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campus protests
'Shameful': Outrage Over UK Universities Hiring Security Firm to Spy on Pro-Palestinian Students
"We knew surveillance was happening by the university, but it is shocking to see how systematized it is," said one student.
Apr 20, 2026
A dozen universities in the UK are facing criticism after a joint investigation by Al Jazeera English and Liberty Investigates revealed they hired a security firm run by former military intelligence agents to spy on pro-Palestinian student demonstrators.
Specifically, Al Jazeera English and Liberty Investigates reported they have "uncovered evidence that Horus Security Consultancy Limited trawled through student social media feeds and conducted secret counterterror threat assessments on behalf of some of Britain’s most elite institutions," including the University of Oxford, Imperial College London, University College London.
The investigation found that Horus has been paid $594,000 by the universities since 2022, and it has been asked to monitor targets ranging from a Palestinian academic giving a guest lecture at Manchester Metropolitan University to entire groups of pro-Palestinian organizations at the University of Bristol.
Many of the universities implicated in the investigation declined comment. Imperial College London, however, denied that it paid Horus to spy on its students, and said it merely wanted to "help identify potential security risks to its community, which might include protest activity within the vicinity of its campuses."
This rationale failed to satisfy critics, however.
Gina Romero, the United Nations special rapporteur for freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, told Al Jazeera English and Liberty Investigates that “the use of AI to harvest and analyze student data under the guise of open-source intelligence raises profound legal concerns.”
Romero expressed particular concern that Horus is not accountable to any public scrutiny, and that students have no way to know how the data collected from them will be used in the future.
Lizzie Hobbs, a PhD student at the London School of Economics who has taken part in pro-Palestinian protests, said it was "deeply scary" to see universities invest money in surveilling their own students.
"We knew surveillance was happening by the university," she said, "but it is shocking to see how systematized it is."
Jo Grady, general secretary for the University and College Union, slammed the schools' "shameful" actions and said they had "wasted hundreds of thousands of pounds spying on their own students."
Journalist Mushahid Hussain Sayed also described the universities' actions as "shameful," adding that they discriminated "against students and academics on the basis of their peaceful political beliefs/activism in support of Palestine and against Israel!"
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Protesters at 100+ Campuses Tell Trump 'Hands Off Higher Ed!'
"We're not only out to defeat Trump, but to also win a vision for affordability, security, and freedom for our generation—both in higher education, and in our democracy," said one student organizer.
Nov 07, 2025
Students and professors at over 100 universities across the United States on Friday joined protests against President Donald Trump's sweeping assault on higher education, including a federal funding compact that critics call "extortion."
Crafted in part by billionaire financier Marc Rowan, Trump's Compact for Excellence in Higher Education was initially presented to a short list of prestigious schools but later offered to other institutions as a way to restore or gain priority access to federal funding.
The compact requires signatories to commit to "transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas," while also targeting trans student-athletes and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.
"The attacks on higher ed are attacks on truth, freedom, and our future. We're organizing to protect campuses as spaces for learning, not control—for liberation, not censorship," said Brianni Davillier, a student organizer with Public Citizen, which is among the advocacy groups and labor unions supporting the Students Rise Up movement behind Friday's demonstrations.
BREAKING: Students and faculty from across NYC have come together to tell Apollo CEO Marc Rowan that it’s going to be a lot harder than he thinks for billionaire greed to destroy higher education.
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— Sunrise Movement (@sunrisemvmt.bsky.social) November 7, 2025 at 11:43 AM
At the Community College of Philadelphia, protesters stressed that "higher education research saves lives." Duke University demonstrators carried signs that called for protecting academic freedom and transgender students. Roughly 10 miles away, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, they unfurled a banner that read, "Stand for Students | Reject Trump's Compact."
Professors from multiple schools came together for a rally at Central Connecticut State University, according to Connecticut Post.
"The compact would require universities submit to a system of government surveillance and policing meant to abolish departments that the government disapproves of, promote certain viewpoints over others, restrict the ability of university employees to express themselves on any major issue of the day," said James Bhandary-Alexander, a Yale Law School professor and member of the university's American Association of University Professors (AAUP) executive committee.
AAUP, also part of the coalition backing the protest movement, said on social media Friday: "Trump and Marc Rowan's loyalty oath compact is [trash]!! Out with billionaires and authoritarians in higher ed! Our universities belong to the students and higher ed workers!"
Protesters urged their school leaders to not only reject Trump's compact—which some universities have already publicly done—but also focus on other priorities of campus communities.
At the University of Kansas, provost Barbara Bichelmeyer confirmed last month to The University Daily Kansan that KU will not sign the compact. However, students still demonstrated on Friday.
"They did say 'no' but that's like the bare minimum," said Cameron Renne, a leader with the KU chapters of the Sunrise Movement and Young Democratic Socialists of America. "We're hoping to get the administration to hear us and at least try to cooperate with us on some of our demands."
According to The University Daily Kansan, "Renne said the groups are also pushing for divestment from fossil fuels, improvements in campus maintenance, and the removal of restrictions on gender ideology."
Some schools have declined to sign on to the compact but reached separate agreements with the Trump administration. As the Guardian reported Friday:
At Brown University in Rhode Island—one of the first institutions to reach a settlement with the Trump administration earlier this year—passersby were invited to endorse a banner listing a series of demands by dipping their hands in paint and leaving their print, while a group of faculty members nearby lectured about the history of autocracy.
"Trump came to our community thinking we could be bullied out of our freedom," said Simon Aron, a sophomore and co-president of Brown Rise Up. "He was wrong."
