As police crackdowns in the US target pro-Palestinian student protests on campus, university administrators are cutting ties with pro-Palestinian faculty members.

Since the beginning of the Israeli invasion of Gaza, academics in politics, sociology, Japanese literature, public health, Latin American and Caribbean studies, Middle Eastern and African studies, mathematics, education and many other fields have been fired or suspended for their pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli rhetoric.

According to The Intercept, there is no official data on the number of academics who have lost their jobs or been suspended for supporting Palestine, largely because higher education in the country is fragmented, often privatised and based on short-term contracts.

In general, professors who have lost their jobs and been suspended over Palestine have brought these allegations to public attention by making them themselves. A large number of academics across the country are likely to be investigated, and many will see their contracts quietly expire without renewal.

The Intercept spoke to more than ten professors, both adjunct and tenured, whose jobs have been threatened because of their pro-Palestinian views. All of the professors the publication spoke to have been investigated at some point since 7 October, and some of the investigations have been closed with no evidence of wrongdoing.

Several have received varying degrees of suspension, and four of the professors have lost their jobs or face losing them next week when the semester ends without renewal of their contracts.

“A large number of our investigations, even lawsuits, involve due process violations related to non-reappointment, dismissal, tenure, and the like,” said Anita Levy, senior programme officer for the American Association of University Professors.

Levy said the non-profit organisation, which advocates for faculty rights and academic freedom, has filed five cases in recent months related to pro-Palestinian speech.

“It is unusual to file five or six cases in a two-month period when social media posts about a current event, such as the war in Gaza, are suspended,” Levy said. None of the cases we filed were related to pro-Israel rhetoric. They were all in support of the Palestinian cause,” he said.

Levy said the US was at the beginning of a “new McCarthyism”, noting that what had happened “could be the tip of the iceberg”.

US President Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump are running neck-and-neck in the November presidential election, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Forty per cent of registered voters in the eight-day survey, which ended on Tuesday, said they would vote for Democrat Biden if the election were held today, while the same proportion chose former US president Trump. This is little changed from Biden’s 1-point lead in the Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted on 29-30 April.

According to the poll, which has a margin of error of about 2 percentage points among registered voters, many voters remain undecided nearly six months before the November 5 election.

Twenty per cent of registered voters surveyed said they had not chosen a candidate, were leaning towards third party options or might not vote at all.

Thirteen per cent said they would vote for Robert Kennedy Jr, who entered the race as an independent, if he appeared on the ballot with Trump and Biden. In the previous poll, conducted in April, Kennedy had 8% support.

While the ongoing lawsuits against him challenge Trump, Biden faces difficulties because of his age and his stance on the Gaza war.

When respondents were not given the option of voting for a third candidate or saying they were not sure who they would vote for, both candidates were tied at 46 per cent among registered voters; 8 per cent of respondents declined to answer the question.

Among registered voters who say they are “absolutely certain” they will vote in November, Biden leads by a slim 3-point margin.

In the 2020 presidential election, when Biden defeated Trump, only two-thirds of voters went to the polls.

In the US, pro-Palestinian protesters briefly occupied the lobby of the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan on Tuesday night, nearly two weeks after a massive police crackdown at the City College of New York (CUNY) and other campuses.

Students demonstrated for several hours in the lobby, hanging banners and calling the centre’s library the “Aqsa University Library”.

Aqsa University, the oldest public university in Gaza, was demolished during the Israeli occupation.

Outside the Graduate Centre, a group of protesters waved Palestinian flags in the rain in support of their friends. Dozens of police lined the street outside the building, but did not enter.

Students participating in the demonstration called on the administration to negotiate divestment from “Israeli arms, technology and surveillance companies”.

At 10.30 p.m. US time, the students emerged from the Graduate Centre and declared victory, telling protesters on the street that after negotiations, the CUNY administration had agreed to take their demands to the entire student body.

The protesters then evacuated the library and staff immediately began cleaning it.