Sponsored by
Could you do us a favor? We’d love to know how we can help you best. At the bottom of this article is a short survey — can you answer three quick questions?
And now, on to today’s story:
Reports of masked lawmen apprehending students on college campuses swarmed the internet, their images captured on security cameras and the cellphones of bystanders. Tweets, or rather Truths, threatened to pull federal funding for any schools that allow “illegal protests” against Israeli military activities in Gaza, and school officials are now being required to sign an anti-DEI loyalty pledge. All pieces of a puzzle whose final image is starting to come together.
Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of protests at Columbia University against Israel’s military action in Gaza, was arrested on March 9 by plainclothes ICE agents, who informed him that his green card had been revoked. He has remained in custody ever since.
The White House claims that Khalil is a Hamas supporter who “led activities aligned” with the designated terrorist group, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has defended Khalil’s arrest by referring to a 1952 law that allows for the deportation of immigrants whose presence could have "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences" for the United States. Rubio did not explain what the consequences might be in Khalil’s case, or how a grad student had gained the stature to singlehandedly undermine the State Department.
Since then, nearly a dozen other foreign students and faculty members have been nabbed on similar grounds.
Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts Ph.D. student, had written an opinion article that favored divestment from companies with ties to Israel. Masked officers approached her on the sidewalk, handcuffed her, and led her to an unmarked black car. The Department of Homeland security has claimed, without providing details, that she “engaged in activities in support of Hamas.” She remains in detention as her case works its way through the courts
Badar Khan Suri worked as a scholar at Georgetown until his visa was revoked and he was arrested. According to his attorney, officials wearing black masks and brandishing weapons came and “took him captive.” DHS claims that Suri spread “Hamas propaganda” and had ties to an unidentified terrorist. He remains in detention.
And last week, five students at Minnesota State University–Mankato learned that their visas had been revoked and they would have to return to their countries of origin within 60 days. The school’s president, Edward Inch, does not even know why: “There are a lot of rumors about why this happened but none that are clear to me,” he told the local CBS News affiliate. “There's nothing that pointed to this person should be taken.”
Mankato State student Cole Koets said that the 1,700 international students are all “living on edge.” He continued: “A lot of them are afraid to go outside, even outside of the perimeter of the university. Some of them are afraid to attend their jobs inside the university itself.”
Minnesota Senator Tina Smith said in a statement that, “This is becoming a deeply concerning pattern, where ICE detains students with little to no explanation . . . and ignores their rights to due process.”
In all, according to Rubio, some 300 students have had their visas revoked. To be sure, one can debate the merits of recent student protests and point to incidents in which Jewish students were harassed or blocked from attending class, or university property was destroyed.
But what is noteworthy in the administration’s approach is the apparent lack of specific allegations against the people who have been targeted. Instead, they are being described in general terms such as “Hamas supporter” and “disruptive.”
“Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas,” Rubio has boasted. Broad brushstrokes and demagogic language have their uses when silencing dissent.
But being kicked out of the country for nebulous reasons is only one piece of the proverbial puzzle — a puzzle that is meant to frighten people into compliance. Another focus has been on getting universities to submit or, essentially, die.
This language might sound hyperbolic, but it’s the truth: without the billions in federal funding and student aid that they receive, some universities would be forced to close or dramatically slash programs.
And the compliance that is being extracted is requiring colleges to abandon any hint of DEI, silencing some forms of protest, and forcing officials to sign pledges indicating they will go along with a new reinterpretation of federal law, bolstered by a 2023 Supreme Court decision that said that schools are no longer allowed use affirmative action in admissions decisions.
In Students for Fair Admissions v Harvard, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “For almost a century after the Civil War, state-mandated segregation was in many parts of the Nation a regrettable norm.”
But now, according to the Court’s majority, “eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it. Accordingly, the Court has held that the Equal Protection Clause applies ‘without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality’ — it is ‘universal in [its] application.’”
The Trump administration has taken this decision — a landmark case — about college admissions and applied it to any and all DEI programs the federal government touches. In some cases, President Trump has attacked DEI policies of private industry, signing executive orders targeting their business policies.
Since Inauguration Day, the federal government has launched investigations of more than 100 universities and issued dire warnings to others that they are at risk of losing billions in government funding.
From our sponsor:
Spring is here—even if it feels like the headlines haven’t lightened up. If the constant churn of political news is taking a toll, therapy can help you reset and refocus.
BetterHelp is an online therapy platform built for modern life, with licensed therapists available via chat, phone, or video.
Whether you’re dealing with anxiety, burnout, or just trying to stay grounded in a noisy world, BetterHelp makes it easier to access support. Get 20% off your 1st month here.
In early March, President Trump posted on Truth Social: “All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
For universities to find themselves at the center of culture wars and legal disputes is nothing new. But these tactics are. The centrality of federal grants to university funding effectively gives the White House a gun to hold to schools’ heads.
“It feels like any day, any university could step out of line in some way and then have all of their funding pulled,” said Jonathan Friedman, managing director of free-expression programs at PEN America.
Perhaps no school has been harder hit than Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, which was the recipient of $4 billion in federal funding. The school was at the forefront of both defense and medical research, and 40% of its revenue came from the government to help offset the cost of their cutting-edge programs. Johns Hopkins has had to lay off 2,200 people — a result of the cancellation of federal grants and an antisemitism investigation that could be the final nail in the coffin for some of the school’s programs.
It would be one thing to use the muscle of the federal government to insist that universities provide a safe learning environment for students or refrain from racial discrimination in admissions decisions. But the administration goes farther, demanding changes to university departments that sometimes run counter to the academic consensus, expelling students and disbanding student groups, and revising discipline policies and speech codes.
Meanwhile, it arrests and attempts to deport students unknown beyond their campuses, on the remarkable ground that their activities undermine American foreign policy. And it does all this in the context of political arguments about which the citizenry itself is deeply divided — Americans differ widely in their opinions on immigration policy, campus protests, and DEI initiatives.
Rather than engaging in the robust debate that the framers of the Constitution envisioned as the way to find consensus and build coalitions for progress on important issues, universities and the students that attend them are being subjected to a culture of fear. One that is meant to control what is accepted political speech. One that runs counter to the principles upon which great democracies are built.
Whatever your thoughts are about the war in Gaza, DEI initiatives, or campus protests, it’s worth examining whether any presidential administration, regardless of their political party, should have so much power to police individuals and institutions to which it objects.