Brown isn't the only Ivy League school to strike a deal with Trump; so have Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, the alma mater of both Rowan and Trump. Cornell University followed suit on Friday amid nationwide demonstrations.
"November 7th is only the start," said Kaden Ouimet, another student organizer with Public Citizen. "We're building a movement of students, faculty, and campus workers to demand our colleges do not comply with the Trump regime, and its authoritarian campus compact."
"We know that to fully take on autocracy, we have to take on the material conditions that gave rise to it," the organizer added. "That is why we're not only out to defeat Trump, but to also win a vision for affordability, security, and freedom for our generation—both in higher education, and in our democracy."
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Cornell Becomes Latest University to Submit to Trump's 'Extortion' Over Student Protests
The government claimed that Cornell had violated civil rights law by allowing students to protest against Israel. Even though the agreement required the school to admit no wrongdoing, it still agreed to pay a $30 million fine.
Nov 07, 2025
Cornell University became the latest school to cave to demands from the Trump administration on Friday, inking a deal that would restore $250 million in unpaid research funds stripped by the federal government as part of its crusade against higher education and efforts to punish schools that allowed students to freely express pro-Palestine views.
Following a months-long investigation by the government for allegedly violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the Ivy League school agreed to pay a $30 million fine to the government, which claimed that Cornell had violated the law by not sufficiently cracking down on student protests against Israel's genocide in Gaza. The administration accused the school of failing “to protect Jewish students.”
In March, the Department of Education launched investigations into 60 major US universities, with Education Secretary Linda McMahon describing students' peaceful demonstrations against Israel that had swept campuses the previous year as "relentless antisemitic eruptions."
As The Guardian reported earlier this week, the civil rights investigation at Cornell had been spurred by a nonspecific, anonymous complaint that a professor “is supporting Hammas [sic] and their beliefs. He is literally brain washing students to hate and discriminate towards a certain religions [sic]–Jews." The complaint demanded that the professor be "black listed" from teaching.
Following this complaint, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights announced an investigation into the school for "failing to respond to incidents of harassment."
In a letter to the school community on Friday, Cornell's president, Michael Kotlikoff, said that the resolution made explicit that its agreement to pay out the lofty fine to the Trump administration was "not an admission of wrongdoing" by the university.
In addition to paying the fine, the school also had to set aside another $30 million to invest in "research programs that will directly benefit US farmers through lower costs of production and enhanced efficiency.”
And while Kotlikoff said he would refuse a deal that allowed the government to “dictate our institution’s policies,” the agreement requires the school to comply with several of the Trump administration's ideological goals.
It agreed to restrict its use of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and turn over data on the racial makeup of its student body to demonstrate that it is complying with the 2023 Supreme Court decision outlawing affirmative action. It also agreed to train staff using a Justice Department memo ordering colleges to abandon "transgender-friendly” policies.
Cornell also agreed to "conduct annual surveys to evaluate the campus climate for Cornell students, including the climate for students with shared Jewish ancestry." The school specifically agreed to query students about "whether they believe the changes Cornell has made since October of 2023," when Israel launched a two-year genocide in response to Hamas attack, "have benefited the Cornell community."
The Trump administration has notably ordered schools to abide by a wide-ranging definition of "antisemitism" that not only punishes displays of bigotry against Jewish people, but also criticisms of Israel's government and policies.
Cornell also agreed to seek out “experts on laws and regulations regarding sanctions enforcement, anti-money laundering, and prevention of terrorist financing,” suggesting that the school will be expected to discipline and investigate pro-Palestinian organizations on campus, which the administration has baselessly accused of "material support" for terrorism.
Cornell's agreement with the administration comes as students at more than 100 campuses across the country have launched demonstrations against Trump's efforts to coerce schools into signing his “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” in exchange for priority federal funding and other “positive benefits.” Critics have described it as a "loyalty oath" and an "extortion agreement."
Though several schools have declined to sign onto the compact, Cornell is not the first school to bend to the Trump administration's demands to restart the flow of federal funding: Brown University, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Virginia have all cut similar deals.
Jameel Jaffer, the director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, has argued that there was little basis for Cornell to be fined for civil rights violations.
"If the Trump administration had evidence that Cornell systemically discriminated against Jewish students in violation of Title VI, it wouldn't let the university off the hook for a $30 million investment in research about AI, robotics, and farming," Jaffer said. "But, of course, there's no such evidence. The settlement only confirms what we already knew—that the Trump administration's Title VI allegations were baseless and made in bad faith."
"That doesn't mean there weren't antisemitic incidents on Cornell's campus. There were. But there's just no support for the notion that Cornell or other major American universities were indifferent to antisemitism," he continued. "The problem wasn't that universities were indifferent to antisemitism, but that they allowed trustees, advocacy groups, demagogues, etc. to pressure them into treating as 'antisemitism' all kinds of political expression and advocacy that was entirely legitimate."
A report from the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association, which analyzed discrimination complaints sent to the Civil Rights Office found that "all but one of the 102 antisemitism complaint letters we have analyzed focus on speech critical of Israel; of these, 79% contain allegations of antisemitism that simply describe criticisms of Israel or Zionism with no reference to Jews or Judaism; at least 50% of complaints consist solely of such criticism."
Though the payout was far less than the $200 million settlement Columbia agreed to pay earlier this year, Spencer Beswick, a postdoctoral associate at Cornell's Humanities Scholars Program, wrote on social media that his university was guilty of "capitulation to extortion."
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