In a groundbreaking lawsuit, university associations have challenged the Trump administration’s actions against faculty and students involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, asserting that the government has orchestrated a campaign to stifle free speech at universities nationwide.
Filed against President Donald Trump and members of his administration, the lawsuit is one of the first of its kind to reach trial.
The plaintiffs are urging U.S. District Judge William Young to declare that the administration’s policies violate the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies formulate and implement regulations.
“Not since the McCarthy era have immigrants been the target of such intense repression for lawful political speech,” said Ramya Krishnan, a senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, during her court presentation.
“The policy creates a cloud of fear over university communities, and it is at war with the First Amendment. The First Amendment forecloses viewpoint discrimination; it forecloses retaliation; and it forecloses government threats meant to coerce silence,” she added.
In contrast, government lawyers contended that no such suppressive policy has been established, maintaining that the enforcement of immigration laws is both legal and aimed at protecting national security.
Victoria Santora, a lawyer for the government, asserted, “There is no policy to revoke visas on the basis of protected speech. The evidence presented at this trial will show that plaintiffs are challenging nothing more than government enforcement of immigration laws.”
Since President Trump took office, the U.S. government has increasingly employed its immigration enforcement powers against international students and educators at numerous American institutions.
Amidst the ongoing protests surrounding the Israel-Hamas conflict, Trump and other officials have associated some demonstrators with support for Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that launched an attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs name specific activists, including Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate.
Khalil was released last month after spending 104 days in federal immigration detention, and he has become a symbol of the Trump administration’s crackdown on campus protests.
The lawsuit also references Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was released from Louisiana immigration detention after six weeks.
She was arrested while walking in a Boston suburb following her co-authorship of an op-ed that criticized her university’s response to the ongoing war in Gaza.
The plaintiffs allege that the Trump administration provided universities with names of individuals to target and initiated a program for social media surveillance.
The lawsuit cites Trump’s own statements following Khalil’s arrest, in which he implied that it was the “first arrest of many to come.”
The trial kicked off with testimony from Megan Hyska, a green card holder from Canada and a philosophy professor at Northwestern University.
Hyska described how the deportations of Khalil and Ozturk led her to significantly curtail her activism.
Before Trump took office, Hyska had been actively involved in supporting student encampments at Northwestern, participating in numerous protests advocating for police reform and Palestinian rights, and engaging with the Chicago chapter of Democratic Socialists of America.
However, after becoming aware of the high-profile detentions of political activists, Hyska retreated from publishing an article critical of the administration, chose not to participate in certain protests against Trump, and hesitated to travel back to Canada.
“It became apparent to me, after I became aware of a couple of high profile detentions of political activists, that my engaging in public political dissent would potentially endanger my immigration status,” Hyska testified.
A government attorney sought to undermine Hyska’s testimony by pointing out that she had not been individually contacted by government officials requesting her to stop her activism.
The attorney also referenced two letters Hyska signed following the arrests, suggesting she continued her political engagement, which led Hyska to clarify that those letters were directed towards Northwestern administrators, not meant for public dissemination.
The trial is set to continue with more witnesses expected to testify about the chilling effects of the immigration enforcement campaign on their activism.
image source from：wbur
