This piece is featured as part of Fox News Digital’s Campus Radicals investigative series. The complete series is available here.
The Syracuse University chancellor voiced his opinion that pro-Hamas, anti-Israel demonstrations were possibly encouraged and even coordinated by Iran during a D.C. panel discussion this week.
Chancellor Kent Syverud participated in a panel discussion Tuesday with the chancellors of Vanderbilt and Washington University in St. Louis and described the demonstrations that took place at his school and other universities nationwide.
“I am of the belief that certain events were encouraged by Iran,” Syverud told the audience. “Very few, if any, of our own students were involved in [the demonstrations].”
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Syracuse’s leading administrator also mentioned how difficult it was to hold people, including students, responsible due to their use of masks or coverings specifically intended to conceal their identities.
“Masks were used to evade responsibility for words and actions,” Syverud stated, adding that those in masks could have been “activists not affiliated with the university.”
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Vanderbilt’s Chancellor Daniel Diermeier, who is based in Nashville, emphasized the evident coordination and the standardized “playbook” for demonstrations, supported by “organized networks” that may have influenced or instructed students and agitators to protest and cause disruption on campus.
“[Students] consulted [and] implemented the same playbook observed at Columbia and other institutions, mirroring the identical messaging. This goes beyond mere social contagion,” Diermeier stated. “I am confident that organized networks are involved. We undoubtedly witnessed that.”
Washington University Chancellor Andrew D. Martin concurred with a nod.
“Regarding many of the events that occurred on our campus, including an attempted encampment, we prevented it from happening and ultimately arrested individuals to shut it down on a Saturday night,” Martin added. “Seventy-five percent of those involved had no connection to the university.”
Alums for Campus Fairness, an organization dedicated to uniting university alumni and combating antisemitism on college campuses and across the U.S., organized the panel.
The demonstrations referenced by Syverud have largely affected university campuses following the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Columbia has experienced a large number of demonstrations that persist regularly, albeit just outside the university grounds because the university has modified regulations that formerly permitted demonstrations.
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Last April, authorities arrested more than 100 demonstrators after the NYPD had to dismantle an encampment that was interfering with students’ ability to navigate campus.
In May, demonstrators took over Columbia’s Butler Library, renaming it “Basel Al-Araj Popular University.” Authorities were summoned once more, resulting in numerous arrests. Over 70 students faced expulsion or suspension.
Comparable demonstrations unfolded at other prominent universities, including Harvard, NYU, and UCLA.
Syracuse University did not offer a response when asked for their input.
