Don’t just blame Trump [and Republicans] – Democrats paved the way for this campus crackdow. Both parties are responsible for the mess facing Columbia and other institutions

‘Virtually every aspect of the Trump administration’s posture rests on track laid by the Biden administration and the Democratic party.’ Photograph: Dana Edwards/Reuters

Musa al-Gharbi  

"... Even before Trump had a chance to weigh in, Joe Biden immediately characterized the protests at Columbia as “antisemitic” and declared that “order must prevail” on college campuses. Democratic lawmakers put aggressive pressure on the former Columbia University president Minouche Shafik to crush the protests. She ultimately did so with the assistance of New York City’s Democratic mayor, Eric Adams (who justified his clampdown via evidence-free statements that the protests were driven primarily by “outside agitators”). Trump celebrated the pictures and videos of students getting roughed up by the NYPDand, upon Trump’s reclaiming the White House, the justice department interceded on behalf of Adams – making his criminal investigation go away in apparent exchange for the mayor adopting a more aggressive posture on immigration – a move that critics claim is a quid pro quo.

In a similar vein, it was Biden who enshrined the IHRA definition of antisemitism into federal guidance, despite the definition’s author repeatedly describing it as a “travesty” to use this definition to regulate speech and behavior. Building on Biden’s introduction, Trump is poised to sign a bill that would implement this same definition into federal anti-discrimination law – and in the meantime, he’s insisting Columbia and other schools adopt this definition in their own codes of conduct. NYU and Harvard have already taken this step, overriding concerns by civil rights and civil liberties organizations – from the ACLU, to Fire and the AAUP, to Israeli civil rights groups – who stressed that IHRA’s definition is extremely vague and provides strong leeway for institutional stakeholders to censor most critical discussion of Israel, Zionism or Judaism more broadly, by Jews and non-Jews alike.

Likewise, before Trump called upon Columbia to put its Middle East studies programs into receivership, New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, took the extraordinary step of demanding that the City University of New York eliminate a job posting for scholars who study Palestine. This is the same type of overreach Trump is exercising at Columbia – politicians setting the agenda for what can be taught and who can be hired – justified on the same grounds.

The Democrats will not save colleges and universities. They have been key partners and pioneers for all of the actions currently being undertaken by the Trump administration in this domain...."  READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/26/universities-columbia-trump

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Jewish Yale faculty sign letter denouncing attacks on pro-Palestine dissenters: The statement, which rejected “cynical” claims of antisemitism, urged universities across the U.S. to resist federal actions like the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil and to protect university members’ right to free speech.

Tim Tai YALE

Yolanda Wang 11:33 pm, Mar 24, 2025

Staff Reporter

Dozens of Jewish Yale affiliates, including 30 faculty members, signed a statement calling for university leaders to resist President Donald Trump’s targeting of pro-Palestinian dissenters under the guise of combating antisemitism. 

The statement, titled “Not In Our Name,” was drafted by the Boston chapter of Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff and first circulated on March 11. Nearly 3,000 faculty, staff and students at universities across the United States have signed the letter.

“We are united in denouncing, without equivocation, anyone who invokes our name — and cynical claims of antisemitism — to harass, expel, arrest, or deport members of our campus communities,” the letter reads.

The statement specifically called out the arrest of Columbia University alumnus Mahmoud Khalil as an attack on political dissent that uses “Jews as a shield.”

Khalil, a permanent legal U.S. resident, was arrested on March 8 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for his role as a lead negotiator for the pro-Palestine encampment at Columbia last spring. While Khalil has not been charged with any crime, he is currently detained in Louisiana and faces deportation.

“I might not agree with much of what Mahmoud Khalil has said, but if we allow agents to come knock on the door at any time and take away anyone for non-violently expressing their opinions, we’ve descended into a reign of terror,” Marci Shore, a statement signatory and professor of Eastern European history, wrote to the News. “And we need to stand in solidarity to protect one another’s rights.”

