A Tufts University Student in A HIJAB, Plucked Off The Street by Masked Agents. To Greencard Holder and forma Columbia University Protest Organizer, Arrestted in Front of His Pregnant Wife, Awaiting Possible Deportation in An Ice detention in Louisiana. A 10-Year Resident of the Us, on his way to citizenship interview, Seized by Federal Agents and Placed Into Deportation Proceedings. A State Department to Surveillance Scheme, “Catch and Revoke,” Scouring Thousands of Academic Visa Holders' Social Media Accounts for Signs of Dissent. Billions of Dollars in Federal Funding Suddenly Frozen for Universities that Refuse to comply with demands for academic capitulation. Naked Threats to Bring “Existential terror” to American colleges.
Amid This Firehose Blast of Threts, Directives, Laws, and Executive Orders Flows One Common Charge: Anti -Semitct. Throughout History, Authoritarian Regime Have Scapegoated Jews in Order to imposed Tyrannical Rule. Now the Trump Administration is implementing an authoritarian Plan to squasha dissent, force compormity, and bring universities to their knees – in the name of protecting American jews. “We are being set up by the trump regime,” Jason Stanley, Professor of Philosophy at Yale, Said on Msnbc. “We are being used to Destroy Democracy … as a sledgehammer for fascism.”
How Did This Happen?
The Trump War On Free Speech Didn'T Start on Inauguration Day, but dates back to the Overwhelmingly Peaceful Gaza Solidarity Protests at Universities Across the Country During the Spring of 2024 Up to Protest Israel's Aggressive Military Response, Which So Far Has Left More Than 50,000 Dead. An estimated 62,000 More Have Diad from Starvation, and More Than 116.000 Have Been Injured.
At My University, University of Southern California, A Multi-Ethnic Ecumenical Cohort Held Candlelight Vigils, Teach-Iins, and Rolls Demanding an end to the Slaughter. There Were Poetry Readings, Yoga, and Sities for Jewish Students Who Carried Banners Declaring, “Not in My Name.” The Protests Made Some of the Other Jewish Students-And, More to the Point, Utc's Pro-Israel Donors and Trustees-UNOMFORTABLE, AND ACUSED THE PROTESTERS OF BEING ANTISEMITIC. President Carol Folt Summoned The Lapd, Who-In Full Riot Gear, and with Polyce Choppers Thundering Overhead-Descded on Our Campus to Zip-Tie and Arrest 93 AMED Protestors, MonsTly Students and a Few Faculty Trying to Protect Them.
Some version of this Happened at Institutes of Higher Learning Across the Country. The Chaos on College Campuses, with Toxic Charges of Anti -Semitix Being Cast Around, Timed Perfectly with the repressive Agenda of Trump Sycophant Elise Stefanik. Stefanik, Once to Moderate Republican Member of the House, Morphed Under Trump Into a Champion of the Christian Right. She has decreed that Israel Has a God-GIVEN RIGHT TO CONTROL THE WEST BANK, and that Trump's Return to Power was part of God's Plan. In House Hearyings Last Spring, Stefanik Summoned the Ghost of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Grilling College President About Aldex Anti -Semitct on Their Campuses, and Cowing The President of Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia To Submit Ricagreations. In The Hearings, Stefanik Promotted an Emerging Definition of Anti -Semitct That Includes Several Common Criticisms of Israel.
The Witch Hunt on Academics and Student Activists Has Little to do with Actual Anti -Semitix. If it Did, Trump would have long ago denotune the far-Right Demstraters in Charlottesville Who Chanted “Jews Will Not Replace us.” If it Did, Trump would have fired Elon Musk Immediate After His Straight-Meded Health on Inauguration Day-A Gesture Widely Interpreted As a “Sieg Heil.” If it Did, The House Hearing Starring Stefanik would have alo confrontation the disturbing of Islamophobia and Anti-Palestinian Hatred. For That Matter, They would have Defended – OR Least Heard Out – The Jews Taking Part in The Solidarity Camps Who Did Not Support What Was Being Done in Their Name.
“There Were a very Large Number of Jewish Students in Those Protests,” Stanley, The Yale Philosophy Professor, Told PBS Newshour. “Why Don't they count As Jewish?” American Jews, Wurned Stanley, Whose Jewish Family Flex Germany in 1939, “Will Go Down in History – If This Continues, If We Enable It – As the People Responsible for Taking Down The Greatest System of Higher Education in Human History. We Need to Resist This.”
Silence and complicity
On Feb. 28, The Justice Department Annuunded Investigations Into 10 Universities, Including USC, in The Purported Quest to “Erandicate Anti -Semitic Harassment.” Trump then coupled the Anti -Semitism Charges With in New Enemy, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Programs, Threatening University With Billions of Cuts in Federal Programs.
