This Is the Greatest Threat to Free Speech Since the Red Scare

[iemanja]

On Saturday, immigration agents showed at the apartment building of Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of last year’s pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, and told him his student visa had been revoked and that he was being detained. Khalil is married to an American, and his lawyer, speaking to the agents by phone, informed them that he had a green card, but they said that had been revoked as well. He was taken away, and as of this writing appears to be in a detention facility in Louisiana. . .

Like many things done by Trump’s administration, Khalil’s arrest was shocking but not surprising. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly said he was going to deport anti-Israel student activists. Just last week, Axios reported on Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s plan to use A.I. to comb the social media accounts of student visa holders in a search for ostensible terrorist sympathies. The administration seems particularly determined to make an example of Columbia, announcing last week that it was canceling $400 million in grants and contracts with the school due to claims of ongoing anti-Jewish harassment.

“This seems like one of the biggest threats, if not the biggest threats to First Amendment freedoms in 50 years,” said Brian Hauss, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s a direct attempt to punish speech because of the viewpoint it espouses.”

Khalil, who grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, hasn’t been charged with any crime. A dossier on him compiled by Canary Mission, a right-wing group that tracks anti-Zionist campus activists, includes no examples of threatening or violent speech, just demands for divestment from Israel. Last year Khalil was suspended from his graduate program for his role in the campus demonstrations, but the suspension was reversed soon after, apparently for lack of evidence, and he completed his degree. The Department of Homeland Security claimed he “led activities aligned to Hamas,” but that’s an impossibly vague, legally meaningless charge.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/opinion/mahmoud-khalil-free-speech.html

[AloeVera]

1. We better all watch what we say.

And not just against Israel either.

Seriously, this is not the time for either silence or FAFO.


https://archive.is/vdLhl

[iemanja]

2. It's not about anti-semitism

If it were, he'd go after the Nazis on the far right. It's about daring to speak out in favor of Palestinians. Trump and his defenders are trash.

[AloeVera]

3. Truth in a nutshell.

Those are his supporters and he's fine with that. "Fine people" and all.

It's not about anti-semitism but it IS the weaponization of anti-semitism to squash dissent and criticism of Israel. It's always been thus, and anybody who points that out is attacked by the usual suspects.

[iemanja]

5. You put that very well.

[AloeVera]

6. The weaponization is real. So is the spike in anti-Muslim hatred.

The weaponization is real - it's coordinated and powerful. It is not looking good for either free speech or academic freedom - signs are that Columbia has bowed, and other schools may follow.

Khalil gave an interview to Reuters just hours before his arrest. He said this:

"What more can Columbia do to appease Congress or the government now?" Khalil told Reuters hours before his arrest, noting that Columbia had repeatedly called in police to arrest protesters and had disciplined many pro-Palestinian students and staff, suspending some. "They basically silenced anyone supporting Palestine on campus and this was not enough. Clearly Trump is using the protesters as a scapegoat for his wider agenda fighting and attacking higher education and the Ivy League education system."

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-authorities-arrest-palestinian-student-protester-columbia-university-students-2025-03-09/
https://archive.is/9ETe0


Khalil had appealed to Columbia, citing the wave of hate and death threats he received after the coordinated attacks by the most vocal of the weaponization crowd.

Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian who helped lead negotiations between Columbia University and student protesters, had appealed to the school for protection from harassment and possibly Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents one day before the Trump administration detained him on Saturday, emails obtained by Zeteo show.

The most recent among the leaked messages was an email Khalil, a green card holder, sent to Columbia interim president Katrina Armstrong on March 7. “Since yesterday, I have been subjected to a vicious, coordinated, and dehumanizing doxxing campaign led by Columbia affiliates Shai Davidai and David Lederer who, among others, have labeled me a security threat and called for my deportation,” he began.

“Their attacks have incited a wave of hate, including calls for my deportation and death threats. I have outlined the wider context below, yet Columbia has not provided any meaningful support or resources in response to this escalating threat,” he added.

https://zeteo.com/p/scoop-emails-show-mahmoud-khalil-ask-columbia-protection-ice

Shai Davidai in fact had been suspended from campus last year over allegations he had harassed university staff. He of course denies having a "direct line" to the Trump Administration but I'm betting on him and the rest of the "anti-semitism" crowd having huge influence over the arrest.

Link to tweet

Also, look at the video in the David Lederer post. See how it's been manipulated to falsely identify Khalil was one of the "masked" demonstrators? It's very amateurish - he clearly is not wearing the same clothing as the masked protester. But it's a good illustration of demonization and false accusations employed by the "anti-semitism" crowd. Khalil was a negotiator, a conduit between Columbia Admin and the protesters.

Yet there is hope:

Jewish faculty at Columbia held a rally and news conference in support of Khalil outside a university building on Monday, holding signs saying "Jews say no to deportations."

"There is a chill in the air. It's a chill of fear and despair," said Marianne Hirsch, the child of Holocaust survivors who grew up in Romania and is now a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia.

Demonstrators on the streets of New York City, along with the state attorney general and the American Civil Liberties Union have denounced Khalil's arrest by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents as an attack on free speech.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mahmoud-khalil-immigration-arrest-columbia-protests-1.7479146

[iemanja]

7. It truly is a horrific state of affairs

and people like Davidai would happily turn the US into an authoritarian hell hole where free speech is abolished, all because his hatred of Palestinians and lust for mass murder overcomes his respect for our constitution and laws concerning grounds for deportation of green card holders.

[617Blue]

8. "attacking higher education and the Ivy League education system" - this is a great point.

The purpose of all of this is a attack on education. It's what authoritarians do.

[iemanja]

10. Which is why Trump stripped Columbia of millions of dollars in grants

and now Columbia responds by expelling and revoking degrees of some who occupied buildings. This all undermines education and free speech.

[cliffside]

4. knr nt

[Ping Tung]

9. I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. Albert Camus

All that's missing is Joe McCarthy and HUAC.