.
>> ♪ We shall overcome!
♪ >> NARRATOR: But that same day in New York, Columbia students were trying to shift the focus back to Gaza, but by now, tens of thousands of Palestinians had been killed.
They set up an unauthorized encampment, demanding that Shafik sever Columbia's financial and educational ties with Israel.
>> I think she felt pressure very much to act because she said she would.
She had to crack down.
>> Disclose, divest!
(protestors chanting) >> NARRATOR: The day after the hearing, she called in the New York Police Department, saying there was a "clear and present danger" to the functioning of the university.
>> It was pretty horrifying to watch.
Why are we hauling off students in zip ties, who were not only protesting peacefully, but had barely been there a day?
But she had promised Congress, and it was clear she was going to come through.
>> NARRATOR: That night, students who'd been arrested were released.
(cheering) >> After our arrests, the student body just mobilized more, which I actually predicted, and which the administration should have expected at this point.
Hey!
>> Oh, my God, hi!
>> NARRATOR: Maryam Alwan was one of the arrested protest leaders.
>> We saw it happen after every crazy, repressive measure that they've taken, and, and with this violent action where they've arrested more than 100 of their own students in front of the entire campus, like, it...
I think it's, it's going to lead to actual change.
>> NARRATOR: Once again, the crackdown backfired.
>> Onward, to liberation.
>> NARRATOR: Students set up a new encampment, and continued to press their demands.
>> (chanting): Justice is our demand!
>> NARRATOR: And hundreds more protestors, some of whom were not students, began converging on the campus, many just outside the gates.
>> We started to see various constituencies from outside the campus begin to show up.
>> (chanting in Arabic) >> The people who were coming from outside began, you know, saying and chanting clearly, like, wildly antisemitic things.
>> Go back to Poland!
>> Never forget the 7th of October!
>> The 7th of October is going to be every day for you!
>> NARRATOR: Hundreds of students, faculty, alumni, and parents signed an open letter to President Shafik warning her the situation on campus had become unsafe for Jewish students.
>> People are scared, not in, like, a theoretical sense, but they are physically scared and actively scared to walk on campus.
>> NARRATOR: One of them was Asher Strell, a sophomore.
>> They chant to us, they yell, "Yehudi, Yehudi."
Which is "Jew, Jew" in Arabic at us, as we leave.
They tell us, they, they say, "(muted) you, Zionists."
"(muted) you, Jews."
"Jews, Jews-- we don't want no Jews here."
They've said that, here on campus.
>> NARRATOR: At the encampment, the protestors issued a statement rejecting "any form of hatred or bigotry" and said they had been victims of harassment, too.
Some of the protestors filed a civil rights complaint against Columbia, alleging discrimination against Palestinian students and their allies.
(people chanting) >> (chanting): Disclose!
Divest!
We will not stop, we will not rest!
Disclose!
Divest!
>> NARRATOR: On April 29, President Shafik warned the protestors they would be suspended if they remained in the encampment.
>> (chanting): We will not stop, we will not rest!
Disclose!
>> NARRATOR: That night, protestors seized Columbia's iconic Hamilton Hall.
(glass shattering) (clamoring, chanting) (cheers) They renamed it for a young girl who'd been killed in Gaza, and began the occupation that would end with the NYPD storming the building.
(whistling) >> Stay on the ground!
Stay down!
(screaming, whistling) (whistling echoes) >> ...spreading across the United States... >> NARRATOR: The showdown at Columbia set off a new wave of student protest.
>> Across the universities of Melbourne, Sydney... >> Newcastle, at Warwick, at Manchester... >> In Berlin, police block... >> It is an echo of the sit-ins at American universities.
>> I'm going to keep fighting, and I'm gonna keep working, and I'm gonna keep organizing.
>> NARRATOR: At Harvard, Israa Alzamli has joined a civil rights complaint against the university alleging harassment and intimidation of Arab and Muslim students and their supporters.
>> What we're doing on these college campuses, it's bigger than Harvard.
This is about American foreign policy.
The student uprisings are just one spark, and I think that's major.
I think that's huge.
>> NARRATOR: Shabbos Kestenbaum is now a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Harvard alleging pervasive antisemitism.
>> Things have only gotten worse.
My parents didn't want me to come back after Passover, but my attitude was and is we have to confront these people.
And for those chanting in front of me, all of my siblings live between the river and the sea and I got news for you guys, they are not going anywhere!
>> NARRATOR: Eight months into the war, the division and discord on campuses continue to run deep.
>> What to me is the most troubling thing in these circumstances is it's very hard to bring the students together on the two sides of this issue, that they really resist that.
I think as a society we're losing our ability to have discussions among people with very different political points of view, and it's one of the most important things the university has to teach its students.
♪ ♪ Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org >> For more on this and other "FRONTLINE" programs, visit our website at pbs.org/frontline.
♪ ♪ FRONTLINE's "Crisis on Campus" is available on Amazon Prime Video.
♪ ♪
Interactive
Explore this interactive that tells the stories of over a dozen Korean adoptees as they search for the truth about their origins — a collaboration between FRONTLINE and The Associated Press.
Explore
