Washington, DC – Requests for legal support related to pro-Palestine advocacy remained elevated in the United States last year, as President Donald Trump threatened activists and universities with penalties. In an annual report released on Tuesday, Palestine Legal, an organization that supports the movement for Palestinian freedom in the US, said it received 1,131 queries for legal support in 2025. This figure is below the record 2,184 requests in 2024 but remains 300 percent higher than in 2022, before Israel’s war in Gaza began.
Despite universities enacting new restrictions on protests across the country, pro-Palestine advocacy has persisted, according to Dima Khalidi, the executive director of Palestine Legal. Khalidi stated, “Our 2025 year-end report shows that while universities have largely cowered and caved to coercive pressure from the Trump administration and its pro-Israel supporters, student activists for Palestinian and collective freedom remain a model of moral conviction and courage. They are holding the line of dissent against injustice from the US to Palestine.”
The report noted that the “overwhelming majority of requests” for legal support came from university students and faculty in 2025, but a growing number, 122, were categorized as “immigration and border-related.” Palestine Legal received 851 requests from individuals or organizations targeted for their Palestine-related advocacy, along with 280 more seeking legal guidance on conducting advocacy.
Trump, who campaigned in 2024 on a pledge to crack down on the pro-Palestinian protest movement, has framed such protests as anti-Semitic. Since his inauguration in 2025, he has led a campaign to penalize schools that host pro-Palestinian activism. To date, five universities, including Columbia University, have struck deals with Trump after he threatened to withhold billions in federal funding, raising concerns about free speech restrictions under the First Amendment.
Despite the restrictive climate, Palestine Legal hailed a string of legal victories in 2025 that upheld the right to pro-Palestinian protest. For instance, a federal court dismissed a complaint against UNRWA USA, and a lawsuit by Palestine Legal and CAIR against the University of Maryland for infringing on students’ free speech rights resulted in a $100,000 settlement. Federal judges have also sided with Harvard University and UCLA in their challenges to the Trump administration’s defunding efforts, highlighting ongoing legal battles over civil liberties.
Source: www.aljazeera.com