Campus Activists Fear Trump Administration Crackdown

Summary

Campus Activists Fear Trump Administration Crackdown

Released on April 14, 2025, by NPR's "The NPR Politics Podcast"

In the April 14, 2025 episode of The NPR Politics Podcast, host Ashley Lopez delves into the growing anxiety among college students regarding the Trump administration's stringent policies on campus protests. The episode, titled "Campus Activists Fear Trump Administration Crackdown," explores the implications of the administration's labeling of certain protests as anti-Semitic and the subsequent actions taken against noncitizen students involved in these demonstrations.

Administration's Crackdown on Campus Protests

The discussion begins with an overview of the Trump administration's approach to college campus protests, particularly those related to international conflicts such as Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza. The administration has issued an executive order directing federal authorities to "use all available and appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence" (03:32). This directive has been applied to protests deemed anti-Semitic, leading to the deportation of noncitizen students involved in such activities.

Elena Moore, co-host, explains that this crackdown is a direct response to the "dramatic events" on campuses last spring, citing specific instances at Columbia University and Tufts University where prolonged protests led to arrests and the suspension of academic activities (03:32).

Student Experiences and Fears

Elena Moore highlights the pervasive fear among students, especially international attendees. She shares insights from conversations with students like Sam, an international PhD student at Cornell, who expressed profound fear for her physical safety due to the administration's actions (03:21). Sam stated:

"I have to hide my name as if I was a criminal who has done, I don't know, something that needs a cover up. It makes me mad because this is who I am." (03:09)

The fear extends beyond personal safety. Many international students are concerned about losing their visas and the financial implications of changing their education plans in the United States, a country known for its expensive higher education system.

Impact on Campus Activism

The administration's stringent measures have significantly dampened the spirit of activism on campuses. Elena Moore cites a student from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, whose group has advised international students against leading demonstrations or being vocal about their causes (05:42). This chilling effect is not limited to pro-Palestinian activism; it has broadened to suppressing any form of protest, as an unnamed Jewish student from Johns Hopkins University shared:

"So many students are just terrified, not even protesting in support of Palestine, but protesting in support of anything. You know, there's just a stigma since Trump has been in office against protesting entirely because it's seen as so dangerous." (05:57)

Criticism and Calls for Due Process

The administration's actions have drawn criticism from various quarters, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Domenico Montanaro references an op-ed by Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the ADL, who termed the situation a "catastrophe for Jewish students on campus" and emphasized the necessity of due process:

"There is a substantial difference between expressing controversial political views and engaging in conduct that deprives others of their civil rights. This distinction must guide enforcement actions." (07:28)

Greenblatt further criticized the administration's approach, stating that actions against students appear to lack adherence to the "spirit of the country," emphasizing accountability for actual crimes rather than "Orwellian thought crimes."

University Responses and Funding Threats

The administration's crackdown has also impacted the financial stability of universities. Elena Moore discusses how the administration has threatened to withdraw federal funding from institutions perceived to violate civil rights, most notably Columbia University, which faced a threat of losing $400 million (10:59). Cornel University experienced a freeze on $1 billion in federal funds as part of a broader investigation into alleged civil rights violations (10:59).

This financial pressure has forced universities to comply with the administration's terms, often at the expense of academic freedom and support for student organizations. Domenico Montanaro draws parallels between the administration's tactics on campuses and its pressure on law firms, noting the broader chilling effects on institutions reliant on federal funding (12:07).

University Support and Student Disenchantment

The varied responses from universities have left many students feeling unsupported. Elena Moore recounts the experience of Yehud Stith, an organizer at Cornell, who feels disenchanted with his university's inability to provide adequate protections or support in the face of governmental pressure:

"The students started to cry and was like, I didn't think anybody cared about us." (14:05)

This sentiment reflects a growing disconnect between student needs and institutional responses, leading to increased feelings of vulnerability and abandonment among the student body.

Long-term Implications: Brain Drain and Reduced Free Speech

Looking ahead, the administration's actions may lead to significant long-term consequences. Domenico Montanaro warns of a potential brain drain, where talented students and esteemed professors may choose to pursue their education and careers elsewhere to avoid the risks of deportation or harassment:

"You're going to have a lot of students who rethink whether or not they want to go to school in the United States, depending on which administration is in office." (15:33)

Additionally, the chilling effect on free speech and activism may stifle the dynamic and critical environment that colleges and universities are traditionally known for fostering.

Conclusion

The Trump administration's aggressive stance on campus protests has engendered widespread fear and uncertainty among college students, particularly international attendees. By labeling certain protests as anti-Semitic and leveraging federal funding as a means of enforcement, the administration has not only targeted specific groups but also undermined the foundational principles of free speech and academic freedom on American campuses. The long-term repercussions may include a diminished academic environment and a potential loss of international talent, posing significant challenges to the future of higher education in the United States.

