Latest news with #studentactivism
Al Bawaba
6 days ago
- Politics
- Al Bawaba
UK University expels pro-Palestine student Haya Adam
ALBAWABA - The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) recently sparked backlash on social media after expelling a pro-Palestine student, Haya Adam, for standing up against the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023. According to The New Arab, the leader of the Palestine Society at SOAS vowed to fight the university's expulsion of Adam last Wednesday and accused the institution of silencing student voices. SOAS Liberated Zone wrote on Instagram, "After a year-long open ended suspension, and multiple disciplinary actions solely for speaking out for Palestine, SOAS has taken the final, most extreme step to silence student activism - a first of its kind expulsion of a student in the midst of her degree." The group added, "Haya's expulsion is a brutal reminder that SOAS, despite its facade, serves as a tool of empire and represses those who oppose it." Liberated Zone also launched a petition titled "Defend Haya Against Expulsion" to protest the university's decision. A widespread campaign of solidarity emerged in support of Haya Adam, a second-year Law and International Relations student, after SOAS University expelled her, making her the first student to be expelled from a UK university mid-degree for her pro-Palestine activism. — Quds News Network (@QudsNen) August 13, 2025 Adam states that she was suspended for allegedly violating the university's code of conduct over harassment claims after questioning a representative about their stance on the ongoing Israeli aggression in Gaza. On the contrary, Adam said in an Instagram video posted by "soasliberatedzone" that she was suspended via email for speaking out in solidarity with Gaza. The pro-Palestine activist revealed that it all started in June 2024 after she was accused of attending an unauthorised protest, and her criticism of the representative triggered the suspension. Adam added that she was also accused of being involved in an incident regarding a Students' Union co-president, which she denied taking part in. At first, Adam joined SOAS in 2023 and described the university as an "anti-colonial education" institution and a platform to voice world issues. However, her image was shattered, alleging that "Behind its decolonial façade, SOAS is revealed to be a tool of empire and imperialism." Haya Adam told The New Arab that the allegations are false, stating that she didn't meet the legal standards of harassment. Additionally, Adam said that she will challenge the university's decision by appealing to it.
The Guardian
07-08-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Palestinian-American medical student sues Emory University over suspension
Umaymah Mohammad, perhaps the only student in the US to be suspended from medical school for remarks about Israel and Gaza, has filed a federal lawsuit against Atlanta's Emory University, alleging discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, as well as additional complaints under state law. The lawsuit, filed on Monday morning in federal district court on Mohammad's behalf by the Council on Islamic-American Relations in Georgia (Cair-Ga), centers on Emory's alleged 'intentional discrimination and retaliation' during disciplinary proceedings against the medical-sociology dual degree student last year. It names the university, its board of trustees and John William Eley, a dean at the medical school, as defendants. It has been filed in pursuit of 'accountability and justice … [and] has potential repercussions for how student activists have been treated over the last two years in this country', said Azka Mahmood, executive director of Cair-Ga. If successful, the lawsuit could lead to 'stopping disciplinary proceedings for protected expression – and that this becomes more of a policy moving forward' – both at Emory and elsewhere, said Keon Grant, one of the Cair-Ga attorneys who filed the complaint. The school declined to provide comment to the Guardian on pending litigation. The suit alleges that the school's disciplinary response to remarks Mohammad made on the news show Democracy Now! in April 2024 showed unequal, discriminatory treatment. On the program, Mohammad spoke about the climate on campus for protesters – including at Emory, where police used tasers on students the day before during a protest against Israel's ongoing assault on Gaza. She expressed concern about an unnamed Emory medical school professor who returned from volunteering as a medic in the Israeli military and was 'now back at Emory so-called 'teaching' medical students and residents how to take care of patients'. The investigation and November hearing were both 'plagued by procedural irregularities, such as pressuring Plaintiff to admit guilt, altering charges, manipulating deadlines, disregarding institutional policies, and imposing disproportionate sanctions', according to Monday's lawsuit. Still, Emory found that Mohammad 'violated 'the standards and expectations of the medical profession'', according to the lawsuit, and suspended her from medical school for one year, pushing her graduation to 2029. Mohammad's appeal of the suspension was denied. Both Mahmood and Grant said they knew of no other medical school student suspended for speech on Israel and Gaza. The lawsuit notes that Emory's own committee on free expression defended Mohammad's speech as protected by the school's own policies, only to be ignored by the medical school. It also points to a settlement the school entered into with the Department of Education's office of civil rights in the first few weeks of the Trump administration, in response to a Title VI complaint filed directly with the department last year. Former president Joe Biden's outgoing civil rights investigators found that Emory 'may have contributed to and at a minimum appears to have failed to respond promptly or effectively to a hostile environment based on race and national origin, including shared Palestinian, Muslim, and/or Arab ancestry'. This shows the school 'was aware of systemic issues in how Palestinian and Arab students were treated', the lawsuit asserts. