Although there is now a growing set of legal challenges to the ongoing assault on First Amendment rights, the campaign to stifle free speech is manifesting itself in so many ways beyond deportations and propaganda.
As the government of US President Donald Trump escalates the assault on freedom of speech on college campuses, a trend that had already taken place under his predecessor, rights groups are now fighting back. At this stage, the only course to pursuing justice and upholding the Constitution appears to be in the courts.
The unprecedented case of ICE’s detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a Green Card holder who committed no crime and was threatened by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio with deportation, was only the first step in a wave of escalatory measures taken against not only students but the academic institutions they study under.
After Khalil, who recently graduated from Columbia University, was kidnapped and transferred to Louisiana, it was the Southern District Court of New York that stepped in to delay his deportation.
On March 16, it then emerged that the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) had filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s draconian witchhunt that seeks the deportation of international students and permanent US residents alike.
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The lawsuit aimed to impose a nationwide temporary restraining order on deportations, set to be carried out over students exercising their right to free speech, filing it in District Court for the Northern District of New York.
Dozens more students were then subjected to a crackdown, more deportation orders were issued, and universities like Columbia continued to throw their students under the bus, all making for a McCarthy Era-style crackdown. Then came an ICE “notice to appear” issued for a Cornell University student named Momodou Taal, who claims to have been doxxed by a Zionist group.
Taal had previously filed a lawsuit to block deportations of students who – like him – participated in pro-Palestine protests, but has now become the victim of the same policy he had been attempting to fight. Another major case was that of Badar Khan Suri of Georgetown University, who was also arrested and directly accused of “anti-Semitism” and “ties to Hamas”, without any evidence to support either of these serious allegations.
No charges are being placed upon any of these students/former-students, which means that rights groups and individuals are having to file their own suits in order to try to protect themselves and others from deportation.
However, it is not only the deportation orders that are being challenged directly in court but instead the authorities and Universities themselves for allowing violence against pro-Palestine students on campus.
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The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), on March 21, announced that it was uniting with local civil rights attorneys and leading personal injury firms, to bring justice to the victims of Zionist vigilantes who were permitted to assault peaceful protesters in April at UCLA.
CAIR announced that the lawsuit would be “against the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), California Highway Patrol, the Los Angeles Police Department, the UCLA Police Department, and several perpetrators of violence against pro-Palestinian activists at the university’s anti-genocide encampment last spring.”
While the US corporate media has claimed that “Jewish students” were “intimidated” and even subjected to physical violence, amidst what Trump has even called “illegal protests”, the evidence of racist incidents and assaults has been almost entirely one-sided.
The attacks at UCLA represent thoroughly documented cases of such violence, where pro-Israeli thugs decided to attack the student encampment set up on campus with weapons and fireworks.
Meanwhile, allegations that members of the pro-Palestine student encampments had shouted “death to the Jews” and even that a female Jewish student was stabbed in the eye with a Palestinian flag, were repeated ad nauseam, even after the claims were debunked. This, in conjunction with the overthrow of five University Presidents, in addition to the compliance of the academic institutions with the demands pushed by the Israel Lobby, created a hostile environment for anti-war activists.
It is of note that this kind of repression of free speech on college campuses across the United States did not suddenly begin upon the inauguration of Donald Trump, but instead, the persecution of Israel’s critics only experienced an uptick with the introduction of the Republican President’s new administration.
Although there is now a growing set of legal challenges to the ongoing assault on First Amendment rights, the campaign to stifle free speech when it comes to criticism of Israel is manifesting itself in so many ways beyond deportations and propaganda.
Another move has been the drive to force Ivy League Universities to accept the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which deliberately conflates criticism of Israel with bigotry against Jewish people.
One way that the University leaderships are being coerced into eliminating free speech is through threats to cut off federal funding and for Zionist billionaires to withdraw their donor status.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
