“Our ability to talk, teach, and learn about Palestine and Palestinian liberation, as this report shows, has long been under punitive threat at York University. Under the current administration, this threat has deepened exponentially,” conclude the authors of the new report, titled Surveilled & Silenced: A Report on Palestine Solidarity at York University.

The report, published in October, draws from surveys carried out separately by the York University Faculty Association’s Race Equity Caucus and by the student group Palestine Solidarity Collective.

The surveys were initiated after hearing mounting anecdotal evidence from Palestinian students and their allies about increased policing of their actions, harassment from other students and faculty in class, at rallies or even in their dorms, microaggressions and overt racial slurs, online doxxing, and more.

The findings are divided into four main themes:

• Silence and inaction from the administration
• Justifying repression by using “community safety” rhetoric
• Hyper-surveillance and increased police harassment
• Growing distrust for the administration