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion Mohammad was recently notified that an additional complaint had been filed about remarks she allegedly made on Israel and Palestine. The school has not clarified the issue, but last year's disciplinary proceedings also included placing her on probation until graduation – meaning an additional complaint may be grounds for expulsion, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit comes at a time when the current administration is wielding Title VI almost exclusively as a tool to allege antisemitism on high-profile US campuses, as seen in the 30 June announcement finding Harvard guilty of 'acting with deliberate indifference towards harassment of Jewish and Israeli students by other students and faculty from October 7, 2023, through the present'. Though not as high profile as Harvard, Emory has an endowment of $11bn – the 11th-highest in the US, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle. 'I definitely think the new Title VI world we're living in is much more challenging,' Grant said. 'Still, it's an important tool – not only to seek relief, but if no Title VI complaints were filed, it would lead to a kind of erasure.' The law, which prohibits a recipient of federal financial assistance from discriminating on the basis of race, color or national origin, 'is now being weaponized to target student activism [on behalf of Palestine]', said Mahmood. 'Still, you have to [have] faith in the federal courts and the constitution – you have to give this fight your all, to get justice – and pull all the levers this great country gives us.'
The Independent
10-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil seeks $20 million from Trump over ‘political retaliation and abuse of power'
Mahmoud Khalil is seeking $20 million in damages from Donald Trump's administration after the Columbia University graduate was locked up in an immigration detention center for more than 100 days for his role in campus demonstrations against Israel's war in Gaza. A court filing on Thursday serves as a precursor to a federal lawsuit against the administration, which is accused of pursuing retaliatory arrests and threatening to remove student activists involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations from the country. Administration officials carried out a plan to target Khalil 'in a manner calculated to terrorize him and his family,' according to the claim. Khalil spent more than three months in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he missed the birth of his son and his graduation ceremony from Columbia. His experience there caused him 'severe emotional distress, economic hardship, damage to his reputation, and significant impairment of his First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights,' according to the claim. Khalil is seeking $20 million to support other targeted students. But he would accept, in lieu of payment, an official apology and abandonment of the administration's 'unconstitutional' policy of arresting and deporting international students, according to his legal team. 'This is the first step towards accountability,' Khalil said in a statement. 'Nothing can restore the 104 days stolen from me.'
Malay Mail
26-06-2025
- Politics
- Malay Mail
Search for the protest gene, love the protest gene
JUNE 26 — Your protests, better than mine? The students from Universiti Malaysia Sabah, maligned for their pyrotechnic antics in Kota Kinabalu over the weekend, tossed back the question to national leaders. Those who characterise the Kota Kinabalu protest as foreign to local customs and rife with offensive behaviour, therefore wholly unacceptable, might want to remember — not too long ago they too were accused of the same sins. Back then, not ancient history, Pakatan Harapan leaders lined up with civil society leaders to protest. The Badawi and Najib administrations labelled them then as dangerous and a threat to the Malaysian way of life. And just to add the cherry to the cake, the students unfurled a picture of the prime minister as a student leader joining others to light up their own protest in the early 70s, the Razak administration. To the prime minister's credit, he asked the government to stand down. Protests here, protests there Twenty-one years ago, in the Badawi era where few had the appetite for protest, my letter to the editor read this, 'The change we seek, may only be found in the marches we make for freedom.' The subject recurs, protest. In view of the SST, subsidy rationalisations and strings of court cases pending, the people's voice is firmly on the agenda. The thing is, and often it's a misconceived notion, the assumption is the people's voice is singular. It's not. A bunch over there want to say this, and the bunch at the other end say the complete opposite, and both welded to their thinking. And a slew of people in the cusp, overlaps and partial support to views and stands. A democracy is a marketplace of ideas equally respected, by the law. A classic display was shortly after the first change of government in 2018. Those aligned to deposed prime minister Najib Razak were loud. And so were those in vociferous anti-Najib groups still celebrating his demise. Umno Supreme Council member Lokman Noor Adam and friends charged at those protesting Najib speaking at Universiti Malaya on March 22, 2019. They were later charged in court. Protest and violence, they are neighbours, let's not kid ourselves. When emotions are physically