Campus Watch April 30, 2025

Anti-Israel Protesters Scrap Encampment Plan at Columbia

Anti-Israel protesters scrapped their plans to build another encampment at Columbia University on April 24 after the university issued a statement saying it has a zero-tolerance policy against encampments on campus.

The university said in an April 23 statement that it had “been made aware of possible plans to establish encampments on Columbia’s campuses” and that such encampments are barred under university policy. It added that if encampments were to be established on campus, then the university would immediately remove them and order participants to disperse. “Individuals who refuse to disperse will be identified and sanctions, including potential removal from campus and possible arrest, may be applied.” According to The Washington Free Beacon, the anti-Israel student groups “pushed protesters to join unrest elsewhere in New York” instead.

Columbia Janitors Sue Anti-Israel Protesters Over Being Held Hostage in Hamilton Hall

The janitors at Columbia University who were held hostage during the April 2024 occupation of Hamilton Hall by anti-Israel protesters filed a lawsuit against their alleged captors on April 25.

The Free Press reported that the two janitors have been identified as Mario Torres and Lester Wilson and The Louis Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Torridon Law filed the lawsuit on their behalf. The lawsuit alleges that the protesters demanded that they both leave the building and when they initially refused, the protesters became violent toward them and wouldn’t let them leave. The lawsuit states that one of the protesters shoved Torres and threatened to bring “20 guys up here to f— you up.” Protesters also allegedly derided Torres as a “Jew-lover” and “Zionist.” In Wilson’s case, “masked individuals began shoving him and ramming furniture into him,” per the lawsuit. Both men have dealt with injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder and have been unable to return to work as a result.

Report: Qatar Is the Largest Foreign Donor to U.S. Universities

A new report from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) found that Qatar is the largest source of foreign funding to United States universities since 1986, when reporting first started.

According to The Free Press, the NCRI report determined that Qatar has funneled $6.3 billion into American universities, with more than $2 billion pouring in between 2021-24. The second largest source of foreign funding has been China at $5.6 billion, $2.3 billion of which came in 2021-24. The Free Press noted that a 2024 NCRI study concluded that there is “a strong correlation between universities that receive foreign funding from authoritarian countries and a rise in antisemitic incidents.”

Sen. Cruz Urges Princeton to Fire Prof Who Used to Be Iranian Official

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) urged Princeton University, his alma mater, to fire a professor on campus who used to work as a high-level official in the Iranian regime.

The professor in question is Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy Specialist at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Mousavian previously worked as the Iranian diplomat to Germany from 1990-97, spokesman to Iran in negotiations of its nuclear program in 2003-5 and headed the Iranian National Security Council’s Foreign Relations Committee from 1997-2005. According to Fox News, “Mousavian has declined to renounce his support for Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s fatwa (religious decree) to assassinate the British-American writer Salman Rushdie” and attended Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani’s funeral in 2020.

“Mousavian is closely linked to the Iranian regime and to the regime’s campaigns of terrorism and murder,” Cruz said in a statement to Fox News. “His presence at Princeton makes students feel justifiably afraid for their safety. Princeton’s decision to keep employing him shows they care less about their students, and more about providing a platform for pro-regime and anti-American propaganda. That kind of reckless institutional ideological bias is exactly why the Trump administration is reassessing federal funding for Princeton.”

UPDATE: Mousavian responded to Cruz in a post on X offering to hold a public debate on the matter and if not, to read his work that focuses on “establishing peace between Iran and the United States.” He added that he was arrested and imprisoned in Iran in 2007 and was forced to leave in 2009; consequently, he hasn’t been able to travel to Iran “in the past four years.” Cruz replied on X that he doesn’t want to be in a “room with people linked to Iranian terrorists who have murdered dozens of dissidents. Your books are unreadable, and the only debate you should be having is with DHS agents, at the end of which you should be deported.”

Two Individuals Face Criminal Charges from 2024 UCLA Protests

Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein-Soto announced on April 25 that two individuals are being charged with criminal activity stemming from the spring 2024 protests related to the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip at UCLA.

The two individuals have been identified as Edan On and Matthew Katz; On is being charged with battery and assault with a deadly weapon and Katz is being charged with battery, false imprisonment and resisting arrest. The Los Angeles Times identified On as being a pro-Israel protester. Another individual, David Fischel, is being sent to city attorney hearings, which the Times described as being “informal proceedings conducted as an alternative to a misdemeanor criminal prosecution,” over his alleged conduct at the UCLA protests. Two others, Ali Abuamouneh and Karla Maria Aguilar, are also being sent to those hearings over their alleged conduct during protests at USC.

Feldstein-Soto’s office said in a statement that it had received more than 300 referrals from the arrests made at protests on both campuses, but “most of these cases were declined for evidentiary reasons or due to a university’s failure or inability to assist in identification or other information needed for prosecution.”