The Israeli war in Gaza, now in its 18th month, has killed more than 51,000 Palestinians, with another 10,000 missing under the rubble and presumed dead. As evidence emerged that indicated Israeli soldiers had killed and executed 15 Palestinian medics on March 23, then buried the men and their vehicles to try and coverup their crime, an Israeli air strike destroyed part of the last fully functioning hospital in Gaza City. All this as Israel has continued its 7-week blockade of deliveries of food, water and medical aid to Gaza’s 2.3 million people, resulting in starvation and preventable deaths.
Here in the U.S., the Trump administration has revoked hundreds of international college student visas, claiming without evidence that their lawful exercise of free speech in protesting Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians is antisemitic and harms U.S. foreign policy. Mahmoud Khalil, a former graduate student at Columbia University and green card holder, the first student detained in this campaign, will likely appeal a Louisiana immigration judge’s April 11 ruling that he can be deported. Meanwhile Trump has said he won’t bring back a legal U.S. resident who was mistakenly sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador and wants to send U.S. citizens there as well.
In an escalating attack on free speech and academic freedom, the Trump regime has threatened dozens of American universities with loss of federal funding if they don’t eliminate DEI initiatives, take specific action on alleged antisemitism or change faculty or curriculum. While some universities have complied, like Columbia, others like Harvard are fighting back and suing the administration for violation of First Amendment rights. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Fawzia Afzal-Khan, visiting professor in gender and sexuality studies at Princeton University. Here she, discusses what’s at stake for freedom of speech in this fight, not just for college students, but for all U.S. citizens and the future of democracy.
FAWZIA AFZAL-KHAN: It is frightening mostly our Muslim students on campus, especially those who are on foreign visas and also non-Muslims who are students of conscience. Students from various and sundry countries around the world who see what’s happening and who understand that protesting on their campus in support of the rights of Palestinians is a duty, a moral duty. But obviously, this politics of fear is making them also shy away from gatherings, protest rallies and so on. That is happening.
And yet, Scott, I want to say that what I have been observing, including most recently right here at Princeton and also something I’ve observed at Montclair — is despite these threats to our freedoms, the threat to our students, harassment by cops on campus, harassment by various groups who are often let onto campus, like MAGA, for example, on the Montclair State campus when I was there last fall before I came to Princeton.
I mean, in all of these situations, despite these threats, despite harassment, despite being told, it certainly was true of Montclair that you have to go off to a “free speech zone” and you are not allowed even to stand silently and hold up posters saying we mourn the death of children that are being killed.
Despite all of that, students have been really continuing their work of conscience. They refuse to be intimidated.
SCOTT HARRIS: The Trump regime’s attempt to suppress free speech on college and university campuses across the U.S. has succeeded with some universities, including the administrators at Columbia. But an increasing number of universities are being targeted by Trump using the threat of cutting millions or billions of dollars in federal funding for research grants if administrators don’t surrender to Trump demands for a clampdown on protest, free speech and even changes in the university’s curriculum.
Trump seems to have had great success in picking off universities one by one, because the nation’s universities are not standing together in solidarity to stand up and oppose this blatant repression that many legal observers say is unconstitutional. Why do you think university administrators aren’t standing together in the face of these attacks? I’d like you to mention the National Day of Action coming up on April 17, if you would.
FAWZIA AFZAL-KHAN: I think the tide might be just beginning to change because, in fact, the president of Harvard, Alan Garber, he has basically, I think personally under pressure from faculty and students who have been, you know, protesting and saying, we will not go along with rolling over to the Trump administration’s really unlawful demands to capture our students, to force us to get rid of faculty or put departments into receivership, like in Columbia.
He has finally said, you know, under threat of $9 billion being looked at and examined and maybe taken away by the Trump administration if Harvard does not comply with its demands. Today, Garber said, “No. Absolutely not. We’re not complying because the duty of the universities, first and foremost, has to be to our students and faculty, to protect free speech and free thinking, without which what the hell is the university for?”
And I think that is the demand being made for April 17. And, you know, by a consortium, a collection of academic university personnel, faculty, students, what you call labor work, you know, organizers, workers of all stripes coming together to say, “We are here to demand that our voices be heard and that universities protect us and protect its workers and protect faculty and protect our programs.”
The thing to do is for presidents now to come together, listen to their faculty, the majority of whom are saying, you know, we are not going to stand by this kind of repression that is being forced down our throats. And people are beginning to see the connections between the anti-DEI initiatives and the repression of speech around Palestine.
People are making that connection. And so they are all banding together. And I think April 17th you will see some actions. There are a lot of teach-ins that are being planned. There are faculty, student speakers. There are walk-outs, walk-ins all across U.S. campuses. And this is just going to continue. And especially if the university administrators showed the courage that they need to and speak up for what is right, then I think that this administration’s unlawful and illegal actions can be stopped.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Fawzia Afzal-Khan(29:31) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. For weekly updates on the Trump authoritarian playbook now underway, subscribe here to our Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine Substack newsletter to get updates to our “Hey AmeriKKKa, It’s Not Normal” compilation.
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