Amira Halperin and Stephen Sussman argue that institutional neutrality within universities can function as a mechanism of avoidance, and how legal protections for speech are being invoked to justify inaction.

In the wake of the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks against Israel, university campuses across Britain have become sites of intense conflict over Israel, Gaza, Zionism, and antisemitism. Campus protests and confrontations have raised difficult questions about the boundaries between protected political expression and conduct that intimidates, excludes, or discriminates against Jewish and Israeli students and faculty.

With the 60-day U.S.-Iran negotiating period now expired and the two sides still far apart, the Strait of Hormuz remains at the center of the confrontation. Traffic through one of the world’s most important energy corridors remains a fraction of prewar levels, while Washington and Tehran continue to disagree fundamentally over the terms under which normal navigation would resume. The immediate dispute raises a larger strategic question: can Tehran use control over a critical international waterway to compel a change in American strategy?