Shore also drew parallels between the Trump administration’s actions and the history of the Soviet Union. She warned that the illegal deportation of a critic of Israel under the guise of protecting Jewish people from antisemitism could itself provoke antisemitic violence, “whereupon Jews can be scapegoated for the violence ... READ MORE https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2025/03/24/jewish-yale-faculty-sign-letter-denouncing-trumps-attacks-on-pro-palestine-dissenters/

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"I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear." ... My Name is Mahmoud Khalil and I Am a Political Prisoner A letter dictated by Mahmoud Khalil over the phone from ICE detention in Louisiana. Mahmoud Khalil March 18, 2025

Protestors show support for pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil on March 15, 2025, at the University of Washington campus in Seattle. Khalil was arrested without a warrant on March 8 by the Department of Homeland Security. Photo by Jason Redmond / AFP) (Photo by JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images

The contents of this letter have not been edited.

My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.

Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.

Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities.

On March 8, I was taken by DHS agents who refused to provide a warrant, and accosted my wife and me as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s safety. I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours — I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation. At 26 Federal Plaza, I slept on the cold floor. In the early morning hours, agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request.

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, which resumed in full force Monday night. With January’s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.

I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family which has been displaced from their land since the 1948 Nakba. I spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention — imprisonment without trial or charge — to strip Palestinians of their rights. I think of our friend Omar Khatib, who was incarcerated without charge or trial by Israel as he returned home from travel. I think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December 27 and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace.

I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear. My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the U.S. has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention. For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand U.S. laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted.

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. Presidents Shafik, Armstrong, and Dean Yarhi-Milo laid the groundwork for the U.S. government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing — based on racism and disinformation—to go unchecked.

Columbia targeted me for my activism, creating a new authoritarian disciplinary office to bypass due process and silence students criticizing Israel. Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration’s latest threats. My arrest, the expulsion or suspension of at least 22 Columbia students — some stripped of their B.A. degrees just weeks before graduation — and the expulsion of SWC President Grant Miner on the eve of contract negotiations, are clear examples.

If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation. Students have long been at the forefront of change — leading the charge against the Vietnam War, standing on the frontlines of the Civil Rights Movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Today, too, even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who steer us toward truth and justice.

The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.

Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.

 https://inthesetimes.com/article/mahmoud-khalil-letter-from-a-palestinian-political-prisoner-in-louisiana

