MADRID – In recent months, a wave of suspensions, dismissals, and disciplinary actions against academics and students linked to pro-Palestinian activism has shaken university campuses across the United States.

From elite institutions such as Columbia and Harvard to smaller regional universities less exposed to media scrutiny, administrative responses to protests and political expression are beginning to reveal a troubling pattern: containment, silencing, and systematic exclusion.

Far from being isolated incidents, these measures reflect a broader logic that some analysts describe in biopolitical terms: the management of the social body through control, surveillance, and the neutralization of what is deemed politically dysfunctional or threatening. In the name of institutional order, many universities — traditionally presented as spaces for critical thinking and pluralism — are now adopting an increasingly reactive stance toward dissent, particularly when it openly challenges Israeli policy or expresses solidarity with Palestine.

Columbia University offers a clear illustration of this shift. Following intense external pressure, its Department of Middle Eastern Studies was placed under administrative oversight, raising serious concerns about academic autonomy. At the same time, pro-Palestinian student organizations have been suspended, and professors critical of Israeli violence have lost their positions.

One of the most striking cases is that of Helyeh Doutaghi, an Iranian legal scholar who was removed from her post after being linked — on tenuous grounds — to organizations accused of anti-Israel rhetoric. Doutaghi maintains that her dismissal was directly related to her public stance against the military offensive in Gaza.

“The university is becoming a space of surveillance and repression,” she stated publicly. “In collaboration with the state’s repressive apparatus, these institutions are setting dangerous new precedents for the rules of engagement across the country.”

The campaign of academic repression currently unfolding in U.S. universities—particularly targeting Muslim professors and students who denounce the genocide in Gaza—can be interpreted through the theoretical lens proposed by Judith Butler in her analysis of the so-called “phantasm of gender.” According to the philosopher, certain terms—such as “gender” in anti-gender discourse—are stripped of their original meaning and transformed into floating signifiers, all-powerful symbols onto which all social ills can be projected. They cease to describe concrete realities and instead operate as emotional catalysts: mobilizing fear, channeling frustration, and legitimizing repressive policies.
A similar dynamic is now at work with the term “antisemitism,” whose instrumentalization by segments of the U.S. political and academic establishment has produced a comparable effect. Rather than identifying actual expressions of hatred, the accusation of antisemitism is increasingly deployed as a tool to stigmatize and punish any criticism of Israel—especially when such criticism comes from Muslim, Arab, or Global South voices.

Within this new framework, the figure of the Muslim academic—or simply anyone critical of Israeli violence—is recast as a political “phantasm”: a suspicious, ideologized, infiltrated subject whose presence is perceived as a threat to institutional stability, campus security, or liberal consensus. Their professional record, intellectual rigor, or nuanced argumentation become irrelevant—they are turned into a target to be neutralized.

This symbolic mechanism serves a broader and deeply authoritarian logic. The university, far from functioning as a space for critical inquiry, is being redefined as a zone of ideological immunization, where any form of dissent linked to Palestine—especially if articulated by racialized or Islamic voices—is treated not as part of democratic debate, but as an anomaly to be eradicated. This operation is cloaked in the language of “tolerance,” “coexistence,” or “security,” even as the foundational principles of academic freedom are emptied of substance.

In this context, Islam—particularly a political Islam that stands in opposition to the genocide in Gaza—is portrayed as an invasive and destabilizing force, an existential threat to Western civilization and national identity. This “specter of Islam,” carefully manufactured and entirely detached from the lived realities of Muslim communities, functions as a scapegoat in a media and political climate increasingly shaped by fear and suspicion.

The outcome is familiar: the rhetoric of terrorism and national security is deployed to discipline discourses that, from an ethical and political standpoint, challenge the status quo. It is crucial to remember here that “terrorism” is not merely a descriptive category—it is, above all, a prescriptive tool. To label something as terrorism is to trigger an immediate effect: a repertoire of repressive practices—censorship, persecution, detention, deportation, even physical violence—is activated and legitimized by the existence of a constructed threat that is rarely questioned.

From a discursive perspective, “terrorism” operates as a mark of exclusion. It identifies the “other”—the barbarian, the savage, the internal enemy—and symbolically expels them from the political community. Once dehumanized, any act against them becomes not only legitimate but necessary for the preservation of order.

What is happening in U.S. universities today is not merely a conflict between academic freedom and institutional governance. It is the visible symptom of a deeper drift, in which concepts like “terrorism,” “antisemitism,” or even “security” are weaponized to justify the systematic exclusion of critical voices—particularly when those voices belong to Muslim students and scholars or allies of the Palestinian cause. Under the rhetoric of order, neutrality, and tolerance, a regime of ideological surveillance is being consolidated, one that redefines the boundaries of what can be said or even thought within the academic sphere.

This is not an isolated or circumstantial phenomenon. It is part of a broader global offensive against all forms of dissent that challenge the foundations of Western geopolitical power. In this context, Palestinian activism—with its historical, ethical, and political weight—has become a primary target.