gathered, there is every chance of trouble. That is just human nature. There is the other side of the coin. This column stated 'the right to protest is sacred. It has its downsides but without it democracies suffer.' That was eight years ago. Which is why Article 10 of our Constitution spells out our right to associate, to speak out. Which is why our civil servants, law enforcement especially together with local councils, must assist with protests, not impede them. The government's new challenge is to facilitate the people's voices, not adjudicate them. It is for the rakyat to view these protests, these exclamations of objections or support. There is no right or wrong reasons for protests, just whether there are those who are willing to join it and accept to operate with civility. Rules are drawn, and referees have to be firm but fair. They must restrain from striking at the weakest chains of gatherings. For it is too easy to do. If 10,000 assemble to say they do not like Najib, today, to remain in prison and want him in house arrest conditions, there will be 10 who will seriously misbehave. That's not poor discipline, that's just expected. Idiots are everywhere. To judge the many on the very few is to act in bad faith. This is the same for any protesters, that they exhibit weaknesses. They who choose to stand out But they will protest every week! No, they won't. In any country, to get action out of the people who spend 70 per cent of their non-working/family time looking down at a smartphone sits squarely in the improbable zone. It's a bummer to spend a day out to support an idea, a position. There's the iconic picture of Anwar Ibrahim standing outside in the city in the days after his sacking from government in 1998. The masses standing there in and around Dataran Merdeka. Anwar is prime minister, and that long road to the office was not by accident nor without the people. The people in the background, the unnamed faces were the wind for his sail. It is easier to convince the ambitious to fight for power. It is tricky to invite the indifferent to show up for the eventual benefits of others. They say no. They ask, what will happen to me if the protest goes south? They might ask, as in the case of the students with Suara Mahasiswa UMS, are we risking 17 years of education, from primary to a bachelor's degree, just to say NO to the prime minister. The student leaders may end up as MPs or even ministers when co-opted by the very people objecting to the demonstration. But for the regular dudes and dudettes making the numbers, standing up to show conviction? In any country, to get action out of the people who spend 70 per cent of their non-working/family time looking down at a smartphone sits squarely in the improbable zone. — Unsplash pic Not everyone ends up as Anwar, Adam Adli or the just freed from criminal charges, Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman. To risk expulsion from university and social condemnation from friends and family just to attend a protest. To have a PTPTN loan and only a cashier job to pay for it because the engineering degree has gone bye-bye. The jeopardy is grief-stricken just thinking about it. There were no national protests in my undergraduate days in Bangi. I attended them in Manila when I lived there later. But would I have if Bangi roared back then against Mahathir Mohamad? The working-class kid from Cheras choosing to gamble his degree, his future? I cannot answer for sure. There were union and socialist protests, squatter evictions, small screams of injustice and I did not show up there in the early 90s. There are those who did then, and still do today. Circumstances are different today, but the risks are always the same. So, for those young people to stand up regardless if most Malaysians agree with their opinions, full props to them. It takes a lot to believe. It takes even more to stand for what you believe. At a time, this country is confronted by so many uncertainties, letting young people with courage and character carry on with their journeys with our explicit or implicit permission is not the worst outcome. They are the ones we might turn to in the future. Because they have experience, to stand up, not cower in the corners, even in the face of danger.
Malay Mail
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Malay Mail
Student activists say two arrested under Sedition Act after Anwar caricature burned at Sabah rally
KOTA KINABALU, June 24 — Two student activists linked to last weekend's Gempur Rasuah Sabah 2.0 rally were allegedly arrested today under the Sedition Act, following backlash over the burning of a caricature of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. Student activist Qistina Qaisara said in a WhatsApp message to reporters that Muhammad Fadhil Kasim and Aliff Danial Badrul Akmal Hisham were detained after arriving at the Sabah police headquarters in Kepayan. 'Fadhil was called in by police to assist with a forensic investigation into the report that their car had been splashed with acid,' she said. 'But when they arrived, both Fadhil and Aliff were immediately arrested under the Sedition Act. Their lawyers had not yet arrived,' she added. Qistina claimed the arrest was aggressive and said they had video recordings of the incident. Yesterday, Sabah police commissioner Datuk Jauteh Dikun said some of the students involved in the rally were being investigated for allegedly violating the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012. He said police had opened three investigation papers covering nine potential offences, including incitement involving race, religion and royalty (3Rs), carrying flammable materials, and open burning. The student-led rally, held in the city centre, was largely peaceful until the burning of the caricature, which drew condemnation from several quarters.
