Tony (9:28)
All right, first up, let's start with what the Left is saying. The left denounces Khalil's arrest, calling it blatantly illegal. Many say the funding cuts are similarly unlawful and will have a chilling effect on colleges. Others say the moves are part of an effort to dismantle higher education. In the Intercept, Natasha Leonard said if Trump can deport Mahmoud Khalil, freedom of speech is dead. There is no going back from this point. President Donald Trump's administration is trying to deport a man solely for his First Amendment protected activity without due process. By all existing legal standards, this is illegal and unconstitutional, a violation of First Amendment protections and the Fifth Amendment protected right to due process, leonard wrote. If Khalil's green card is revoked and he is deported, no one can have any confidence in legal and constitutional protections. As a line of defense against arbitrary state violence and punishment, Khalil's arrest marks an extraordinary fascist escalation. Some of the only activity not protected by the First Amendment in this regard is material support for a group designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the government. What counts as material support has a strict legal standard. Even expressing support or sympathy for a foreign terrorist organization is not included in that standard, leonard said. Khalil has not been charged with material support for terrorism nor any other crime under law. Green cards cannot be summarily revoked. Grounds for removal require criminal convictions for specific crimes, including assault or theft, or proof of visa fraud. In Bloomberg, Noah Feldman argued cutting Columbia's aid over alleged antisemitism is illegal. Federal law and regulations say the government can't terminate these grants or contracts for violation of the anti discrimination law unless a court has found that it has done so after a hearing at which the university has the right to defend itself, feldman wrote. The announced action fits a pattern the Trump administration has been following since it came into office. It declares it's doing things it can't do legally and doesn't worry about the consequences. At some point, a university, whether Columbia or the next one Trump targets, will challenge the action in court and will win. By then, however, the damage will already be done as universities that depend on federal funding inevitably try to figure out what they can do to avoid the disaster of losing the money that enables their basic functions, feldman said. A court faced with the Colombia situation, or one like it is extremely likely to rule the administration's actions unlawful and order them reversed. That's what happened with essentially all of the Trump administration's unlawful actions thus far. In Inside Higher Education, Brian Rosenberg wrote about the attempt to destroy Columbia. Like most announcements coming from the administration, this one was vague, probably unlawful, and ominously threatening, hinting at further, even larger reductions in funding to follow. Cuts of the magnitude hinted at in the announcement would at least cripple the university and potentially render it unable to operate in anything like its current form, Rosenberg said. Any attempt to make sense of the Trump administration's javert like pursuit of Colombia needs to begin with the recognition that it is not in any real sense about Colombia. Neither is it about antisemitism or free speech. It is not even at its roots about education. It is rather about the exercise of raw power to intimidate, enforce obedience and silence dissent. This is how authoritarian regimes work, and as a template for the federal government's approach to journalism, business and pretty much every sphere of life, it should matter even to those who are indifferent to the fate of Columbia or higher education, rosenberg wrote. Other institutions and organizations inside and outside higher education might want to think carefully about their stance of self protective silence in the face of a government that covets the unchecked power of authoritarianism. Alright, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right mostly supports Khalil's arrest, arguing that his actions merited deportation. Some say the funding cuts are a necessary check on colleges that have strayed from their purpose. Others say the cuts are defensible. But Khalil's arrest seems illegal. The New York Post editorial board said Team Trump's crackdown on campus hate is a defense of decency and a push against perverted privilege. With the reported arrest and likely deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a noncitizen ringleader of anti Semitic protests at Columbia and Barnard, ICE has put fresh teeth on President Donald Trump's crackdown on campus hate, the board wrote. This movement was never merely about protest. Ever since Hamas's October 7, 2023 terror attacks, it has sought to intimidate America with passion and force, occupying campus quads, blockading or rampaging through libraries, harassing and assaulting visible Jews. Nor is it truly a student movement, as arrest records show. Even actions on campus include gobs of older career radicals. Yet far too many campus authorities have done as little as possible to stop it, hiding behind free speech concerns that plainly don't cover this behavior. Now, the Trump administration has begun to hold academia to account for its failings as well as acting directly against those like Mahmoud Khalil who abuse America's welcome to foster violent hate, the board said. This is both a defense of decency and a push against the pervasion of privilege, and we look forward to seeing a lot more of it In Fox News, rtiku Singh wrote. As a Columbia alum, I support President Trump's move to pull federal funds President Donald Trump's decision to cancel $400 million in federal grants from Columbia University for its culture of anti Semitism should be a moment of self reflection for leftists and liberals worldwide, singh said. As a student at Columbia in the late 2000s, it was evident to me that many academics and student groups sympathized more with the perpetrators of terror than the victims. In 2007, they hosted then Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, not Iranian women subjected to enforced hijab. The next year, they were silent when militants trained in Pakistan attacked India on November 26, 2008. Though the signs were there, I never imagined the leftist Islamist nexus at Columbia would push the campus into a spiral of violence reminiscent of developing countries. I never thought Ivy League campuses would exhibit scenes of violent threats by Islamists, singh wrote. President Donald Trump's decision to cancel $400 million in federal funding to Colombia is a good start. Next, his government must prosecute individuals and organizations involved in weaponizing anti Semitic sentiments. In the Washington Examiner, Tom Rogan explored protecting Jewish civil rights and the First Amendment. At Columbia, where Jewish students were targeted with threats of anti Semitic violence or willful intimidation, any students engaged who are responsible should face swift sanction from the college in question. Too few students have been expelled for such activity, Rogin said. Where colleges fail to protect civil rights, the suspension of federal grants is reasonable recourse. Still, it is concerning and un American for the federal government to deport students or otherwise seek to intimidate American students into silence simply because they offer pro Palestinian or anti Israeli sentiments. Both things are happening at Columbia University. It's one thing to strip financial aid in response to an institution's failure to protect civil rights. It's a very different thing to arrest students simply because they have said things that the government of the day and its supporters dislike, rogan said. This arrest is plainly contradictory to the interest of vigorous public debate. On a matter of public interest, it will surely deter American students who do not support Hamas but oppose Israeli foreign policy from speaking their minds. That is incompatible with the founders intent in their construction of the First Amendment. Alright, let's head over to Isaac for his take.
