AMNA NAWAZ: The Hamas terror attack on Israeli civilians two weeks ago and the subsequent Israeli bombardment of Gaza have roiled college and university campuses across the country, from Arizona State to Indiana to George Mason and many more.
Jeffrey Brown reports on how protests and debates around free speech are reverberating on campus.
(CHANTING) JEFFREY BROWN: Between rain showers Friday on the campus of Rutgers University in New Jersey, members of the local chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine staged the latest in a series of demonstrations.
(CHANTING) JEFFREY BROWN: After the Hamas attack on Israel, the group issued a statement calling it a -- quote -- "justified retaliation" and those behind the attack freedom fighters.
For now, it was demanding an end to the bombing and siege of Gaza by Israel and defending its own right to speak out.
PROTESTER: They report us as antisemitic.
However, what we are really, truly doing is speaking about the atrocities and crimes against humanity in Palestine.
JEFFREY BROWN: Protesters mostly covered themselves to hide their identities and spoke to us anonymously, citing fears of a backlash.
PROTESTER: Tensions are high.
Plenty of students are really very terrified for their safety, including myself.
I know a lot of my peers are afraid to leave their homes, staying at home as much as possible, meant some people skipping classes.So there's definitely been a real threat to our safety and a sense of just kind of terrifying concern.
JEFFREY BROWN: Down the street in the campus' Hillel house, part of an international Jewish student organization, senior Shari Samuel said members of her community also have a newfound fear.
SHARI SAMUEL, College Student: I have some friends who have never considered taking off their kippah, which is their religious head covering, to go to class and, right after this, started considering that, which is really terrifying.
JEFFREY BROWN: After the horror of the Hamas attack, Hillel helped organize a vigil for students to come together to grieve and mourn.
Now Samuel said she's hurt and angered by the actions of some on campus.
SHARI SAMUEL: I don't want someone coming up to me and starting a conversation with me on -- as if I'm the representative here on behalf of the entire people of Israel.
I can only share my beliefs.
And I -- frankly, this has turned into a lot of antisemitism.
And I don't want to put myself into harm's way.
JEFFREY BROWN: Around the country, college campuses far and wide, already mired in debates over free speech, curricula and much more, have become a flash point for anger and tensions.
The day after the Hamas attack, more than 30 student groups at Harvard signed onto a public letter holding the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.
The backlash was immediate, including former Treasury Secretary and Harvard President Lawrence Summers declaring that: "In nearly 50 years of Harvard affiliation, I have never been as disillusioned and alienated as I am today" and criticizing university leadership for not immediately denouncing terrorism.
The next day, Harvard's current president, Claudine Gay, did condemn terrorist atrocities.
And days later, she released a video, saying in part: CLAUDINE GAY, President, Harvard University: Our university rejects hate, hate of Jews, hate of Muslims, hate of any group of people based on their faith, their national origin or any aspect of their identity.
Our university rejects the harassment or intimidation of individuals based on their beliefs.
And our university embraces a commitment to free expression.
JEFFREY BROWN: But those commitments continue to be challenged at Harvard and elsewhere.
At Columbia University in New York, demonstrators at dueling rallies were kept separate.
Those took place a day after an Israeli student was allegedly assaulted while hanging posters of people kidnapped by Hamas.
YOLA ASHKENAZIE, College Student: The rise of antisemitism on our campus has been abhorrent .
There are people over there who are cheering with Palestinian flags after women were raped and stripped and then taken, their dead corpses were raided through the streets of Gaza.
JEFFREY BROWN: Pro-Palestinian protesters claimed a lack of equal support from the university administration.
NADIA ALI, College Student: The clear bias in the communication that we received from the president of the university, without a single mention of the lives lost of Palestinians.
Clearly, we're all against violence, but we're just asking for the lives of Palestinian civilians to be acknowledged as well.
JEFFREY BROWN: A different kind of pressure has come from donors, trustees and outside groups.
MARC ROWAN, CEO, Apollo Global Management: This has tapped into a nerve.
Whatever people's dissatisfaction with how universities, in particular, the University of Pennsylvania, is being run, this just has made it boiled over.
JEFFREY BROWN: In a CNBC interview, Marc Rowan, CEO of a private equity firm and chair of the board of advisers at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, called on fellow Penn alumni to stop donating.
Another prominent Penn alumnus, former Utah governor and Ambassador Jon Huntsman, announced he would do just that.
Rowan also called for university leaders to resign for allowing a Palestinian literary festival in September that included what he called hate-filled rhetoric and for not speaking out forcefully enough after the Hamas attack.
MARC ROWAN: This is not an issue of woke or anti-woke.
This is an issue of right or wrong.
This is a group, Hamas, that believes that the Jews should be killed.
This is a group that is a terrorist group.
The inability to actually say that is morally confused and bankrupt.
JEFFREY BROWN: A Harvard alumnus, hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, called for the names of students tied to groups that signed the public letter blaming Israel for the initial attack to be circulated so employers can avoid hiring them.
And individual students at Harvard have been targeted through the practice known as doxxing, their personal information posted online, some branded as Harvard's leading antisemites on digital billboards on a roving truck operated by the conservative group Accuracy in Media.
MAYA BODNICK, College Student: For me and for many other Jewish and Israeli students on campus, the statement was so hurtful and upsetting.
But then the answer is not to dox students.
JEFFREY BROWN: Harvard sophomore Maya Bodnick rejects such tactics and says, after tense weeks on campus, it's still hard to see a way forward.
MAYA BODNICK: I come away from this feeling pretty cynical.
I'm scared for the future of Israel and Palestine.
I'm scared for what the future will look like on campus.
One thing I do know is that, as much as possible, we need to work on consensus-building, not with intimidation tactics, but with debate and discussion and civil discourse.
JEFFREY BROWN: Friday at Rutgers, students saw their protest as a key part of that discourse.
PROTESTER: We are not hostile.
If you're interested in having a conversation with Palestinians, I have had multiple conversations, and I have always explained that we just want to live.
And the most powerful weapon that we have is our voice.
JEFFREY BROWN: In the meantime, colleges themselves grapple with finding their own voice.
University representatives here at Rutgers, as well as Harvard, Columbia, Penn and Stanford, declined our request for an interview.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jeffrey Brown.
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