The Trump administration has begun its retribution campaign against student protestors. Claiming that the pro-Palestinian protests that occurred last school year were antisemitic, the administration has already started leveling punishment in any way possible. These repressive moves have specifically targeted students in the United States on student visas or green cards.
At the end of March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio estimated that as many as 300 student visas have been revoked. Yunseo Chung, a Columbia student who has lived in the U.S. since she was 7 years old, had her green card revoked for involvement in a sit-down protest last spring. Columbia’s Journalism School released a statement that said international students “have felt afraid to come to classes and to events on campus.”
Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral student at Tufts with a valid student visa, was taken into federal custody March 25. She co-authored an opinion piece calling for Tufts to “hold Israel accountable for clear violations of international law.”
This targeting of foreign-born students for their speech is a horrific, blatantly political move to silence dissidents. American citizens would be naive to believe these attacks on protected speech will not escalate to include citizens. The threats against our institutions already do.
We must resist these attempts to silence students. Despite what administrators say, universities are exactly the place for ideological battles. They are supposed to nurture debate, spark intrigue and foster a sense of involvement in one’s society. Often, that sense of involvement naturally leads to protest.
Campus protests are a necessary part of civic engagement, and they have a storied and virtuous history at the U. We must stand together to resist attempts to purge campus protests from college life.
The Trump crackdowns
In addition to the egregious attempts to deport international students, the Trump administration has directly pressured universities to suppress speech on their campuses.
The Department of Education under Trump withheld $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University, with a list of nine demands the university would have to meet to have funding restored. These demands were ideological: to put the Middle East, South Asian and African studies departments under external control, to “hold all student groups accountable” with an implication to expel students and to formalize a definition of antisemitism in accordance with Trump’s definition.
Trump has long been at war with higher education. In the White House’s fact sheet on the issue, it calls colleges where pro-Palestinian protests occurred “leftist, anti-American.”
Anyone with knowledge of the free speech movement would know that protests on college campuses are incredibly American. Free speech has long been touted as an American value. It is not the business of the federal government to determine which rhetoric is and isn’t okay for students to use. Public universities are required to respect the First Amendment rights of students. Private universities have, by and large, also embraced the ethic of free speech.
Columbia has since capitulated to the demands of the Trump administration, setting a worrying precedent about what may be to come. As our institutions buckle under financial demands, students must be the ones to stand up for our rights.
History of protest at the U
A post on University of Utah President Taylor Randall’s Instagram claimed, “the great American research university wasn’t designed to be a venue for ideological battles.” Clearly, Randall does not have much respect for how much ideological values have historically defined campus life at the U.
The anti-Vietnam War movement was as active at the U as it was throughout the country. In May of 1970, hundreds of U students protested in front of the U’s Student Union in response to the Kent State shootings. They demanded the end of the Vietnam War and for the university to close classes in response to the deaths of student protestors in Ohio.
A few days later, over 80 people were arrested when a memorial for the Kent State shooting victims escalated into occupying the Park Building.
In the ’80s, U students also protested against apartheid in South Africa. They constructed shanties on campus, mimicking the conditions in which displaced Black South Africans were forced to live. Protestors demanded the U divest from corporations that supported apartheid, which the university had significant stock in. After over a year and a half of protests, the protestors’ demands were granted. The demonstrations achieved real, impactful institutional change.
Pro-Palestine protests
Pro-Palestinian protests are a continuation of the long tradition of political discourse and protests on college campuses. They are not inherently illegal or the result of “antisemitic agitators.”
In a democratic society, the right to assembly is essential. Political action does not start and end on Election Day. The conversations Americans have, which are often spurred by the signs, marches and encampments they see, are what keep issues at the political forefront.
Whether or not one agrees with pro-Palestinian protestors, we should all be worried about the federal curtailing of free speech we are witnessing today. The U.S. was recently added to an international watchlist for its rapid decline in civic freedoms. With this level of executive branch overreach, any essential civic freedoms could be on the chopping block.
Conservatives used to be the very people lauding the importance of free speech on campus. Now, though, conservatives seem to be turning a blind eye — or outright supporting — the government crackdown on vastly peaceful campus protestors.
The current threat to campus free speech is far more insidious than, say, protests against speakers like Ben Shapiro. The current presidential administration is bullying universities through attempted deportation of students, withholding of federal funds and Department of Homeland Security searches of dorm buildings into suppressing student speech.
Now, more than ever, we must stand in unilateral support of campus protests. We must express to our university leadership that free speech is an essential and valued part of college life. We cannot turn a blind eye to the gross miscarriages of justice being carried out against students who speak out for what they believe.
