With Monday marking the first anniversary of Hamas’s deadly attack on Israeli civilians and the beginning of the war in Gaza, numerous colleges are aiming to commemorate and honor the lives lost in the Middle East over the past year while also preparing for a new wave of protests.
But after a year in which many colleges were roiled by demonstrations and received backlash from all sides of the issue, commemorating the tragedy of Oct. 7 has proven fraught for some, rekindled conflicts for others—and, in at least one case, prompted legal action. At the University of Maryland, administrators attempted to cancel an interfaith prayer vigil being planned by the campus’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, saying they felt it would only be appropriate for “university-sponsored events that promote reflection” to be held on that date.
But the student organizers were eventually granted an injunction to stop UMD from blocking their event, with a federal judge ruling Tuesday that the college’s actions violated the First Amendment and were “clearly neither viewpoint- nor content-neutral.”
University-sponsored speakers and vigils have also sparked opposition. Here’s a sampling of other colleges’ plans—and other campuses’ controversies—heading toward Oct. 7.
Speaker Controversies
At Wake Forest University, administrators canceled a scheduled talk by a scholar who made statements on social media seemingly in support of the Oct. 7 attack. Rabab Abdulhadi, a professor and founding director of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies program at San Francisco State University, had been invited to campus by faculty members involved in a seminar on genocide and memory; the talk, entitled “One Year Since al-Aqsa Flood: Reflections on a Year of Genocide and Resistance,” was being sponsored by two departments, an academic program and the university’s humanities institute.
Wake Forest’s decision came after pushback from student leaders of the university’s Hillel and Chabad organizations, who circulated a petition that called the scheduled speaker “a self-proclaimed Hamas sympathizer” and said that her presence on campus on this anniversary would disrupt Jewish students’ ability to grieve in peace.
But faculty members have criticized the cancellation, saying the event was planned and vetted the same way any other lecture would be.
“Wake Forest University prides itself on being a special place where relationships are at the heart of who we are and what we do,” the campus’s American Association of University Professors chapter wrote in a statement shared with Inside Higher Ed. “When faculty and staff are not given the freedom to choose the speakers who visit campus, and when decisions to cancel events are communicated to the organizers via a campus-wide email rather than personally, this can erode the trust and sense of community that are necessary for building relationships, whether with colleagues or those on the opposing side of a political issue.”
In an email to faculty, WFU provost Michele Gillespie wrote that the decision to cancel the event had been “exceedingly difficult” but was necessary due to “a series of cascading events that eroded the University’s confidence in ensuring security in the rapidly-evolving environment surrounding the public event date.” (The event’s organizers now plan to host the talk off campus as a community event unaffiliated with the university.)
Other institutions appear more willing to host controversial speakers on Oct. 7. Yale University and the Buckley Institute, a student organization centered around “promoting intellectual diversity,” will host controversial conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who has said President Joe Biden’s support for Israel is not strong enough; his talk will be titled “How October 7 Broke America’s College Campuses.”
Pro-Palestinian students haven’t been the only ones to oppose Shapiro’s appearance. “Hosting an inherently political event is an irresponsible way to mark a day that, for many in the Yale community, has tragically defined the last year,” first-year student Max Grinstein, who is Jewish, wrote in The Yale Daily News. Grinstein said that he does not disagree with the idea of bringing Shapiro to campus to discuss campus protests in general, but that doing so on Oct. 7 “does not preserve the sanctity of a horrific anniversary.”
In a statement to Inside Higher Ed, a Yale spokesperson wrote that the university “is committed to a diverse, vibrant, and respectful community in which free expression is a fundamental value and a shared responsibility. Speakers invited by Yale community members are free to express their views. The university supports free expression on campus by permitting peaceful talks, vigils, rallies, and protests that adhere to university policy by following its time, place, and manner regulations. Participants are encouraged to review university guidance regarding free expression and peaceable assembly.”
Another speaker event, at the University of Florida, aims to celebrate Israel’s resilience over the past year. “An Evening of Heroes: Survival, Resilience, Solidarity” will be hosted by several Jewish organizations on campus and a research institute, the Bud Shorstein Center for Jewish Studies, and will feature Menachem Kalmanson, an Israeli civilian who rescued many people from Hamas’s attack, as the keynote speaker.
The university appears to be stepping up security for this event, with an advertisement for the talk reading, “University police & security will be present. No bags allowed.”
They’re not alone in being cautious; safety concerns were also cited by both WFU and UMD’s administrators as a reason they canceled—or attempted to cancel—events on their campuses.
Vigils and Memorials
Vigils in remembrance of the lives lost on Oct. 7 will be held at a number of universities, with several hosted by chapters of campus Jewish organizations like Hillel International. In an emailed press release, Hillel listed 10 memorial events being held by chapters across the country, including in some hot spots for pro-Palestinian protests over the past year such as Harvard University and Columbia University.
But elsewhere, one campus’s scheduled vigil is receiving backlash for taking an inclusive approach. At Yale University, two Jewish students critiqued the interfaith vigil that the institution is planning to host in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, saying that it followed a pattern established over the past year of university administrators addressing both antisemitism and Islamophobia in the same statements and initiatives.
“Yale either doesn’t understand or chooses to ignore that prejudice against Muslim students on campus doesn’t compare to the repeated instances of blood libel and calls for genocide against Jews,” the two students wrote.
“By making the event one for both Palestinians and Israelis, Yale is asking Jewish students to mourn alongside the classmates who on Oct. 9 urged their peers to ‘celebrate the resistance’s success,’” they added. “Yale dishonors the victims of Oct. 7 by equating Israel’s self-defense with Hamas’s horrific massacre.”
Father Michael Calabria, the director of the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at St. Bonaventure University, is holding an interfaith prayer vigil at his university on Oct. 8. He told Inside Higher Ed he was shocked to hear there had been pushback against any interfaith memorials for those who died in the Oct. 7 attack and subsequent war. He said he has received no backlash from any students or community members.
“This whole year, not just Oct. 7—and previous years, previous decades—has been tragic for Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities in the Middle East. Death and destruction has hit all of those three communities, so there is no reason I can see why it should be reserved for one community,” Calabria said. He added that the commemoration is slated for Oct. 8 specifically as a way of honoring those killed throughout the year alongside those killed by Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.
Protests Planned
Amid these remembrances, pro-Palestinian student groups at multiple campuses will hold their own demonstrations over the coming week. The national Students for Justice in Palestine organization has advertised a “week of rage,” encouraging campus groups to protest over the course of the week.
“Students across the country and the world will rise together for a week of rage on October 7-11 to mark a year of genocide in Gaza,” the organization wrote in a post on Instagram.
Various chapters have shared their plans for the week, including several citywide or statewide marches, rallies and walkouts; SJP chapters in New York City, for example, will walk out of school and work on Oct. 7 to march through Manhattan alongside several other community organizations. The New School’s SJP chapter wrote on Instagram that its goal continues to be “demanding that our universities fully disclose and divest from all companies aiding Israel in its genocide and occupation of Palestine.”
