When British undergraduate student Brodie Mitchell joked that a keffiyeh-clad student was “wearing a tea towel” on her head, Royal Holloway University suspended him for nine weeks and evicted him from his university accommodation.
Months later, Mitchell says he faced students who called him “a f***ing Jew,” threatened him repeatedly by phone, and told him “we know where you live” on campus.
To Mitchell, who is not Jewish, the difference wasn’t simply disciplinary discretion; it was evidence of something larger.
Contested spaces
Since Hamas’s October 7 attack and the ensuing war, Britain’s universities have become some of the country’s most contested spaces. Encampments, demonstrations, and heated debates over Israel and the Palestinians have become commonplace, while Jewish students have reported a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents and hostility on campus.
Universities insist they face the difficult task of balancing freedom of expression with their duty to protect students from harassment. Yet some Zionist students say universities have increasingly applied different standards when complaints involve Jewish or openly Zionist students.
Mitchell’s case ultimately went to mediation, with Royal Holloway agreeing to compensate him and remove sanctions from his record.
But his battles did not end there. He spoke to The Jerusalem Report about Royal Holloway’s repeated failures to adequately counter antisemitic and anti-Zionist harassment.
“I was two weeks in [to university] when it all started, and since then I’ve become a sort of campaigner against antisemitism and anti-Israelism. But the double standards [I’ve experienced] are crazy,” Mitchell said.
The tensions continued well into his studies. One case was in April 2025, following Hamas formally petitioning the government for de-proscription. When the Palestine Society of Royal Holloway promoted this bid on campus, Mitchell publicly challenged it and said he was threatened and attacked in response.
He reported the incident to police and the university, but said the students received only a no-contact agreement (viewed by the Report), while he was suspended for nine weeks for his keffiyeh comment.
Mitchell then recalled a separate matter, where, from September 2025 until January 2026, two pro-Palestinian students harassed him and his Jewish friend nonstop.
“It was up to 10 calls an hour every single day, even in the middle of the night. On one occasion, I also had a 20-minute call where they were being extremely antisemitic and making threatening remarks.”
The Report independently verified the recording.
Mitchell passed the recording to the police and the university. The police chose not to proceed. Mitchell and his friend then successfully identified the two students and gave the details to the university.
“But the university already knew their identities. They told us they had managed to link one of the phone numbers to a student, and so they knew who it was all along. And they were never suspended. Even though I received just nonstop hate like, ‘we know where you live, we’re watching you, we’re coming to get you.’”
No sanctions
The Report viewed communications from RHU to Mitchell informing him that the “cases are concluded, breaches of regulations were found, and sanctions are in place.” There was no further detail regarding the sanctions.
Then there was the issue of Friends of Palestine president Huda El-Jamal, the one at whom Mitchell directed the keffiyeh comment during the Freshers’ Fair. The two signed a no-contact agreement in January 2026 (also viewed by the Report).
Despite this, El-Jamal made a public video on Instagram on April 23, 2026, (still online) in which she called him the “perpetrator of a racist Islamophobic attack” against her.
By making this post, El-Jamal breached the no-contact order, which mandated her to avoid all “direct or indirect contact with [Mitchell], including online contact such as posts on social media.”
“She should have been sanctioned immediately or suspended for that, but the university didn’t do anything at all,” Mitchell told the Report.
Sanctions against Zionists
“N.,” a final-year student at King’s College London, is also no stranger to being sanctioned for their Zionist activism.
The main incident involving N. was when they left a seminar and passed through a foyer where multiple groups were displaying large Palestinian flags. This was during Discover Islam Week on February 11, 2025.
They said that, in response to their political stance and affiliation, particularly in their role as a senior member of the King’s College London Jewish Society and due to feeling distressed by what they perceived as a one-sided and prominent display, they took out and waved an Israeli flag.
While there is no official KCL policy governing the display of flags, N. was accused of “offensive or abusive behavior,” specifically acting in an “intimidating or hostile manner” regarding waving the Israeli flag on campus. They were also accused of various other offenses (including calling out a lecturer for her alleged support for a proscribed terrorist organization), offenses that they deny.
As a means of disciplining them, KCL ordered N. to write 5,000 words, including at least 1,000 on why waving the Israeli flag was wrong. The Report read the charges upheld against them, the penalty required, and the final written essay.
In their essay, N. said they had no problem with the Palestinian flag as such, and that their “concern lies not with the existence of that symbol, but with the imbalance and context of its display on campus.”
“There is no shortage of Palestinian flags at King’s. They are displayed regularly, prominently, and without sanction across protests, encampments, events, and common spaces. In this context, displaying an Israeli flag is not an act of provocation. It is an act of self-defense, visibility, and resistance to erasure,” N. said.
Failed Jewish students
A King’s College London spokesperson told the Report that N.’s allegation “is entirely false, as waving a flag does not meet our threshold for misconduct.”
The spokesperson added that N. was disciplined for a “significant range of offenses, including the targeting and encouraging the targeting of individuals on social media.” Although N. denied the claim and supported it by showing their lack of social media, the committee ignored them.
“Across these observed proceedings, a consistent pattern emerged,” N. said. “Jewish identity, Zionist identity, or any expression connected to either was treated as inherently provocative. Complaints against Jewish students were pursued with intensity, while harassment directed at them often went unaddressed. Administrative language remained measured and procedural, yet its effect was silencing. To characterize the articulation of lived fear as “offensive” or “disruptive” is not neutral; it exerts pressure, isolates, and delegitimizes.”
Daniel Berke, a director of UK Lawyers for Israel, told the Report, “Many British universities have failed Jewish students while indulging lecturers and students who create a climate of hostility.”
“CST [Community Security Trust] recorded a 117% rise in university-related antisemitic incidents between 2022-23 and 2023-24. My firm, for example, acted for a student whose legal claim [the University of] Leeds settled after her essay was improperly failed due to anti-Israel bias. The lecturer responsible has remained in post. This is not academic freedom. It is institutional cowardice, moral bankruptcy, and a disgraceful betrayal of Jewish students.”
“One must question whether any other minority would be made to feel so unwanted on campuses,” said Berke, adding that “How safe Jewish students are at a university is directly proportionate to the courage, or unfortunately, more commonly, the cowardice of the vice chancellor.”
“Equal protection must mean equal protection,” N. told the Report.■
N.’s identity was protected for their safety.