On a Saturday evening in March, Mahmoud Khalil and his wife, Noor Abdalla, went out for dinner. Abdalla, 28, is a Midwest-born dentist expecting her first child with Khalil, age 30, a Syrian-born Palestinian studying at Columbia University. The couple returned to their home on the university’s campus only to be met with agents from the Department of Homeland Security. Agents arrested Khalil without presenting a warrant, threatening to take his wife into custody as well if she tried to remain by his side. He was left to sleep on the cold floors of a detention center in New York, then another in New Jersey, before he was transferred to an ICE facility in Louisiana, where he awaits deportation proceedings. While in custody, he missed the birth of he and Abdalla’s first child.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) published a letter dictated by Khalil over the phone from the detention center. In his Letter from a Palestinian Political Prisoner in Louisiana, Khalil writes, “my arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza…While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University.”
Khalil served as a mediator between the Columbia University Apartheid Divest — a coalition of student protesters — and university administration. As Columbia rose to the forefront of the 2024 campus protests over the war in Gaza, Khalil became a prominent face of the movement.
“Students have long been at the forefront of change,” said Khalil. “Even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who steer us toward truth and justice.”
Two weeks after Khalil’s arrest, Rumeysa Ozturk — a doctoral student at Tufts University — was arrested by masked, plainclothes DHS agents. She had just left her Somerville apartment to meet friends for iftar, a meal to break Ramadan fast. The community was “rattled” by the arrest, comparing it to a “kidnapping.” Ozturk’s family and legal support were unable to contact her for days, unaware of her whereabouts and the reason for her detention.
Local residents, students, administration, and lawmakers have come to Ozturk’s defense. United States Representative Ayanna Pressely labeled her arrest “a horrifying violation of Rumeysa’s constitutional rights to due process and free speech.” The university’s president, Sunil Kumar, made a statement in the student’s defense and called for her release. Kumar elaborated on the impact of Ozturk’s arrest, saying the freedom of Tufts international community is “essential to the functioning of the University and serving our mission.”
“The University has heard from students, faculty and staff who are forgoing opportunities to speak at international conferences and avoiding or postponing international travel,” wrote Kumar. “In the worst cases, many report being fearful of leaving their homes, even to attend and teach classes on campus.”
A DHS spokesperson told CNN that Ozturk had “engaged in activities in support of Hamas” — and many believe the comment references an op-ed she co-wrote in the Tufts Daily last March criticizing the university’s response to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Alireza Doroudi, Dogukan Gunaydin, Ranjani Srinivasan, Yunseo Chung — another student is targeted and arrested by university and federal administration for exercising their rights to free speech every day. Though these arrests in higher education are unprecedented, the core issues are nothing new.
Nothing New: A Brief History of Free Speech and Activism on Campus
College campuses have a long and troubled history with issues of free speech. Beginning with the foundational Free Speech Movement at the University of California Berkeley in the mid-1960’s, student-led demonstrations spanned the coasts. In September of 1964, Berkeley’s dean of students banned political activity in a popular plaza on campus, limiting students’ ability to organize anti-Vietnam War demonstrations. Students on all sides of the political spectrum banded together in response, maintaining their presence as a form of protest. After demonstrators were arrested, students staged their first sit-in. A few days later, prominent student-activist Jack Weinberg was arrested for his participation in the protests. When police arrived on the scene to arrest Weinberg, thousands of students rallied in his defense, blocking the police from leaving with their classmate. Weinberg sat in the back of the police car for 32 hours while countless classmates spoke in his defense — removing their shoes before climbing atop the car that became an “open mic.” Mario Savio — one of the most prominent faces of the movement — delivered a rallying cry to the crowd, who remained until the next evening.
Later that semester, Savio gave his famous “Machine Speech,” inspiring the student occupation of Sproul Hall. “You’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels,” he said. “You’ve got to indicate to the people who run it… that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.” Over 700 students were arrested and the faculty gathered in their defense, organizing a strike that later forced administration to set a new precedent of free speech and academic freedom on campus. Years later in reflection, Weinberg told the New York Times, “young movements have a certain integrity.” He is largely remembered for coining the motto of student protesters: “don’t trust anyone over 30.”
