I am tired of my university exploiting my Jewish identity to silence those who speak out against genocide.

In the past year, Northwestern has repeatedly asserted its commitment to eradicating antisemitism on campus. Over the summer, Northwestern updated its student code of conduct in response to criticisms of the University’s handling of demonstrations in the spring, and last week, the University announced intentions to discipline students who violated the new demonstration guidelines. Between these policy changes, implementing a new antisemitism training and even our president testifying in front of Congress last spring, NU claims it wants to protect its Jewish students. Yet, as a Jewish student at NU, I fear that the University professes to combat antisemitism while actively suppressing freedom of speech.

I was a part of the NU Gaza solidarity encampment this past spring. Our encampment was a beautiful space of education, movement building and multifaith rituals, such as our Passover seder.

That is, until the fourth day of our encampment, when a group of about 150 pro-Israel counterprotesters gathered on Deering Meadow. Unimpeded by a small metal barrier set up by University Police, they charged the field and verbally assaulted us with threats of violence. My peers linked arms and chanted calmly. Alongside my fellow Jewish students, I grabbed a sign that said “Jews for Palestine.” We wanted to make it clear that this is not a conflict of religion, as many erroneously suggest, but a struggle between those in power who support genocide and a diverse coalition of people, including many Jews, who resolutely oppose genocide.

The counterprotesters, a group of mostly non-students with connections to the Anti-Defamation League, shoved cameras in our faces, yelling that we remove our masks so they could dox us. They laughed when we chanted, “Stop the genocide.”

They targeted me and my Jewish friends specifically using horrific slurs. They called us “k—s” and “k—-s,” terms used to describe Jews who aided the Nazis in the Holocaust. They told us Hamas should kill and rape us. They told one of my friends she was “too ugly to be Jewish.” They told us to kill ourselves. At the same time, they hurled every possible racial slur at our fellow Black and Brown student organizers. They called them terrorists.

I have never felt so afraid in my entire life. I have never felt so afraid to be Jewish.

In a recent update to their code of conduct, the University carved out additional protections for counterprotesters. In the same document where it severely limits any demonstrations that impede any normal university function (with the potential consequence of expulsion), it also explicitly asserts the rights of non-student counterprotesters to assemble on campus.

How can I watch a university that has spent all year claiming to care about the wellbeing of Jewish students fail to condemn a mass act of antisemitism and racism against my peers? NU, quick to release statements that Palestinian flags are “antisemitic,” said nothing of the verbal assault on its own students. The directors of the only Jewish institutions serving NU students, Michael Simon of Hillel and Chabad Rabbis Dov Klein and Mendy Weg, watched the event occur and spoke cordially with the counterprotesters. UP officers patted counterprotesters on the back.

That leads me to a solemn conclusion: NU does not seek to protect all of its students, only those who fall in line with the institution’s politics. It will vehemently uphold the speech of students who support its financial ties to Israel and its endowment. The University does not care about actual experiences of antisemitism — only about how it can weaponize concerns about the “safety” of Jewish students to suppress anyone who dares to speak out for Palestine.

NU claims to be a bastion of dialogue, liberal ideals and free speech, but it has spent the last months crafting — and now enforcing — draconian policies to punish anyone who dares to speak out against the Israeli military’s genocide in Gaza. However, students, including my fellow Jewish students, will not be silenced. We have seen how the Israeli military has killed upwards of 16,000 children in Gaza and destroyed or damaged every single university, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education, respectively. Like the young people before us who opposed the Vietnam War or called for divestment from the South African Apartheid, we know we are on the right side of history. We will follow in the footsteps of the student activists before us and not give up until Palestine is free.

Isabelle Butera is a Medill senior and former Daily staffer. She can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.