{"id":1064,"date":"2025-04-02T12:01:41","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T12:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetoptenwebhosts.com\/?p=1064"},"modified":"2025-04-02T16:51:46","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T16:51:46","slug":"professors-sue-trump-over-crackdown-on-pro-palestinian-dissent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/02\/professors-sue-trump-over-crackdown-on-pro-palestinian-dissent\/","title":{"rendered":"Professors sue Trump over crackdown on pro-Palestinian dissent"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

NYU\u2019s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, which sued the federal government last week for its detainment of noncitizens on college campuses protesting the war in Gaza, <\/span>asked a Massachusetts court<\/span><\/a> on Tuesday to block the Trump administration from carrying out mass arrests and deportations of student and faculty protesters during the ongoing lawsuit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>March 25 complaint<\/span><\/a> \u2014 in conjunction with AAUP chapters at Harvard University and Rutgers University, as well as the Middle East Studies Association \u2014 claims the government has arbitrarily discriminated against noncitizens and created a \u201cclimate of repression and fear\u201d on university campuses. It specifically challenges the detainments of <\/span>nine pro-Palestinian protesters<\/span><\/a> over the last three weeks, including Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University student R\u00fcmeysa \u00d6zt\u00fcrk.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not only the people, in this case noncitizens, being silenced with these threats that are harmed \u2014 but their students, their colleagues, everybody else at the university is harmed when those people are silenced,\u201d CAS professor Sonya Posmentier told WSN. \u201cThe complaint hinges on this important part of the First Amendment that guarantees our right to listen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

CAS professor Zachary Samalin, and vice president of NYU AAUP, also said President Donald Trump, along with the Department of Homeland Security and Department of State, has infringed upon people\u2019s right to hear from others expressing dissenting positions. The lawsuit argues that restraints on speech have compromised the quality of professors\u2019 work and students\u2019 educational development.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a statement to WSN, a senior DHS spokesperson said that \u201ctaking over buildings, defacing private property and harassing Jewish students\u201d does not constitute free speech and that \u201cit is a privilege to be granted a visa\u201d to study in the United States. A State Department spokesperson declined to comment due to pending litigation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The complaint criticizes President Donald Trump\u2019s characterization of protests against Israel\u2019s ongoing siege in Gaza as \u201cpro-Hamas\u201d and \u201cantisemitic,\u201d stipulating that his administration has \u201cstretched the label beyond the breaking point.\u201d Talya Nevins \u2014 a legal fellow at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the group that filed last week\u2019s complaint \u2014 said this conflation has been used to justify retaliation against students who have engaged in pro-Palestinian advocacy, scholarship and other forms of protected expression.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s having an enormous effect on the ability of noncitizen and citizen students and faculty alike to pursue their research, to learn and speak freely in the classroom, to attend protests and engage in advocacy together,\u201d Nevins said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Salamin said that he encouraged NYU to also sue the federal government, adding that despite having \u201cincredible power,\u201d the university has yet to criticize Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown. He referenced the university\u2019s <\/span>involvement in 2017 lawsuits<\/span><\/a> that challenged the administration\u2019s 90-day suspension of U.S. travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries. The university had said the executive order would \u201cunlawfully encumber\u201d its global site offerings and ability to support international students.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In a statement detailing its interest in joining the lawsuit, NYU had said the executive order \u201cimproperly compromises the diversity that is central to NYU\u2019s identity\u201d and that more than 120 students at the university were from the countries facing travel bans. It said the travel ban would hinder the university\u2019s academic programming related to Middle Eastern studies and \u201cdeprive NYU of opportunities to share those key democratic traditions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a kind of suit that could have been brought by NYU,\u201d Samalin said. \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing this time is that the NYU administration, and nearly all university administrations, have completely abdicated responsibility for protecting their students and their faculty from the obvious harms that are that we\u2019re seeing.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Posmentier said members of NYU AAUP have spoken with NYU leadership regarding potential pushback against Trump\u2019s crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech, but that the conversations were unproductive. She also criticized the university\u2019s student conduct policy\u2019s citation of \u201c<\/span>code words, like \u2018Zionist<\/span><\/a>,\u2019\u201d as potentially discriminatory speech for \u201cdangerous\u201d conflation of pro-Palestinian protest with antisemitic harassment.<\/span><\/p>\n

NYU is currently <\/span>one of 10 universities<\/span><\/a> facing scrutiny from the Department of Justice\u2019s Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism. The university was not, however, named in a more recent list of <\/span>60 colleges<\/span><\/a> slated for investigations by the Department of Education as a result of antisemitism complaints.<\/span><\/p>\n

Contact Yezen Saadah at ysaadah@nyunews.com.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

This story Professors sue Trump over crackdown on pro-Palestinian dissent<\/a> appeared first on Washington Square News<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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