Higher education saw one of its greatest tragedies in Ohio during the 1970 Kent State protests against the war in Vietnam. While previous demonstrations had drawn the attention of local and campus law enforcement,
Kent State was the first university to allow the National Guard onto campus to combat student protesters. The guard was called to Kent on May 2 to address demonstrations that had progressed to riots over the course of the weekend.
When classes resumed on Monday, May 4, demonstrators congregated on campus once again. Guardsmen confronted thousands of students gathered to participate in and observe protests with tear gas and loaded rifles. When demonstrators ignored orders to disperse, the guard fired into the crowd, killing four students and injuring nine. In the years since, many former Kent State students have shared their stories from the infamous event. Former student Suzanne Irvin, who was on campus that day, described the scene as “out of time and space,” like those she had observed on the “nightly news” in the decade prior.
“We felt united in wanting them off our campus with their guns,” Irvin wrote in 1996. “A girl came running down the hill in front of us, with one shoe on and one shoe off. She was screaming and wailing: ‘They’ve shot people, they’ve killed people.’” She closed her recollection with a message for the next generation of students, quoting philosopher George Santayana: “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Tensions spiked once again in the mid 80’s with one of the first major protests calling for an end to university investment in companies that profited from South African apartheid. Columbia University was at the center of the movement in the spring of 1985, when members of the Coalition for a Free South Africa organized a series of nonviolent demonstrations that took place over the course of three weeks. Students gathered by the thousands to hear their classmates speak at the steps of the historic Hamilton Hall, which had been occupied by organizers. They chained the doors shut before unfurling a banner that dubbed the building, “Mandela Hall.”
In October 1985, Columbia became the first university to commit to total divestment. Still feeling the effects of the violent Anti-Vietnam War protests of 1968 — during which over 700 students were arrested — the university was willing to work with students to come to a compromise.
“In ’68 Columbia was burned very badly. … Columbia took a big hit, not only morally but financially, in the years after ’68, and nobody wanted to go through that again,” Todd Gitlin, Columbia professor, told The Spectator. “I’m not surprised that a lesson was learned, that they were going to handle a protest with relatively kid gloves.”
The anti-apartheid movement stretched far beyond Columbia, reaching institutions like Harvard, Brown, Yale, Stanford, and Berkeley. Demonstrations varied from sit-ins and teach-ins to marches and hunger strikes. Pedro Noguera took part in anti-apartheid protests as a student at UC Berkeley in the 1980’s. He was one of over 150 students arrested during a sit-in at Sproul Hall. Now the Dean of the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California, Noguera told NPR the ethos of the movement was “educating” and “organizing.”
“We were always nonviolent,” said Noguera. “We always maintained dialogue with the administration throughout. They weren’t happy about what we were doing, but we tried to assure them that this was not about destroying the university or tearing it down. This was about making the point politically.”
A more modern student-led movement arrived in 2014 with the birth of Black Lives Matter. Students across the country participated in marches and demonstrations protesting violence and injustice against black men. After the grand jury decisions in the cases of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, students across the country participated in “die-in” protests. In December 2014, Korkor Koppoe, a student at William and Mary, led a “die-in” on his campus.
Over 200 students marched into the library with their hands up and palms forward, echoing chants of “hand up,” “don’t shoot,” “no justice, no peace.” Once they had all filed in, the students lay in silence for four-and-a-half minutes in honor of Michael Brown, whose body remained on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, for four-and-a-half hours after he was shot by police.
“Let not the present moment be lost,” said Yohance Whitaker, a student involved in the protest. “We must work together as a community to develop a plan to move forward so that we can end the systematic devaluing of black lives.”
The murder of George Floyd in May 2020 reignited the movement. Though most universities were not able to organize on-campus due to COVID-19 restrictions, many found alternative ways to support the cause. Students joined marches off campus in their communities, advocated for institutional reform, and formed initiatives to spread the movement. Meshaal Bannerman was one of several students who shared their activism experience with the Harvard Gazette, saying he was “inspired” by generations coming together to create change.
“Our ancestors have been waiting for it for years,” said Bannerman. “We want to be the generation that changes that.”
A New Age: The Modern Student Protest
The massacre of Israelis by Hamas on October 7, 2023, triggered a new age of university protests — one that bears a striking similarity to the Free Speech Movement of the 1960’s. Unlike their predecessors fighting for a free South Africa or an end to the Vietnam War, those taking part in today’s Israel-Palestine protests face substantial opposition not just from university administration, but also from their fellow students. Activists at Columbia University spearheaded the movement, holding one of the first large-scale protests for a free Palestine just days after the attack. Opposing demonstrations increased tensions on campus as Jewish students began to raise concerns over antisemitism.
