Pro-Palestine protestors at the July 24, 2024 National March on Washington D.C. Credit: Liberation photo
The Palestine solidarity movement has emerged as the most crucial front in the battle to preserve the basic right to free speech. The Trump administration is conducting a witch hunt of historic proportions on college campuses nationwide, targeting students who raised their voice in opposition to the genocide in Gaza. Marco Rubio openly bragged about revoking hundreds of student visas, and the persecution of Mahmoud Khalil – a permanent resident green card-holder – has caused shock and outrage worldwide.
Not since the “Red Scare” era of McCarthyism in the 1950s has there been such an intense campaign to eliminate dissent on college campuses. And in fact, the law that Marco Rubio is citing to justify Mahmoud Khalil’s deportation comes from that time period – the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. This campaign is meant to send a message that echoes far beyond universities and has a chilling effect on anyone who is opposed to the U.S.-Israeli massacre in Gaza.
The idea that this is an issue about “national security” or “terrorism” is beyond ridiculous. None of the students being swept up in this wave of deportations committed any crime, and the administration is not even trying to argue that they did. To Trump officials, simply being critical of Israel is an offense justifying expulsion from the country.
Take the case of Rumeysa Ozturk for example. Rumeysa was a Fulbright scholar in a PhD program at Tufts University. On her way to break her Ramadan fast, she was surrounded by plainclothes officers and abducted. What was her crime? Apparently it was simply writing an editorial for the student newspaper in support of Tufts divesting from Israel, something the university senate has voted in favor of.
This is everyone’s fight
Whether or not Trump can get away with this assault on First Amendment rights will set the tone for his entire time in office. And not only is this a crucial precedent-setting moment, the crackdown on supporters of Palestine has already targeted the rights of others.
For instance, the Trump administration announced it would be cancelling $400 million of federal grants to Columbia University unless it accepted an extensive list of demands. In addition to effectively prohibiting criticism of Israel, the demands also include a requirement that Columbia eliminate so-called DEI programs that aim to combat racist discrimination. Another demand places scholars who study Africa and South Asia into “receivership” – a form of intense monitoring that effectively eliminates academic freedom.
Trump has given Israel the green light to step up the genocide in Palestine to new heights with unimaginable cruelty. At the same time, he is aiming to shred the most important rights and protections that working people in the United States have as part of an agenda to enrich the millionaires and billionaires at the expense of the rest of us. If he can get away with locking up and deporting critics of his foreign policy, he will undoubtedly seek to do the same for critics of his domestic policy. Already, he is threatening to prosecute people who protest against Elon Musk at Tesla dealerships as “terrorists”.
If environmentalists protest Trump’s efforts to massively increase fossil fuel production, will they be treated as a threat to “national security”? If labor unions take a stand against mass layoffs of public sector workers, could they face the wrath of Trump’s Justice Department? Will activists who oppose police violence against the Black community be snatched off the streets and taken to jail? What we do right now will determine whether or not Trump can make these types of scenarios a reality.
Many of the targeted students are fighting in the legal system to assert their rights. The struggle going on in courtrooms across the country is crucially important. But the courts are political institutions. What will be decisive is whether or not the righteous arguments being delivered in courtrooms are backed up by a massive movement in the streets.
We need to make it clear that the majority of people in this country support free speech and oppose genocide. This is what can stop Trump’s war on dissent in its tracks.
