The first hint of trouble came via Instagram. On the evening of Oct. 12, a terse message landed in the inbox of the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a student organization at the University of Texas at Austin, shortly before the start of one of its events.
āSee you there, you f—–g terrorist,ā it read.
The message didnāt faze the student leaders of the Palestine Solidarity Committee, or PSC. They knew their political positions made them a lightning rod on campus, and even more so in the wake of the Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel, according to government figures.
But about an hour into the event ā āPalestine 101, a rundown on Palestinian history, resistance and current contextā ā three men showed up outside the campus lecture hall where it was taking place.Ā
They got in the faces of the student organizers, and one of the men repeatedly called them Ā āf—–g terrorists,ā according to cellphone video of the encounter.Ā
The men said they were not there to cause violence. But as more students pulled out their phones, the taunts from the most vocal of the three took a more menacing turn.
āYou can also film next week Iām in Israel, weāre killing f—–g Arabs, motherf—–s,ā the man said, implying that he was a member of the Israeli army.
Shortly afterward, one of his cohorts boasted that he was a soldier in the Israeli military.
The confrontation lasted more than three minutes. At no point did the men become violent, but the students had to hold the door shut as one of them attempted to get into the room.Ā
When the three men finally began to walk away, they threw onto the floor posters they had brought about kidnapped Israeli children. They also confronted students in the hallway who were cramming for a chemistry exam and had no involvement in the event.
āThey were looking for a problem,ā said Ammer Qaddumi, a Palestinian American member of the Palestine Solidarity Committee in his third year at UT. āBut we didnāt engage with them the way they wanted us to.ā
The Oct. 7 attack in Israel and its retaliatory strikes in Gaza have spurred a spate of antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents across the U.S. Tensions have run particularly high on college campuses, with acts of hate and violence at places like Cornell University, Harvard and Stanford generating national headlines.Ā
But the situation at the University of Texas has drawn comparatively less attention. That, Muslim students and community leaders say, is no surprise.
They believe that the incident has laid bare a double standard that exists in how the university responds to acts of hate. The Muslim students and leaders point to the fact that the three provocateurs have faced no repercussions, and the university has not directly addressed the incident in any public statements or forums.
When swastikas were found spray painted outside a Jewish sorority house in September, the university immediately released a statement condemning the incident and the campus police department increased patrols in the area.
āPalestinian students on this campus, frankly, are seen as a footnote,ā said Adam, 21, a senior who is part Palestinian and who asked to be identified only by his first name due to fears of being harassed. āWeāre never seen equally to our Jewish counterparts. I think nothing made that more clear than what happened on Oct. 12.ā
A UT spokesperson said in a statement that āuniversity administrators have continuously engaged groups and individuals most impacted by the horrific events in the Middle East to ensure their physical and emotional wellbeing.ā
āThe confrontation that occurred outside of the Palestine Solidarity Committeeās event is not acceptable and upon learning about it, we immediately engaged the UT Police Department to investigate and contacted PSC to offer support,ā the statement added.
The UT Police Department also released a statement.Ā
āOur preliminary investigation suggests that those engaged were not affiliated with the University and therefore could be subject to a criminal trespass violation,ā the department said. āThey have not been positively identified and the investigation is ongoing.ā
That the investigation is active came as a surprise to the Palestine Solidarity Committee members.Ā
The university previously told local news outlet KXAN that its police department ālooked into the matter and found no criminal offense.ā
But the students say what is even more baffling is the campus policeās new assertion that it hasnāt identified the men. The students said they had no trouble tracking down social media accounts for two of them. The students said they even gave the police the two menās names and account information.Ā
āI donāt know how much further we can go in doing their work for them,ā said the student named Adam.
NBC News found that the men who disrupted the event, or at least one of them, are not difficult to reach.Ā
Last week, NBC News sent a message via Facebook to the man who called the students terrorists. And exactly 20 minutes later, he responded.Ā
A ādeafeningā silence
The shocking Hamas attack put UT in a difficult spot.
The university has an official policy not to make public statements about āmajor societal events and matters of general public interestā except when they have a āunique impactā on members of the UT community.
But on the day after the three men berated the students, UT President Jay Hartzell released a statement that was closely read on campus. It referenced the āhorrorsā of the previous week but did not mention Israel, Hamas or Gaza.
Hartzell did, however, note that the university had increased security patrols around āareas of heightened sensitivity, including UTās Jewish sorority and fraternities, Texas Hillel, and other communities.ā Hartzell also said that he had shared a message with the Texas Hillelās rabbi.
Anwer Imam, the director of religious affairs at the Nueces Mosque, located two blocks from campus, said what stood out to him about the statement was what it didnāt say.
Anything about Palestinian or Muslim students. Anything about the incident that took place at the Palestine Solidarity Committee event the previous day.
āHe made sure to mention that he called the local rabbi to lend his support and his condolences,ā Imam said. āThese are all things that we wish he would offer us.ā
Imam said it was especially striking given the disruption of the Palestinian event the day before.