The Department of Education opened an investigation into alleged antisemitism on a number of college campuses. Less than a month later, in December of 2023, the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT sat before Congress to testify on these allegations. Rep. Elise Stefanik asked the presidents one by one whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate their university’s code of conduct, “yes or no?” Unable to provide Stefanik with the one-word response she was after, university presidents faced intense backlash, with many calling for their resignation.
“It’s unbelievable that this needs to be said,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in response to the hearings. “Calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country.”
The issue reached a boiling point in April 2024, when pro-Palestine students and others organized the Gaza Solidarity Encampments. At Columbia University, students gathered in the night with plans to occupy the South Lawn — all while then-president Nemat Shafik prepared to testify before Congress about alleged antisemitism on her campus.
“As President Shafik was testifying about the implications of antisemitism, ironically, antisemitism was rapidly increasing at a rate I had never seen before on our campus,” freshman Parker De Dekér told New York Magazine. “I don’t mean the protesters sitting on the lawns. Them sitting there and exercising their rights to free speech and advocating for peace in the Middle East is not antisemitism. What is antisemitism, though, is the numerous experiences I’ve been faced with. Wednesday evening, I was walking from my dorm to go to Chabad, a space for Jewish students at Columbia, and someone yells, ‘You fucking Jew, you keep on testifying, you fucking Jew.’”
The next day, Columbia University called in the NYPD to clear the encampments. Over 100 students were arrested and suspended, with some losing access to housing and meal plans.
“I’m supposed to graduate. I’m also a low-income student. A lot was on the line,” said Laura, a senior at the time. [New York withheld her surname at her request.] “I asked myself, What am I willing to give up? If people in Gaza can keep giving up everything, it’s not a big deal to be arrested for a few hours.”
The arrests at Columbia triggered a surge of encampments at universities across the country. Students at universities including Yale, University of Texas, and New York University were arrested for their involvement.
I will never forget the night of the arrests at NYU, my campus. I was a sophomore at the time, knee-deep in final exams and spending most of my days at the library, just a block away from the site of the encampment. The school community had been watching for days as students in the encampments held “teach-ins,” watched films related to their cause, heard guest speakers, and shared meals. On the night of the arrests, they even held a Passover seder followed by a Muslim Maghrib prayer. Though the war had created intense division on campus, the demonstrations felt like a rare moment of unity and school pride. I had never seen so many NYU students gathered in one space, rallied behind one cause.
Campus security locked us in the library during my fourth hour of studying. Students gathered by the windows to watch as officers unloaded from their vans wearing helmets and masks, holding shields and zip-ties — prepared for war against an enemy force that was entirely unarmed. We followed the events through an Instagram livestream, watching officers enter the encampments and arrest our peers. Some who managed to escape tried to take shelter in the library, which was also now lined with NYPD. Protesters continued their chants, banging on the windows as students cheered them on from inside.
The next morning, campus was a ghost town. Buildings were guarded by lingering NYPD, and the site of the demonstration was closed. In the days following, the administration boarded up the plaza that had held the encampment. Those barriers remain a year later, with President Linda Mills citing “renovations” as the cause. But no matter what measures were taken by administrations, students did not stay silent for long.
“When one camp goes down, another one comes up stronger,” Reyna Workman, an NYU student, told Spectrum News.
Uptown at Columbia, students organized another occupation on April 18; days later on April 29 students took over Hamilton Hall, a historic site for student activism. Protesters charged the doors and barricaded themselves inside, hanging a banner from the balcony that read “Hind’s Hall,” after a young Palestinian girl whose death has become a symbol of “Israel’s destruction of Gaza.” President Shafik called in the NYPD once again. Hundreds of officers entered campus, guns drawn.
“The police came in droves,” said Cameron, a sophomore at the time [New York withheld her surname at her request.] “Students ran and fled from them, screaming. The police forced everyone — all bystanders, including myself, other students, press, media, medics, and legal observers — into nearby buildings. We saw the police push one individual down the stairs. We saw them violently arrest students.”
