Since October 2023, faculty, staff, and students across the United States and Canada have reported firings, canceled events, investigations, and congressional scrutiny linked to speech about Palestine and the Middle East. The MESA Academic Freedom Initiative documents these incidents systematically.
About the resource
The initiative is a project of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), led through its Task Force on Civil and Human Rights. It maintains four downloadable databases covering employment retaliation, interference with campus events, Title VI lawsuits and investigations, and congressional interference, along with a searchable timeline.
The site also publishes analysis drawn from the data. Its October 2026 report, Lessons in Repression: Silencing Campus Workers on Palestine Since October 7, 2023, draws on 196 documented cases and interviews with 31 affected employees. A resources section offers FAQs and guides on immigration and travel policy, digital security, and harassment campaigns, plus recordings of webinars and primers on recent legal developments.
From: Middle East Studies Association of North America
For: Researchers, advocates, journalists, and MESA members
Format: Datasets, reports, timeline, guides, and webinar recordings
Scope: Higher education in the United States and Canada
Where to start
- Browse the searchable timeline for an overview.
- Read the summary of Lessons in Repression.
- Download a dataset relevant to your research or advocacy.
The project is concerned with the targeting of fields that study race, migration, and related subjects. This initiative builds a documented record of how that targeting unfolds.