On October 7, the Tahrir Coalition, a union of pro-Palestinian organizations at the University of Michigan, posted on social media what it claims is a recording of university President Santa Ono.
In the audio file, a male voice is heard speaking about pressure from “powerful groups” and the threat of withholding federal funding if the university administration does not focus almost exclusively on combating anti-Semitism .
He said: “The government could call me tomorrow and tell me, in a very unbalanced way, that the university is not doing enough to tackle anti-Semitism. And I could say she’s not doing enough to combat Islamophobia, and that’s not what they want to hear.”
Although the Tahrir Coalition did not explain how it obtained the recording or when or where it was made, neither Ono nor the university disputed its authenticity. Instead, the university administration released a statement to the local Metro Times newspaper, saying: “The University of Michigan is strongly committed to ensuring that our community remains a safe and supportive environment, where all students – without distinction of race, religion, ethnic origin or other identities. – have the opportunity to learn and grow.
The problem is that the university is not committed to ensuring the safety and support of Muslim and Arab students. Of course, we didn’t need the leaked recording to know that, but it provides the general public with an explanation for the university’s utter failure to support marginalized students.
Over the past year, we have been shocked by the mass killings that have taken place in Palestine – and, since September, in Lebanon. Israel has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including more than 16,000 children, and more than 2,300 Lebanese, including more than 120 children.
For Palestinian and Lebanese students, the pain is acute. We have seen our homelands destroyed, our people massacred, tortured and starved. Yet while we, along with many allies, have tried to overcome this trauma and stand up for human rights, we have been vilified and silenced on campus. Our existence has been reduced to a problem, our grief weaponized, our cries for justice criminalized.
The same cannot be said of the students who actively defended “Israel’s right to self-defense” – a right that Israel does not have when it comes to resisting a population it occupies.
The effect of this “unbalanced” approach is that today Muslim and Arab students face increased harassment and discrimination, and their attackers are only emboldened because they know there will be no no consequences for what they do.
The university’s hypocrisy became apparent to me and other Palestinian students almost immediately after October 7, 2023. On October 9, Michigan Law School students used the public law open server, a email chain that connects all members of the law faculty, to describe Palestinians as “animals” and their Muslim and Arab classmates as “delighting in mass murder” and supporting rape. This language was reported to the administration, which took no action.
As Greater Michigan’s student population began to organize and protest on campus, the university’s discrimination against marginalized students became even more evident. He repeatedly sent campus police to break up our protests and sit-ins, with students physically assaulted, pepper sprayed, and arrested, while students’ hijabs were torn off.
It also intensified surveillance. The police presence and the number of surveillance cameras around the Arab lounge on campus have increased significantly.
The administration has never apologized or condemned extreme acts of police violence against students protesting a university-sponsored genocide.
She also failed to act when accusations of anti-Semitism began to be used as a weapon against us. He did not intervene to differentiate between hatred against the Jewish people and legitimate criticism and denunciation of Israel’s genocide. This has not protected our right to protest and our freedom of expression. Instead, he appears to have accepted the false equivalence between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.
Over the summer, the Department of Education released a report on the university’s alleged “failure” to act on accusations of anti-Semitism. Among them were allegations that anti-genocide protests created a “hostile environment” that the university failed to investigate.
The university easily succumbed to pressure and unilaterally changed campus policies to facilitate repression against students engaged in pro-Palestinian activism. He did not consult professors or students about this.
The university administration has done everything possible to accommodate the feelings of Jewish students on campus, but it has yet to say a word to us Palestinians. One must ask how many more Palestinians will have to be exterminated before Ono and the rest of the university leadership acknowledge our suffering, or if they even consider us human beings?
Muslim, Arab and Palestinian students increasingly feel that our administration is fully comfortable with the massacre of our people and the bombing of our land.
This attitude is not unique to the University of Michigan. Nationwide, more than 3,000 people have been arrested in just six months for defending Palestine on college campuses. Universities that once championed free speech have become hostile environments for Muslim and Arab students and their allies.
The deterrent effect this has had is palpable. Many Muslim and Arab students now feel unsafe expressing their identity or opinions, fearing repercussions for their academic, legal and professional prospects. For Palestinian students, this silencing is particularly traumatic: we are denied the right to publicly cry or demand justice.
Adding to our pain is the fact that our tuition fees are invested in companies that support violence against Muslims and Palestinians abroad. Despite protests, the University of Michigan maintains its investments in Israel-linked companies, although it quickly divested from Russia-linked companies after its invasion of Ukraine.
In response to the audio leak, the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Michigan (CAIR-MI) filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The complaint requests an investigation into whether the University of Michigan complied with “its obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act as well as its obligations under a consent resolution that the university entered into with the Office for Civil Rights in June of this year.” .
However, given that the pressure on universities to focus on the well-being of Jewish students comes from the federal government itself, this complaint is unlikely to yield significant results.
Ono’s leaked comments reveal a broader abdication of moral leadership by university administrators nationwide. By giving in to outside pressure, they fail to protect all students equally, sending a clear message that some lives matter more than others.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.