A Columbia administrator who asked to be identified by their first initial, J, told New York Magazine: “This whole experience, the last six, seven months, it’s going to stay with me for the rest of my career, if not the rest of my life.”
A Polarized Nation, A Polarized Campus
“Divisive,” “corrupt,” “messy,” “dysfunctional”: when asked to describe the current state of American politics in a 2023 PEW survey, almost 80% of Americans used a negative word or phrase. Partisan tensions and intolerance of opposition have reached all-time highs, with 86% of Americans agreeing that the two political parties are more focused on fighting each other than on solving problems. College campuses are no exception to this polarization epidemic, with almost 60% of Americans agreeing that higher education suffers biases.
“Everyone from center left to right, everyone feels like they have to speak very carefully,” social psychologist and NYU professor Jonathan Haidt said of political tensions. “What we’re getting is illiberalism on both sides. That’s scary, especially in the university… People have to feel that they can speak up and say what they think is true.”
While universities were long considered open forums for discussion, institutions formed on the ideal of free expression, the experience of today’s college students fails to align with this aspiration. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)’s 2025 College Free Speech Report estimated forty-two percent of students today believe that it is only “somewhat” clear that their administration protects free speech, while 24% believe it is “not at all” or “not very” clear. Students’ fears have been heightened by increasing stakes; many now face repercussions from university and federal administration for exercising their right to free speech.
“These aren’t just statistics,” wrote Angela C. Erickson, Vice President of Research at FIRE. “We’ve seen the names and faces of people who are hurt when a campus is hostile to free speech.”
Erickson claims universities’ failure to protect the speech of their community “trickles down into student behavior.” Schools with low administrative support often have low levels of “student comfort” when it comes to expression of views on controversial issues — the most prominent subject of contention being the Israel-Palestine war.
NYU Professor Hannah Gurman seconds this top-down theory, stating the need for universities to “push back” on their leadership to ensure they don’t act in response to federal pressure.
“The bigger issue is political pressures that are fueling the pressures on the administration,” Gurman told me. “Elise Stefanik [is] getting university presidents fired, and then [NYU President] Linda Mills looks at that and she feels pressure to respond. And so unless that dynamic goes away, nothing’s going to change.”
In contrast to Gurman’s approach, many right-leaning Americans see the polarization of higher education as a bottom-up issue, the work of radical students and their professors. Political engagement has become increasingly accessible for young people in the digital age. Nations once separated by oceans are now connected by screens, and global crises reach our shores within minutes. Alongside the saturation of news and media has come an influx in misinformation and disinformation — both of which are direct contributors to polarization. Haidt is a famous critic of social media’s contribution to politics.
“That’s what social media does to us,” said Haidt. “It ensconces us in echo chambers that praise radicalism.”
Haidt listed another component to the “chemical weapon” of division: identity politics.
The term identity politics was coined by the authors of the Combahee River Collective Statement, who explained: “the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.” In a 2023 study at Tufts University, almost two-thirds of young people said their politics are a “somewhat or very important part of their personal identity.” This phenomenon exists across parties, facilitating further tribalism and polarization.
“Trump became president when I was around 11, so that’s when I started becoming aware of the world and what the situation was like in America,” said Joel Pritikin, president of the College Republicans at American University, on how he became involved in conservative politics. “I had noticed that — especially between 2017 and 2020 — life was a lot better in those years than they were recently. I kind of see it as sort of a duty to do what I can to make America better.”
Similarly, Kaya Walker — former president of the College Republicans at NYU — described feeling obligated to be politically active. “I sort of have to,” Walker told me. “I feel like I have a responsibility to involve myself in [politics] because it concerns my life, my way of living, my family’s way of living.”
Katherine Groome — a staff writer at NYU’s political opinion publication “In the Zeitgeist” — said she was compelled to become politically active on campus because of the “backwardness” of the current administration. “I wanted an outlet to educate myself … to form opinions on subjects I otherwise could turn a blind eye to.”
“Our livelihood and every aspect of our broader community is inherently intertwined with politics,” said Tyler Morales, president of the Solidarity Organization for Latin(e/x) Students at the University of Richmond. “To remain uninformed in a space like that is to be apathetic and irresponsible to the world and people around you. I stay informed so that I can make the most politically educated decisions for the people that need it the most, especially with how much more polarized society has become.”
