Feb. 4 was crossover at the Virginia General Assembly — the deadline for bills to pass successfully from one chamber to the other. Among the legislation that didn’t survive were several bills that critics said targeted Palestinian voices on college campuses.
One such bill, introduced by Sen. Bill Stanley (R–Franklin County), sought to prohibit colleges from allowing individuals or groups with a connection to terrorist organizations to operate on their campuses.
Samuel Richardson, director of the Jewish Community Federation of Richmond’s community relations committee, said the group supported Stanley’s bill but didn’t provide testimony in support of it.
Virginia college students and staff said the bill targeted them and their free speech rights — a claim Stanley denied. Members of Students for Justice in Palestine were particularly concerned that the bill could be used to ban their organizations from Virginia campuses.
Virginia Commonwealth University student Selma Ait-Bella spoke in opposition to the legislation in late January. She said it was “paving the way for silencing students and faculty who dare to speak out against oppression, leaving them afraid of being labeled under this bill's broad and biased terms.”
“In the United States, the term ‘terrorism’ has been weaponized to unjustly target Muslims and Arab communities, and right now — especially Palestinians in the Palestinian liberation struggle — this stereotype erases the diverse voices and struggles of people fighting for their rights,” Ait-Bella said.
“I want to reiterate that anti-colonial and anti-racist liberation struggles are historically deemed as terrorists by the United States.”
A February 2024 report by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Palestine Legal links the U.S. anti-terrorism movement to “anti-Palestinian agendas” that it says have shaped American policy even before the post-9/11 “war on terror.”
The National Students for Justice in Palestine group came under fire in fall 2023 for its response to the attacks in Israel carried out on Oct. 7 of that year by Hamas, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization.
In fall 2023, the chancellor of Florida’s university system ordered universities to disband SJP chapters over the group’s call for a national day of resistance on campuses across the U.S. and Canada.
The Anti-Defamation League, an organization that monitors antisemitism in the U.S. and supports a Jewish state in Israel, characterized SJP’s response as “a glorification of the violence targeting civilians in Israel” and “condoning terrorism by Hamas by repackaging it as justified acts of ‘resistance.’”
However, Jack Leff, a Virginia Coalition of Human Rights board member, said it hasn’t been proven that SJP is partnering with Hamas in any capacity. (The SJP “day of resistance toolkit” cited by ADL and the Florida chancellor does not mention Hamas by name.)
“That’s exactly the kind of fear-mongering and racist myth that this bill is intending to promote,” he told VPM News.
VCU student Sereen Haddad told lawmakers she’s been called a terrorist simply for asking for her family to not be murdered in Gaza. She said 180 of her family members have been killed there since October 2023.
“While I as a student advocate for peace and human rights, I'm labeled simply as a threat, simply for expressing my views,” Haddad said. “If passed, this bill will create an environment where students fear expressing their beliefs — where advocacy for Palestinian rights or any marginalized group becomes grounds for accusations of terrorism.”
It’s not just students who are concerned about their free speech rights. Leff, an adjunct instructor at Virginia Tech, said he wrote critically in his dissertation about Israel’s use of tear gas in the West Bank and in Gaza over the last 40 years.
“But under this bill, my ability to write on this topic honestly would be called into question,” he said. “I have to be concerned about whether or not this might be construed as offering a sort of support to ‘terrorist activities’ under the definition of this law.”
Other bills that sparked concern for VCHR and student activists included one that would have prohibited colleges and universities from divesting from countries that haven’t been formally sanctioned (like Israel), and another that authorized the state attorney general to investigate any individual or group believed to have engaged in an act of terrorism. Both failed in House of Delegates committees.
Sen. Glen Sturtevant (R–Chesterfield) also unsuccessfully proposed a resolutionpledging unconditional support for Israel’s attack on Gaza. The draft resolution, based on a model pledge adopted in at least eight other states since 2023, called on Virginia to express its “support for Israel’s right to pursue without interference or condemnation the elimination of Hamas.”
Richardson, of the Jewish Community Federation of Richmond, said lawmakers “didn’t want to be perceived as controversial” in an election year. The House passed a separate resolution pledging support for Virginia’s Jewish community.
“That’s interesting and shows you the dynamics of what’s going on,” Richardson said. “If you say ‘Israel,’ you fail. If you say ‘Jewish community,’ you pass.”
Zeina Ashrawi Hutchison, another VCHR board member, said governmental attempts to “silence and criminalize” Palestinians are not new, but have been particularly significant this year — including in Virginia.
She cited two recent examples: a 2025 bill seeking to prohibit state agencies from doing business with contractors or vendors who support financial boycotts of Israel, and Virginia’s 2023 adoption of a working definition of antisemitism that opponents say includes legitimate criticism of Israel.
The American Civil Liberties Union said in a letter that “the clear objective behind the promotion of the IRHA definition is the suppression of non-violent protest, activism, and criticism of Israel and/or Zionism.”
Last year, hundreds of students across the country — including over 100 in Virginia — were arrested in non-violent protests in support of Palestine.
