Opinion | Hamas, Free Speech and Arizona University

The anti-Israel encampments on the quad are mostly gone, but we’re starting to learn what happened behind the scenes when universities let antisemitism run rampant on campus. Records recently obtained from the University of Arizona show the school’s faculty threw in with pro-Palestinian protesters in the months after Oct. 7, 2023.

Arizona-based researcher Brian Anderson issued the Freedom of Information Act request in May 2024 for university communications on such keywords as “Israel,” “Palestine,” “Gaza,” “Hamas,” “Anti-Semitism” and “Jewish.” Mr. Anderson says the school refused the request until his lawyer sent a demand letter. It later produced nearly 1,000 documents with many names redacted. The university didn’t respond to our request for comment.

The emails reveal that on Oct. 11, 2023, then-Arizona President Robert Robbins issued an unequivocal statement addressing “the horrendous acts of terrorism by Hamas in Israel.” Mr. Robbins called the massacre “antisemitic hatred, murder, and a complete atrocity” and called out Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) for “endorsing the actions of Hamas.”

For that moment of principled clarity, Mr. Robbins was criticized by the faculty. On Oct. 12, faculty chair Leila Hudson received an email from a professor (name redacted) who expressed “concern” that “President Robbins email and others’ smears are chilling SJP dissent.” (Mr. Robbins had noted that while SJP didn’t speak for the university, the group has “the constitutional right to hold their views and to express them in a safe environment.”)