Faculty and professors, too, see universities as a space to channel their political passions.
“I have a lot of colleagues who think of the university not as an ideology machine, but as an incubator for social justice movements. And so people self-select,” said Gurman. “If you go to Hillsdale College, then you want to be part of that movement, and if you go to NYU, you want to be a part of a different movement, and so you’re kind of training leaders within your movement.”
Princeton professor Greg Conti agreed with Gurman, adding that professors tend to be “ideologically monolithic.”
“They hire people who think like they do, and it’s kind of a self-reinforcing, ambitious cycle where, you know, if 80% of professors in certain fields are very left leaning, well then they’re likely to only hire left leaning people… And then pretty soon… you have fields that literally have no conservatives in them at all,” said Conti. “That’s a terrible thing for people’s education.”
Polarization has brought about a lack of civil discourse on campuses. Fearing social and administrative repercussions, students are increasingly unwilling to share their views and engage in debate. By allowing ideas and opinions to go unchallenged in the classroom, students limit the scope of their learning and fail to develop critical thinking skills.
While it is true that student political engagement today rivals that of the 60’s and 70’s, I would be remiss not to mention those who choose not to participate. Campus culture is a signifier of students’ political activity. Elite universities like Columbia or Brown are among the most politically active campuses in the country because of their intellectual, academic culture. Their liberal reputation appeals to students with whom their values align, maintaining their image and tradition.
I witnessed a similar phenomenon during my visit to Southern Methodist University — though here the university’s culture facilitated an environment of unconcern. Students I spoke to were largely uninformed about global politics. Some claimed to read the headlines but chose not to engage for their mental wellbeing; for others it was an unintentional ignorance. Even more engaged students I spoke to agreed that politics was not a large part of the conversation at SMU.
Megan Rentner, a staff writer for The Bucknellian, described a similar environment at Bucknell University. Just last month she published an op-ed entitled “The Return of Political Apathy.” Rentner described a steep decline in political concern on campus after the 2024 election, citing three reasons for this regression: distance, political stigma and perceived irrelevance. “Students at Bucknell simply do not see any changes occurring in their day to day life, so they have no reason to want to engage with it.”
Tomas Hinckley, a student at the University of Connecticut, published a similar piece in The Daily Campus titled, “Political Apathy at UConn: What Makes Students Want to Create Change?” He proposed two solutions to bridge the gap between students and the broader population. The first, “excitement” — “the feeling that [students] can do something big.” By promoting an understanding of “the place of the academy” in creating change, Hinckley believes UConn can increase political engagement. “When that connection is made and [students] know their power, they can begin to use it.”
Censorship and Self-Censorship
Freedom of expression in higher education today has two aspects: free speech and academic freedom. Many universities model their free speech policies after the First Amendment, though they vary by state and by institution. Public universities are largely held to constitutional standards, but have the freedom to impose “time, place, and manner” restrictions that are deemed in the interest of the community. If these restrictions are based on content they “amount to government censorship,” and are in direct violation of the Constitution.
Private campuses have more liberty in creating their institutional standards as they are not considered “government entities.” Still, by accepting federal funding these schools are required to abide by anti-discrimination laws, particularly those outlined in Title IX. Private universities are also required to follow state laws which can sometimes outline further protection than what is offered by the Constitution. California, for example, enacted the “Leonard Law” in 1992, subjecting all universities in the state — private or public — to federal regulations.
Academic freedom goes further than free speech in awarding the campus community the “complete and unlimited freedom to pursue inquiry and publish its results.” Standards of academic freedom also vary by institution, though unlike free speech laws, they do not involve the federal government. The protection of academic freedom is essential to upholding the image of the university as a platform for inquiry and exploration.
In FIRE’s 2024 College Free Speech Report, they observed that more than half of student-participants “expressed worry about damaging their reputation because of someone misunderstanding what they have said or done” on campus. The result of their fear? A silent classroom, one which Professor Gurman considers to be “cause for concern.”
“They’re afraid to disagree,” she said of her students. “I often have to be the devil’s advocate because the students themselves might be nervous about disagreeing with one another … There’s more on the professor now to make sure that there’s an arena for disagreement.”
Several schools have implemented bias response systems like NYU’s “bias response line.” Haidt compared systems like this to the German Stasi. “We’re encouraging people to snitch on other people,” he said. “That’s how you end up walking on eggshells.”