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Jewish Voice for Peace protest in New York City Trump Tower for FREE SPEECH & Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil

 ~~~

Timeline: The Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe) & Establishment of Israeli Apartheid

1. Prelude to Catastrophe (Late 1800s-1945)

"We shall try to spirit the penniless [Palestinian] population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country... expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." - Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, 1895... "  READ MORE  https://imeu.org/article/the-nakba-65-years-of-dispossession-and-apartheid

Key context on the Palestinian activist arrested by ICE: I Was a Columbia Student Journalist. Here’s What to Know About Mahmoud Khalil. By Irie Sentner 3/13/2025

There’s a website called Canary Mission that posts the names and images of anyone seen as anti-Israel — including student journalists whose coverage the Canary moderators don’t like.
 

New York Police Department officers surround the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University in New York City, on April 30, 2024. | Irie Sentner/POLITICO

1

What was Mahmoud Khalil’s role in Columbia’s student protests? And do you know what his immigration status was during the protests?

2

Was deportation a widespread concern among immigrant students participating in the protests?

Absolutely. During the encampment, two friends who were international students told me they wished they could be there but couldn’t risk losing their visas. There was a similar fear among low-income students, who didn’t want to risk their scholarships or lose on-campus housing. Many chose to participate in other ways, like sharing pro-Palestinian content on social media or bringing food and supplies to the encampment.

At Barnard specifically, students who were suspended for protesting were evicted from their dorms almost immediately. That was also a major fear: There’s a big difference between someone who lives near New York or has a robust support system in the U.S., and a student who would be left on the streets of Manhattan because their family lives in another country... READ MORE 

 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/13/columbia-student-journalist-mahmoud-khalil-00226729

3

Has there been a vibe shift on campus since Trump’s election?

4

How had student protesters tried to protect themselves from retaliation until now?

5

Has the debate surrounding student protests changed at all since 2024? Could Khalil’s arrest change it in any way?

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"The New York Times, which has warned its writers to not use “words like ‘slaughter,’ ‘massacre’ and ‘carnage’” when reporting on Gaza, the same NYT that has systemically obfuscated the genocide in Gaza, is reporting that Columbia is warning its students not write about Gaza" Mohammed El-Kurd

Mohammed El-Kurd

@m7mdkurd

Writer from Jerusalem, occupied Palestine. Palestine Correspondent at the Nation, editor-at-large at Mondoweiss. Preorder “Perfect Victims” using the link below

Occupied Jerusalem / القدس linktr.ee/perfectvictims

 

Published Feb 2025- Perfect Victims cover illustration by Maisara Baroud. "Since the genocide started, he’s created this illustration and others from his tent in Rafah, Deir el-Balah, and elsewhere in Gaza."

US professors face discipline and investigations over Palestine support: Universities such as Columbia and Princeton punish educators for posts and comments criticizing war in Gaza

Signs calling for the MIT to cut ties with Israel are seen at a protest encampment in support of Palestine in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on 28 April. Photograph: Amanda Sabga/Reuters

“Reports of professors being investigated and disciplined for speech about the war are disturbing. The purpose of universities is to stimulate debate, including on controversial topics,” said Ramya Krishnan, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

“It severely undermines that purpose when universities act as roving censors that can punish faculty’s private political speech. Professors should be able to speak as citizens without retaliation except in the rarest of circumstances – that is, unless their speech compromises their ability to do their jobs.”   ... READ MORE    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/24/university-professors-discipline-palestine-support 

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Why are America’s elite universities so afraid of this scholar’s paper? ... The Palestinian human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah's article was censored- disappeared... The Columbia Law Review website was temporarily shut down after it published a Palestinian human rights lawyer’s article proposing a new way to understand Palestinian life under Israeli rule

The Palestinian human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah. Photograph: Courtesy Rabea Eghbariah

Jonathan Guyer

Sun 9 Jun 2024 08.00 EDT

When the Palestinian human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah arrived at a Manhattan cafe on Thursday afternoon, he had just learned that his article had been reinstated in the Columbia Law Review. After a weeklong censorship controversy, the prestigious journal’s website was back online, too.

The law school journal’s faculty and alumni board had shuttered the website for most of the week rather than publicize Eghbariah’s 105-page article, titled Toward the Nakba as a Legal Concept. In it, he proposed a new framework to explain the complex, fragmented legal regimes governing Palestinians. He wanted to bring the word Nakba – which translates from the Arabic as catastrophe, and is better known for describing the displacement and dispossession of Palestinians in 1948 – to the center of a new legal conversation.

Wearing a white T-shirt and linen pants and sipping iced coffee, he reflected on an extraordinary week that saw his legal theories – ordinarily the stuff of arcane law school debates – ignite emotive conversations about the legitimate bounds of debate about Israel and Palestine.

What’s more, it wasn’t the first time his ideas were deemed too dangerous to publish by the Ivy League.

He had worked on his contribution for almost half a year, finding a home for it at the Columbia Law Review after a shorter web piece he had written for the Harvard Law Review had been blocked at the last minute.

He was proud of his scholarship but found it dangerous that the content of his article had become secondary to what he saw as the manufactured controversy of its censorship. “Now, we have to debate about my right to say what I want to say instead of debating about what I actually said,” he told the Guardian.... READ MORE   https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/09/columbia-law-review-rabea-eghbariah-palestine-censorship-controversy

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"For the White House to allow pro-Israel “word police” to define what is & isn’t acceptable language is a dangerous abuse of power" James J Zogby ... & Annie's Notes about the real meanings of some very crucial words that are being badly misconstrued by Biden & the Zionist Word Police

 James J. Zogby

@jjz1600

So the president is now condemning the word “intifada” as hate speech. It literally means “shaking off,” as in removing the shackles of the past. For the White House to allow pro-Israel “word police” to define what is & isn’t acceptable language is a dangerous abuse of power

What the “word police” say can’t be said: apartheid, genocide, ethnic cleaning, settler colonialism, “from the River to the sea…”, & now intifada. The list keeps growing as a way to shield Israeli policies from criticism. & to equate this w/ antisemitism is so wrong.

 