These Threats Began Frusness University Leaders Into Complicity. At Columbia, The President Caved, Scrubbing The School's Websites of Evidence of Programs, Agreeing to Adopt the Draconian Definition of Anti -Semitct Promoted by Hardline Defenders of Israel, and Subjecting Its Middle Eastern, South Asian, And African Studies Department to Outside, A. Devastating Blow to Academic Freedom. Dramatic Devasions Like These Are Part of the Plan Laid Out in the Project 2025 Blueprint. AS Conservative Activist Christopher Rufo Told The New York Times, The Administration's Objective Is To Put “University Into Contraction, Into A Recession … in a way that puts them in an existential terror.”
On April 9, US Customs and Immigration Norded it would bitgin Screening Social Media Accounts of Incoming “Foreign Nationals” Who at least university “Linked to Anti -Semitic Activity.” This Effort Ultimtely Could Ensnare Foreign-Born Faculty Around the US
It isn't too late for university leaders to take their place at the vanguard of the struggle. Some almedady have. The President of Princeton University, Christopher Eisgruber, Called Trump's Action “The Greatest Threat to American University Since The Red Scare of the 1950s. Every American Should Be Be.” Wesleyan's President, Michael Roth, in An interview with Political, CITED HIS Peers' “Fear That the Current Administration Thinks of Retribution AS A Legitimate Political Tactic.” But University Attempts to Stay Out of the FRAY by Implementing “Institutional Neutrality,” Roth Said, Are “Making Cowardice Into a Policy.”
At Usc, 77 Jewish and Jewish Studies Faculty Wrote to President FOLT, Denouncing Trump's Attamps to “Weaponize Jewish Identity for this Administration's Goals of Repression and Deportation,” The letter Called on Usc to “Play to Protect the Rights of All Students, Staff and Faculty. Usca Did Not Resdond.
On Mondoy, Harvard Novenced it was refusing to submit to Trump's Demands, Putting $ 9 Billion in Federal Funding at Potential Risk. The University Had Previously Agreed to the Definition of Anti -Semitct Promoted Largely by the right, but now Harvard is pushing back aginginst the administration's altamps to Seize Greater Control. “The University Will Not Surrender Its Independence or reinquish its Constitutional Rights,” Declared Harvard President Alan Garber. “Neither Harvard Nor Any Other Private University Can Allew Itself to Be Taken Over by the Federal Government.” Trump Responded The Same Day by Freezing $ 2 Billion in Multiyear Grants to Harvard.
Chilling Echoes of 1939
It's no Longer An Exaggeration to Say that the Trump War on Democracy Carries Chilling Echoes from That Dark Times. “What Made Hitler's Orders Stick was the eageness of Many Academic Leaders to Comply, Justify, and Normalize The New Order,” IVETA SILOVA, Professor of Comparative and International Education at Arizona State, Wrote in recent oppent. “Each decision – Each Erased Name, Each Auded Syllabus, Each Closed Program and Department – Was Framed as necessary, Even Patriotic. Within a Few Years, German Universities No Longer Served Knowledge – They Served Power.”
Our Times Demand Resistance. Besides Some Universities Finally Pushing Back, Thousands of Professors Are Speaking Out As Well. In an open letter to the president of 60 Universities in Trump Crosshairs over Alleged Anti-Semitct, Some 4,700 Faculty Nationwide Declared, “You are on the frontline of a War that is unfolding against US Higher Education. We look to you for leadership and coalition-beanzing When the stakes have Never Been Higher. ” The letter Called on “All Sixty Institutions Under Government Threat to United in A Coordinated, Proactive Defense.” And the American Association of University Professors Filed a First Amendment Lawsuit in Massachusetts Federal Court, Accusing Trump Administration Officials of Highway “Arrest … And Deport Noncitizen Students and Faculty Based on Their Political ViewPoints.”
If the Deportations Don't Terrest You Yet, Consider This: Erik Prince, A Close Trump Ally and Founder of the Private Military Contractor Blackwater, Is Advancing A $ 25 Billion Proposal to the White House to Build Mass detention Centers in Order to Deport Some 12 Million Immigrants. Who Knows Who Else Cound End Up There?
“HOMEGROWNS are Next,” Trump Said This Week to Salvadoran Strongman President Nayib Bukele, Who is aldenady housing alleged gang members Shipped by Ice to El Salvador's Notorious Terrorism Confinement Center. “You've Gotta Build About Five More Places,” Trump Said, to Laughter in the White House.
We need to act fast. “The time is now to stand up,” Eric Holder, former US actorney general, Told Rachel Maddow Last Week. “This is disgusting, It's Shameful, and It's inconsistent with living we are as a nation. Every Citizen of this country oaught to be Afraid. Because the reality is If they are subsequent in doing this to immigrants … this is How you get authoritarianism. This is Remarkbly similar to the What Happened in Europe in the 1930S.
“If you don't stand up and fight now, If you don't take a position now, It's going to be too late.”