He described the modern classroom as a “minefield,” “where the consequences of misstep can be gigantic.” “I’ve been much more careful about what I say in class because I can’t be provocative. I can’t say anything that causes negative emotions,” said Haidt. “There’s no forgiveness.”
While the issue of self-censorship exists across political affiliations, conservative students have been more vocal about their gripes with free speech. Amid concerns with the social and academic consequences of speaking up in a classroom setting, many young people turn to social media to express themselves and find like-minded people.
Pritikin told me he often hesitates to reveal himself to classmates and professors as “the Republican.” “I don’t really feel safe [expressing political opinions] out loud,” said Pritikin. “When you’re such a minority, politically, it is kind of scary.”
While the current landscape for civil debate seems bleak, Students and professors across the country are doing their part to encourage inquiry and debate what they can to teach students productive dialogue skills. Nim Ravid, an Israeli student at Harvard, is doing his part to ease tensions between Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestine students on campus. Inspired by the isolation he felt after the October 7 attacks, Ravid founded “Our Harvard” — a student-led group dedicated to easing polarization on campus. “It’s been tremendously difficult to get people to come to these events, but I’m inspired by some Arab friends who despite immense social pressures still come,” he told the Harvard Gazette.
Similarly at the University of Notre Dame, bipartisan student group BridgeND strives to inform students on “respectful political dialogue.” On a visit to the university, I spoke with the club’s president, Maddie Colbert, about the group’s work and the political landscape across campus. She described the group as a space for “constructive conversation” rather than heated debate. To maintain this environment, however, certain rules are in place: “ask questions,” “address the statement, not the person.”
“The community [at Notre Dame] is very strong,” Colbert told me. “That’s not to say that everyone gets along with everyone — that’s not the reality — but I would say that there’s a lot more space for students of differing political beliefs to interact with each other in a non-political setting.”
Student publications are another target of administrative censorship. Universities across the country have a history of censoring student newspapers to protect their reputations. Not only are students threatened by censorship itself, the fear of institutional consequences steers them away from writing controversial issues and opinions.
Organizations like the Student Press Law Center work to defend student journalists and their First Amendment rights. Julia, an NYU student and intern at SPLC, spoke to me about her work on “New Voices”: a movement dedicated to the protection of language beyond the scope of the First Amendment. In her work with “New Voices,” she began to realize just how “nuanced” protected speech can be.
“I don’t know the answers,” she said, “I don’t know how to fix it, and I wish I did.”
Deciphering protected speech proved to be an issue at the University of Texas at Dallas in September when Gregorio Olivares Gutierrez, former editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Mercury, was removed from his post. Gutierrez alleged the university forced him out in an act of censorship, pointing to his coverage of Pro-Palestine student protests that had led to over twenty arrests on campus.
“We have had multiple opportunities to just roll over and let campus administrators dictate exactly what the student paper should be, limiting what we can and can’t say in the newspaper,” Gutierrez told the Dallas Morning News. “But we haven’t submitted to that.”
Gutierrez and his staff at The Mercury cut ties from the university and started an independent publication, The Retrograde. The university removed newspaper stands from campus in an attempt to limit the reach of the new publication, only to have their efforts backfire, increasing students’ interest. The paper’s new mission statement reads: “Not only do we aim to inform and entertain our readers, but we serve the UTD community by investigating crucial subjects and helping hold those in power accountable.”
Professors have also taken part in the efforts to decrease polarization. At American University, Professor Lara Schwartz founded the Project on Civic Dialogue: a program designed to develop “dialogue” and “expressive freedom.” As a part of the program, Schwartz organized a series entitled “Disagree With A Professor,” in which students and professors debate hot-button issues. Schwartz is a proponent of “absolute” free speech, deeming it essential to her students’ academic and professional success.
Schwartz published an op-ed for American University’s leading student publication, The Eagle, in response to the university’s failure to implement a divestment resolution passed by the student government. She referenced the conflict as an example of the disconnect between students and administration, one that threatens their academic freedom.
“We cannot give [students] the education they deserve in the context of censorship and when leadership is unwilling to engage with them.”
Schwartz pointed to censorship as a larger issue among higher education. Infringements on free speech are more common at private universities, who are not legally held to the same First Amendment standards. These universities often prioritize institutional values above free speech, leading to well-intended but poorly implemented regulations. Restrictions exist in various forms including book bans, bias-hotlines, and protest policies.
