Jewish students feel unsafe at UIC

Last month a group of graduate students studying at the University of Illinois Chicago described how their campus work turned confrontational when they tried to share information about people still held hostage by Hamas. Three dozen protesters surrounded them, yelling phrases like “baby killers” and claiming the students personally had “blood on their hands. ” One organizer told the crowd not to let the Jewish students leave, citing fear the footage they were filming might be misused.University police arrived about half an hour later, yet when the students filed a report, officials said the behavior wasn’t serious enough to violate the student code. For three months the administration stayed silent. During a meeting the school insisted the incident didn’t reach their threshold for harassment. The students still believe the university dropped the ball. One of the students involved will graduate next year. She has decided to speak out anyway because, as a future social worker, she feels an ethical duty to expose campus hostility whenever it appears. She hopes that quiet conversations can still push officials into creating clearer rules and faster responses. If nothing changes, she and her allies plan to escalate one email and one meeting at a time.