(RNS) — At Columbia University in New York, a student who is also employed by the university received phone calls from her dean threatening to fire her and rescind her much-needed stipend for vocally supporting Palestinians the past two weeks.

In California, a Palestinian American student shared with me stories of Muslim students being harassed at the University Town Center in San Diego, particularly women wearing hijab or those wearing the patterned headscarf known as a kaffiyeh. The student, who is in her fourth year at the University of California, Irvine, said classmates who publicly support Palestine were physically attacked at UCLA.

At the University of Michigan, which has a sizable Arab, Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Muslim student population, some faculty say their Arab and Muslim students are fearful of a backlash. Charlotte Karem Albrecht, an associate professor of American culture and women’s studies at the school and core faculty member for Arab and Muslim American studies, told me that Arab, Palestinian, MENA and Muslim student leaders are also receiving reports of harassment, threats and ethnic intimidation and experiencing it themselves.

“Students wearing kaffiyehs (are) yelled at, surrounded in public spaces when they’re alone. Muslim women students who wear hijab (are) worried about walking alone in public spaces,” Karem Albrecht told me. “Some of these come from actual experiences these students are having, and some are (fears) coming from the discourses being had and the things they are hearing, like the young boy (6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume) who was killed (near Chicago).

“It’s a real fear born of consequences,” she said.

Meanwhile, at George Mason University in Virginia, a female student shared that police officers were being “super aggressive” with Muslim, Palestinian and Arab students at campus protests. “I was just standing, watching the protest happening, but (I got) arrested … for being a part of the group.” She was later let go but reported being stopped at a traffic stop and having her vehicle checked because she looked suspicious.

As I put out a call out for Palestinian, Muslim and Arab students at American colleges and universities to share their fears and reports of harassment, intimidation and targeted hate, the stories came pouring in. Jewish students also report feeling afraid and isolated on college campuses across the country, according to this Washington Post article.

All these students (and more) who shared their stories with me did so under the promise of anonymity, fearing further harassment and hate and possible targeting. 

In the days after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, many universities and colleges issued statements denouncing the militant Palestinian group, reaching out to Jewish students and standing in support of Israel. Most often there was no mention of Palestinian or Muslim students. As Gaza became a humanitarian crisis, with more than 6,000 killed to date, more than 2,000 of them children, the lukewarm, or complete lack of, acknowledgment of Palestinian pain or what Muslim, Palestinian and Arab students are enduring created an atmosphere of fear, hurt, grief and anger.

On Oct. 7, a statement went out to the University of Michigan community from President Santa J. Ono condemning the attack by “Hamas terrorists on Israeli citizens and the immense loss of civilian lives” and affirming partnerships with a number of universities in Israel. Only a few days later did Ono issue a second statement, in which he stood by his earlier statement but added language mourning the loss of life in Israel and Gaza.

For the university’s Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, that wasn’t enough. The group issued a statement saying it and its campus allies would be joining a nationwide campus walk-out strike on Oct. 25 to bring awareness to what is happening in Gaza, as well as iterating that the “events of last week cannot be isolated from Israel’s decades-long denial of Palestinian human rights and forbiddance of Palestinian resistance.”

Discrimination and harassment are a common part of being Palestinian, Arab or Muslim on campus at any time. Anyone who supports the Palestinian fight for freedom or who is critical of the Israeli government knows the price of showing it. (The same can be said for Jewish students advocating for Israel: On Oct. 12, a 19-year-old was arrested on charges of beating a Jewish Columbia student who had posted information on the school’s campus about casualties in the Hamas attack.)

But the repercussions for Palestinian and other Muslim and Arab students denouncing the atrocities in Gaza have arguably reached more alarming proportions. They are afraid, just like Jewish students, and many fear what the price of condemning 75 years of Israeli occupation and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza will be. Should they self-censor? Will they lose scholarships? Future job opportunities? Academic standing in some of their classes? Their lives?

“On a minor scale, it creates social awkwardness and tension when I wear a ‘Free Palestine’ shirt or my kaffiyeh, as others conflate these expressions with supporting terrorism,” said the UC Irvine student. “Attending pro-Palestine rallies means you wear all black and a mask to protect your identity.”

On a major scale it means doxxing and threats to student lives. 

In the first week after Israel began to retaliate against Hamas, Nimrah Riaz, the chair of the Muslim Students Association’s national board of directors, said she received a Google doc named “Hamas Terrorist-Supporting Student Organizations,” which amassed the names of student groups across the country and of students who may have signed off on statements condemning Israel’s history of occupation and oppression of Palestinians. The list included their schools, campus organizations and social media profiles and noted if they had a job lined up after graduation.

It was “a real-time Canary Mission-type website,” Riaz said, referring to a website that appeared in 2015 with blacklists of pro-Palestinian student activists as well as academics. “That definitely got students scared.”

Immediately after receiving the document and screenshots of what was in it, MSA National brought in the Council on American-Islamic Relations to conduct webinars for students to help them understand their rights. “Our chat box filled up with stories about how ‘This happened to me on my campus,’” said Riaz.

At the University of Michigan, a third-year Muslim student told me the fear of doxxing or being blacklisted is real. “We’ve had students in the past two weeks talk about being spat on (and) cursed at, and we’ve had students express they don’t want to come out to protest or even to vigils, to express anything slightly related to the human rights situation in Palestine. A lot of students are very, very afraid even to be near students who are protesting or maybe attending a vigil for fear of retribution.”

He said that a lot of students have their parents telling them to “wait to get into a better spot in life” before saying something. Admittedly, with a child in college myself, I’ve found myself advising the same course. 

But every Palestinian student has to make up their own mind about how to make their voice heard in times like these. “Everyone has got to figure out their balance of things on their own sense of ethics and consciousness and safety, of what they’re going to feel right doing,” Karem Albrecht told me.

“If you’re making the decision not to protest, not to be visible in those ways, what are other ways you can take action?” she continued. “If you’re a voter, it’s not going to cause harm to contact your elected officials. It’s not going to necessarily cause you harm to talk to people you trust and spread awareness. Think expansively about what it means to exercise speech in this moment and to act in consciousness.”

(Dilshad D. Ali is a journalist and blog editor for the website Haute Hijab, an e-commerce company that works to serve Muslim women. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)