Private institutions also often fall victim to jawboning: pressure from a lawmaker on a university president to comply with demands that are not enforced by law. These demands often come from red states looking to eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives. Florida has become a case study for university censorship under Governor DeSantis, who is an adamant critic of “woke” ideology.
The New College of the University of South Florida is the only public liberal arts institution in the state, and was long considered the most progressive. That is, until January 2023, when DeSantis appointed six new members to the board of trustees — all conservative and dedicated to his “anti-woke” agenda.
Amy Reid is a French professor at the New College where she founded and directed the Gender Studies program. Her department was abolished alongside DEI initiatives in the government takeover. Hundreds of library books, many of which came from the former Gender and Diversity Center, were dumped into a landfill. After photos of a dumpster overflowing with books gained traction online, a university spokesperson referred to the disposal as “standard weeding” of the university library.
Reid decided to take an unpaid leave from her post as a professor after the Gender Studies program was shut down. She remains on the board of trustees where she is consistently silenced and “dismissed” by other board members.
“When [meetings are] on Zoom, I have my mic cut off,” Reid said in an interview. “I’ve been called ‘petty and performative’ and in one meeting, Christopher Rufo told me to ‘just shut up.’”
What’s Next? Trump 2.0
Just days after the November, 2024, presidential election, a group of academics gathered in the hotel conference room of a Washington D.C. hotel for an event led by the American Association of University Professors, Defending Academic Freedom In the Era of Trump 2.0. Soft instrumentals were drawn out by the voices of friends and colleagues, introducing and reuniting. I listened as they discussed recent events, describing the inauguration as “apocalyptic,” worrying about their jobs and the safety of their students.
A few miles down the road sat newly inaugurated President Donald Trump with a stack of executive orders waiting for his signature, many of which would target higher education. The second Trump administration has sparked a new age of censorship, one driven by federal rather than university regulations. In just over 100 days, the president has made significant changes to the Department of Education (DOE), tasking Education Secretary Linda McMahon with putting herself “out of a job.”
Cuts to the DOE began with its Office for Civil Rights, which previously handled federal loans, tracked student achievement, and supported students with disabilities. A majority of the issues they handled dealt with discrimination based on race and gender. Trump’s main target within the office is their contribution to DEI efforts.
On February 14, the DOE issued a “Dear Colleague” letter to institutions receiving federal funding, declaring any race-conscious programming to be unconstitutional. The notice stated that “treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent.” Institutions who refused to comply with his orders faced drastic funding cuts.
The administration’s threats to funding are a direct blow to academic freedom. When universities lose federal backing they can no longer support students with financial aid or scholarships, diverse fields of study, and research grants. When asked how he believes higher education should respond to Trump’s threats, Professor Don Moynihan of the University of Michigan explained to the conference attendees,“We lose our power when we lose our anchoring within a community. I don’t think the law is gonna save us here.”
For smaller universities and community colleges, former DOE policy advisor Tariq Habash called the loss of funds “a death sentence.” He claimed it was the responsibility of the elite universities to uphold their ethos and defy the administration’s orders, saying they can “afford the risk.” The future of higher education, according to Habash, has become a moral question:
“What lines are we willing to cross in order to maintain those funding streams?”
Among the most vulnerable in the higher education community are international students and professors. The Trump administration has revoked about 800 of their visas and detained more than a dozen students. While a number of students were targeted for their involvement in pro-Palestine activism on campus, other revocations seem based on minor legal infractions — or on nothing at all.
“If you think it’s gonna stop with Palestine, that’s just not true,” said Habash. Still, he maintains hope. “I’m optimistic. I’ve seen students and faculty put themselves on the line and recognize the implications for their futures.”
Professor Amy Reid of New College agreed, saying higher education needs to focus on the “little wins” at the state level in the fight for free speech and academic freedom.
“Federal government is insulated from the human consequences of what they’re putting forth,” said Reid. “State government doesn’t have that space — make them feel the impact of what they’re doing.”
Reid closed the panel, saying that by exercising our freedom of speech we can reclaim it. Paraphrasing a quote from the late American journalist Molly Ivans, she said,“We have to stand up for what we believe in, and we have to find joy as we do it.”
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