Roughly 200 students gathered in the rain on campus for a vigil for Israel four days after the Hamas attack. Anger enveloped Emory a few weeks later when administrators placed a Palestinian American assistant professor in its medical school on leave after the university became aware of “antisemitic comments” attributed to the faculty member. Emory later announced that the professor was no longer employed by the university.

Many colleges and universities across the country have had trouble managing protests and the differing viewpoints about the war. Earlier this month, police arrested 20 students at Pomona College in Southern California and temporarily banned some from campus stemming from the college president’s response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations, according to a published report. At Vanderbilt University, suspensions of students who’ve held protests in relation to the war have drawn criticism of administrators.

On April 2, protesters gathered outside an event where two Israel Defense Forces reservists were scheduled to speak at Chabad at Emory. There, someone standing inside the fence at the Chabad house was holding a flag, which two or three protesters grabbed and started pulling on, according to a DeKalb County Police Department incident report.

The person holding the flag said they were punched in the stomach, which officers could not confirm after reviewing a video of the incident, according to the report. But two people, ages 38 and 43, were arrested on disorderly conduct charges. The police report did not indicate whether they were Emory students.

In a statement posted on social media from the Emory Israel Public Affairs Committee and Emory Eagles for Israel, students called on the university to investigate the incident and condemn violence. “Your silence endorses their violence,” they wrote in one post.

The Students for Justice in Palestine Club (SJP) said in a lengthy post of their own that while they did not organize the event, they condemn characterizations of the protest as “violent.”

The Georgia chapter for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Georgia) and Palestine Legal filed the federal civil rights complaint against Emory a few days later on behalf of Emory SJP.

The organizations referenced “numerous incidents” of harassment over the last six months in a news release about the filing. The groups declined to provide the complaint, but said in the release that students have been followed on campus and filmed; called terrorists or fake Muslims; and been individually targeted and doxed on social media. The students have filed more than a dozen complaints with the university since October, the organizations said.

“We want the (U.S.) Department of Education to do what Emory failed to,” Emory SJP said in a statement in the news release, “which is investigate our reports of bias properly, listen to our voices, and hold Emory accountable, so we can safely advocate for Palestinian rights without fearing for our safety on campus.”

The university’s response

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