 ~~~~~~

 Annie's Notes about the real meanings of some very crucial words that are being badly misconstrued by Biden & the Zionist Word Police

 

 

Dove of Peace w Key ASA copyright 2009

Intifada- shaking off

 

From the River to the Sea-  Freedom, equality & respect everywhere for everyone- empowering the rule of fair and just laws.

Apartheid- 1940s: from Afrikaans, literally ‘separateness’, from Dutch apart ‘separate’ + -heid (equivalent of -hood):  SEGREGATION

Ethnic Cleansing- the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically or religiously homogenous.

Settler Colonialism- Settler colonialism occurs when colonizers invade and occupy territory to permanently replace the existing society with the society of the colonizers

 Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people^[a] in whole or in part.  

In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly

Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide in his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, combining the Greek word γένος (genos, "race, people") with the Latin suffix -caedo ("act of killing"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

 

Semite, name given in the 19th century to a member of any people who speak one of the Semitic languages, a family of languages spoken primarily in parts of western Asia and Africa. The term therefore came to include Arabs, Akkadians, Canaanites, Hebrews, some Ethiopians (including the Amhara and the Tigrayans), and Aramaean tribes.

 

Notice that indigenous Arab Palestinians, including Arab Christians, are being erased -ethnically cleansed- from historic Palestine while also being intentionally and persistently excluded from the definitions of antisemitism:

 

Antisemitism- hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people. The term anti-Semitism was coined in 1879 by the German agitator Wilhelm Marr to designate the anti-Jewish campaigns underway in central Europe at that time. Nazi anti-Semitism, which culminated in the Holocaust, had a racist dimension in that it targeted Jews because of their supposed biological characteristics—even those who had themselves converted to other religions or whose parents were converts. This variety of anti-Jewish racism dates only to the emergence of so-called “scientific racism” in the 19th century and is different in nature from earlier anti-Jewish prejudices.

CSM: Ken Makin Commentary on Columbia: History, protests, and humanity- After arrests at Columbia University and other schools, our commentator considers the legacy of civil disobedience. How and why does society’s lens on protests change over time?

Students protest in support of Palestinians near a closed entrance of Columbia University, in New York City, April 23, 2024. Caitlin Ochs/Reuters  

There was a political theorist who famously said there are decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen. As someone who writes about history a good bit, I think we should take those decades when “nothing happens” to remember flashpoints.

When I saw students at Columbia University engaging in a pro-Palestinian protest last week, I thought about South Carolina State University, about Kent State, about Jackson State, and about Southern University. When more than 100 students were arrested in New York City after said protest, my concerns went to the natural escalation that occurs when the people clash with the police, when people push back against war.

I understand that pushback, because I never met my uncle, my dad’s older brother. A few days after his 20th birthday, he was killed in Vietnam. The presidential election year of 1968 was a harrowing one that hit close to home for my dad, who would later decide to attend South Carolina State. Only three months before my uncle died, a student protest ended in tragedy during the events that are now known as the Orangeburg Massacre. Students from SC State and Claflin University sought to desegregate a local bowling alley, which led to an eventual clash with police. It was the first instance of police killing protesters at an American university....  

READ MORE https://www.csmonitor.com/Daily/2024/20240424/Commentary-on-Columbia-History-protests-and-humanity?cmpid=shared-twitter

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