Ā āThe fact that there has not been really any communication from the university, from the leadership, itās been tough,ā Imam said. āThe silence has really been deafening.ā
Hartzellās statement also rankled some members of the Jewish community for not going far enough in identifying and condemning Hamas.
Four days later, Hartzell released a second statement, with much stronger language.
Hartzell noted the universityās position of staying mum on current events not connected to the school but said there were costs to this approach as well ā that staying quiet can be seen as an āendorsement of actions that are hard or impossible to defend.ā
āLet me be perfectly clear,ā the statement added, āthe acts of Hamas, including intentional violence toward innocent civilians and calls for the elimination of a people, deserve to be condemned and have absolutely no moral defense.ā
Hartzell also referenced the schoolās Palestinian and Muslim communities for the first time.
āI have zero tolerance for the antisemitic actions targeting our Jewish community or the hate-filled actions targeting our Palestinian and Muslim communities,ā the statement said.
But it still disappointed Muslim students on campus, as well as others who advocate for the rights of Palestinians. By then, Israeli strikes on Gaza had killed at least 2,775 people and wounded 9,700, according to the Gaza health ministry, and nearly two-thirds of those killed were children.
āWhat does it communicate to our Palestinian students if the administration will not even say the words āPalestineā or āGazaā?ā said Sophia Schlesinger, 25, a UT graduate student who teaches a course on poetry and is Jewish.
“Itās not my intent to minimize the loss and grief of Jewish students on campus,” she added. “But I think itās really hard to read these announcements and not see an asymmetry there.”
Jews on edge
UTās campus, like many others across the nation, has also seen acts of antisemitism.
In September, a swastika and antisemitic slurs were spray-painted on the sidewalk outside of a Jewish sorority house. The next day, the university released a statement about the incident on its website. āUT condemns these actions and will refer for discipline any University-associated individuals found to have vandalized University or city property,ā it read.
Ā Hamasā surprise assault shook many Jewish students on UTās campus, as it did for Jews across the country and beyond.
A few days after the attack, one UT professor had a friend in Israel speak to students about what he was experiencing.
āWhen class ended, one of my Jewish students said to me, āI just really appreciate you bringing this up. No other professor has,āā recalled the UT instructor, who asked to remain anonymous due to the ārampant antisemitism on college campuses nationwide.ā
The professor was stunned.
āIf a college is doing its job, it should be providing a safe and brave space for civil discourse,ā the professor said.
Jewish students and leaders on campus praised UTās response to the Oct. 7 attack.
āThe university has done a good job in handling this,ā said Zander Feinstein, 21, a UT junior who started a campaign last month, Yalla for Israel, to unite college students in supporting Israel. āIām proud to be a University of Texas student. I have always been very comfortable speaking about Israel here.ā
Rabbi Zev Johnson, executive director of the Chabad Jewish Student Center, said heās spoken to many Jewish students who are on edge, but he also gave plaudits to UTās leadership. He noted that the dean of the universityās business school, Lillian Mills, visited the center on Oct. 13 to provide comfort to students.
āWe feel the administration has been an ally and a great partner,ā he said.
Johnson said that when he saw the video of the men trying to disrupt the Palestine Solidarity Committee event, he was shocked and all but certain they were not part of the universityās Jewish community.
āI was just thinking, āWho are these people?āā Johnson said.
The students of the Palestine Solidarity Committee had the same question, and it didnāt take long for them to get answers. They were able to quickly identify social media accounts for two of the three men.
One of them, the man who called the students terrorists, appears to be the same person who sent the Instagram message just before the event ā his face matches the profile picture on that account.
After NBC News sent the man a message through Facebook, he responded in a message that listed ākey facts,ā including that it was āan open event,ā and he claimed that the group, which promoted the event using the hashtag āfrom the river to the sea,ā supports āJewish genocide.āĀ
Some people interpret the phrase, from the river to the sea, to mean the eradication of Israel.Ā
Palestine Solidarity Committee members sharply denied supporting Jewish genocide.
“Thatās nonsense,ā said the student named Adam.
āA lot of people do have this misconception that advocating for Palestinian human rights, advocating for the lifting of the occupation that Israel has placed on the West Bank and Gaza, somehow makes us opposed to Jewish people as a whole,ā he added. āIt is not true at all. We work with Jewish people. We take a hard-line stance against antisemitism.ā
The president responds
After Hartzell released his second statement on Oct. 17, which made no mention of the Islamophobic incident on campus five days earlier, the Palestine Solidarity Committee leaders organized an email campaign designed to put pressure on the university president.
On Oct. 25, the people who emailed Hartzell received a uniform response.
āWe believe that those who engaged were unaffiliated with the University,ā it read in part. āAs such, they had no lawful right to be in the building or harass our students after their educational meeting. I am disheartened that people would go out of their way to come to our campus and spread their form of hate.ā
Qaddumi, one of the Palestine Solidarity Committee organizers, said the incident has only emboldened the group. The students have organized multiple events on campus and in downtown Austin in the last month.
āTheir desperate attempt to silence our voice has actually had the ironic effect to amplify our voice,ā Qaddumi said. āWe see it as our job to continue promoting the cause of the Palestinian people in the face of backlash.ā