Just weeks before his graduation in spring 2024, Harry Campbell joined a significant student protest at Washington University in St. Louis. His motivation was to stand in solidarity with Palestinians, who were enduring Israel’s bombardment of Gaza – a cause he and many fellow students saw as deeply connected to broader global struggles against oppression.
Today, even with a cease-fire agreement bringing a tenuous calm to the region, Campbell isn’t convinced the protests achieved their desired impact.
For young pro-Palestinian voices like Campbell, the truce is a welcome development, albeit one that feels bittersweet and long overdue.
However, many activists recall the impassioned campus and street demonstrations, and the often overwhelming public condemnation they faced, with a sense of regret. They speak of absorbing harsh lessons about the intricacies of power and political engagement.
While public sentiment regarding Israel’s conduct in the war has shifted, with more Americans now aligning with the activists’ concerns, some protesters fear the backlash against them has been so severe that it has undermined the very principle of civil disobedience in American political life.
Interviews with a dozen activists and academics nationwide reveal a pro-Palestinian movement that is now more cautious, vigilant, and apprehensive about the future of political expression. Many who still demonstrate continue to wear masks, fearing that revealing their identities could jeopardize their academic prospects or future careers. A pervasive sense of anxiety and powerlessness now defines their experience.
“We spent a year thinking about what went wrong,” Campbell shared, recounting discussions with fellow activists.
“We believed we would all be arrested, and that this would ignite a widespread uprising to compel the United States to cease its support for Israel.”
Now graduated, Campbell asserts that his political conviction remains strong, but his active protesting days are behind him.
Not all activists, however, have been deterred. While demonstrations continue, they lack the intense fervor seen last spring.
This represents a significant shift. For a period, the Gaza protests appeared poised to become the next major political movement for young Americans. The cause—viewed by its supporters as a struggle between a marginalized people and an overwhelming global power—resonated deeply with university students. Many of these students had already developed their political consciousness during the racial justice movements of summer 2020.
Indeed, many began to characterize the Palestinian crisis as “the moral issue of our time.”
Initially, the protesters showcased remarkable organizational strength, occupying campus grounds and disrupting city streets. They successfully compelled university administrators to engage in negotiations concerning support for Palestinian students, whose institutions were destroyed in the bombing, and divesting from Israeli companies. For a generation often lamenting its lack of influence, it seemed the dynamics of power had temporarily shifted.
Moreover, recent polling has shown a dramatic reversal in public opinion, with a large segment of voters now holding distinctly negative views about the Israeli government’s handling of the conflict.
Simultaneously, the pro-Palestinian protests caused considerable unease among many Americans. Organizers struggled to control sporadic acts of violence and, at times, appeared insensitive to complaints from Jewish students who found certain chants and actions to be antisemitic. Faced with the Trump administration’s threat to cut federal funding from universities perceived as too lenient, college administrators swiftly took measures to quell the unrest.
Today, campuses remain tense, but largely quiet.
Tyler Coward, lead counsel for government affairs at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, notes that protest activity at American universities has seen a decline over the past two years.
While some may welcome this relative calm, Coward expresses concern that the pendulum has swung too far.
“There are threats both from the government and from within the university itself that are really damaging the climate for open debate and free inquiry,” Coward stated.
Certain states have introduced new restrictions on campus speech that are challenging the boundaries of the First Amendment. Just last week, a judge temporarily blocked a Texas law that aimed to prohibit protest activity at public universities during nighttime hours and impose limits on noise, among other restrictions.
FIRE, which initiated the lawsuit to challenge the Texas law, anticipates a worsening environment for free speech on campuses. Coward highlighted that since the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, several institutions have terminated or disciplined staff members who criticized him. Concurrently, the Trump administration has indicated it will revoke the visas of foreign students who “celebrated” Kirk’s death.
“There has been a pretty significant chilling effect,” Coward emphasized.
Youssef Hasweh, a University of Chicago graduate from last year, had his degree temporarily withheld after being arrested for trespassing during a sit-in. Although he was allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony, his degree was not conferred until the university cleared him of all charges.
Now working as a social media consultant, Hasweh worries that his past activism might hinder his career prospects.
“If I faced such an extreme, disproportionate reaction for what I said on campus, I can only imagine what consequences I would face now,” Hasweh commented.
“I am afraid to speak about Palestine, even though I am Palestinian,” he added. Given his experience participating in a nonviolent protest, Hasweh, a U.S. citizen, expressed deep concern for younger student activists.
“What frightens me most,” he remarked, “is that we inadvertently showed the school how to silence us.” Recently, he has redirected his political energies to local initiatives, notably supporting Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign in New York.
Veteran leaders of the pro-Palestinian movement acknowledge that the current atmosphere of fear has significantly hampered open discourse. Following the campus protests, a group of federal judges publicly stated they would not consider hiring law clerks from Columbia University due to its handling of demonstrations related to the Israel-Gaza war. Prominent business figures, such as Bill Ackman, also publicly advised against hiring certain pro-Palestinian student activists.
“I don’t think anyone can fault them for pulling back,” observed William Youmans, a professor at Northwestern University’s Qatar campus and a former member of Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of California, Berkeley, in the early 2000s. “It’s already challenging enough to secure employment without being on someone’s blacklist.”
With the cease-fire in effect, the demonstrations might have naturally subsided. However, some protesters voiced apprehension that the Palestinian plight—a cause they had helped bring to wider public attention—might now fade from the collective consciousness.
“Our attention spans are so short that people seem unable to focus on an issue for more than a few days,” noted Armand Aviram, a freelance videographer in New York who participated in pro-Palestinian protests.
News of the cease-fire, he shared, elicited mixed emotions.
“There’s absolutely no aspect of this where I feel like celebrating,” he stated. “It’s simply a relief that, hopefully, the killing will cease, especially of children.”
Campbell, the Washington University graduate, now works as a barista in St. Louis—a job, he pointed out wryly, that doesn’t require a political science degree from a top national university.
Though he may no longer be actively protesting on the streets, his political commitment remains undiminished. He is now concentrating on alternative methods of achieving change, even as hundreds of thousands recently participated in “No Kings” demonstrations against Donald Trump.
“These ‘No Kings’ marches, these ‘How dare you, sir’ comments, they’re not going to accomplish anything,” he asserted.
Instead, he is channeling his energy into unionizing his workplace, convinced that true power lies in organizing.
“The only way we prevent another Palestine from happening is to have power,” he concluded.