SAR’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project investigates and reports attacks on higher education with the aim of raising awareness, generating advocacy, and increasing protection for scholars, students, and academic communities. Learn more.

Regions/Countries

Attack Types

Institutions

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Date of Incident: November 14, 2023

Region & Country:Eastern Asia | Hong Kong 

Institution(s):University of Hong Kong

On November 14, 2023, the University of Hong Kong canceled a planned talk on judicial independence and criminal justice by Timothy Owens, a British lawyer. The talk, which was to be co-sponsored by the Boase Cohen & Collins (BC&C) legal firm, ...

Attack Types: Other

Date of Incident: November 10, 2023

Region & Country:Americas | United States of America

Institution(s):Columbia University

On November 10, 2023, the Columbia University administration announced that it had suspended two student groups, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), for the remainder of the semester, rendering both groups ineligible to hold ...

Attack Types: Other

Date of Incident: November 08, 2023

Region & Country:Western Asia | Palestine (OPT)

Institution(s):Birzeit University

On November 8, 2023, Israeli forces forcibly entered Birzeit University, causing damage to university infrastructure. Six military vehicles entered Birzeit's campus, and Israeli forces raided the Student Council’s office, damaging property and taking Palestinian flags and students’ belongings. The basis for ...

Attack Types: Other

Date of Incident: November 06, 2023

Region & Country:Americas | United States of America

Institution(s):Brandeis University

On November 6, 2023, the Brandeis University administration announced that it had made the decision to no longer recognize the school’s chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), rendering the group ineligible for university funding and unable to ...

Attack Types: Other

Date of Incident: November 03, 2023

Region & Country:Americas | United States of America

Institution(s):University of Massachusetts, Amherst

On November 3, 2023, a University of Massachusetts, Amherst (UMass Amherst) student intimidated and assaulted a group of students during an on-campus event held by UMass Hillel, a Jewish student organization. The incident occurred against the backdrop of a surprise Hamas ...

Attack Types: Killings, Violence, Disappearances

Date of Incident: November 02, 2023

Region & Country:Southeastern Asia | Singapore

Institution(s):National University of Singapore

On November 2, 2023, the National University of Singapore (NUS) disinvited Sol Iglesias, an assistant professor of Political Science at the University of the Philippines-Diliman, from participation in a panel at the National University of Singapore (NUS), apparently because of ...

Attack Types: Other

Date of Incident: October 29, 2023

Region & Country:Western Asia | Israel

Institution(s):Hebrew University of Jerusalem

On October 29, 2023, the leadership of Hebrew University of Jerusalem publicly called on Dr. Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, the Lawrence D. Biele Chair in Law at the Faculty of Law-Institute of Criminology and the School of Social Work and Public Welfare, ...

Attack Types: Other

Date of Incident: October 28, 2023

Region & Country:Western Asia | Israel

Institution(s):Netanya Academic College

On October 28, 2023, a large group of Jewish Israeli protesters trapped around 50 Palestinian students from Netanya Academic College in their dorms while chanting “Death to Arabs.” The incident occurred against the backdrop of a surprise Hamas attack on Israel ...

Attack Types: Other

Date of Incident: October 27, 2023

Region & Country:Eastern Asia | Hong Kong 

Institution(s):Chinese University of Hong Kong

On October 27, 2023, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) terminated the employment of historian Rowena He after she was denied the renewal of her work visa in apparent retaliation for her research on the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, ...

Attack Types: Loss of Position | Travel Restrictions

Date of Incident: October 23, 2023

Region & Country:Europe | United Kingdom

Institution(s):University of California Berkeley

On October 23, 2023, the board of directors of eLife, a nonprofit open-access journal that publishes articles in biomedical and life sciences, removed Michael B. Eisen, a genetics and development professor at the University of California, Berkeley, as editor-in-chief because ...

Attack Types: Loss of Position