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Timestamps

• 03:09 - Sam's fear of being identified and targeted.
• 03:21 - Elena Moore discusses Sam's daily fears.
• 03:32 - Explanation of the executive order and its implications.
• 05:42 - Impact on campus activism and students advising against demonstrations.
• 05:57 - Unnamed Johns Hopkins student's perspective on fear of protesting.
• 07:28 - Jonathan Greenblatt's op-ed on due process and anti-Semitism.
• 10:59 - Threats to university funding from the administration.
• 12:07 - Comparison of administration's tactics on campuses and law firms.
• 14:05 - Student disenchantment with university support.
• 15:33 - Potential brain drain and long-term implications on free speech.

Transcript

[NPR]

NPR informs and connects communities around the country, providing reliable information in times of crisis. Federal funding helps us fulfill our mission to create a more informed public and ensures that public radio remains available to everyone. Learn more about safeguarding the future of public media, visit protectmypublicmedia.org hi, this is.

[Sarah]

Sarah from Dallas, Texas. After 24 years of education, today is my last ever day of medical school.

[Ashley Lopez]

This podcast was recorded at 1:37pm Eastern Time on Monday, April 14, 2025.

[Sarah]

Things may have changed since then, but I will be on my way to being a pediatrician. Okay, here's the show.

[Ashley Lopez]

Congratulations.

[Elena Moore]

Thank you. Doctor.

[Domenico Montanaro]

Yeah, that is amazing. I mean, that last year of medical school is really, really hard.

[Ashley Lopez]

Yeah. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Pun Podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.

[Elena Moore]

I'm Elena Moore. I also cover politics.

[Domenico Montanaro]

And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

[Ashley Lopez]

And today on the show, we're going to talk about how the Trump administration's policies about college campus protests are causing some students to worry. Before Trump took office, college campuses across the country saw protests related to Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza. With Trump now in office, the administration has labeled those protests as anti Semitic and has made moves to deport noncitizen students who participated in those protests. Elena, you have talked to a number of students who were involved in those campus protests in general. What are they worried about now?

[Elena Moore]

Yeah, I talked to a dozen college and university students around the country. A few of them are not citizens, are here on visas. And then a lot of them are US Citizens that were protesting the war in Gaza last year and are, you know, organizers on campus. And really the overall kind of sentiment I got from a bunch of people is that there are a lot of folks that are scared on campus right now. There are people that just feel on edge because they're seeing the news reports of how the administration is taking action on this. And then there are international students who are genuinely worried about, you know, losing their visa and having to change their education plan. As we know, it's, you know, expensive to go to schools here. It's a big deal. And then there are international students who, you know, worry about their safety in this. Obviously, we know that in the last few weeks, there have been some really high profile arrests. At Columbia University, graduate student and legal permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil was detained by immigration authorities in Massachusetts. At Tufts University, a PhD student, Rumesa Oster, was also arrested and detained. She had a visa. And so I, you know, I talked to A student who has to go by Sam. She's on a visa, international student, PhD student at Cornell. And, you know, she said she was really afraid more than anything for her physical safety. And it made her sad to not be able to give her full name because of her fear of her safety. But it was a hard thing for her to do.

[Sarah]

I have to hide my name as if I was a criminal who has done, I don't know, something that needs a cover up. It makes me mad because this is who I am.

[Elena Moore]

You know, she told me every day when she wakes up and she picks out her clothes. Now she thinks, are these comfortable enough to be, like, arrested and detained in Alina?

[Ashley Lopez]

Well, what is the government's reasoning for clamping down on these students?

[Elena Moore]

Well, this all stems from an executive order that the president signed shortly after coming back into office and orders the administration to, quote, use all available and appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti Semitic harassment and violence. They're kind of drawing on the, you know, really dramatic events of last spring where we saw all around the country, college campus really become mass sites of protest. You know, I think the biggest example was Columbia University. Their encampment lasted a good amount of time, and it resulted in arrests and suspensions. And the environment was so tense that the school decided to go remote for the rest of the year. And a rabbi on campus came out and said that, you know, Jewish students shouldn't walk around campus. There were reports of anti Semitic activity. And so, you know, there are examples. The administration may be drawing on some of this. We even saw congressional lawmakers last year go to Columbia University and talk to some Jewish students about how they were feeling. So I think that this order cites on some of these really highly publicized examples that happened and, you know, had real effects on people.

[Ashley Lopez]

Yeah. I wonder, has this climate changed how folks are thinking about campus activism from here on out?

[Elena Moore]

I think so. In some cases, students did kind of reflect on that. I talked to a student who does pro Palestinian activism work, and he is at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and he said his group has actually advised international students not to lead demonstrations, not to be vocal. He said people have quit the group because they're worried. And then for others, they say that this fear has kind of gone even past just pro Palestinian organizing. I talked to a student at Johns Hopkins University. He's a US Citizen, a Jewish student on campus, and he asked not to give his name because he's worried about getting harassment online. But here's how he characterized how the larger student body is feeling right now.

[Unnamed Student]

So many students are just terrified, not even protesting in support of Palestine, but protesting in support of anything. You know, there's just a stigma since Trump has been in office against protesting entirely because it's seen as so dangerous.

[Elena Moore]

He told me it's been incredibly, in his words, heartbreaking to see antisemitism, that word, be, in his opinion, weaponized to enact what he considers repression and cause this chilling effect on campus.

[Domenico Montanaro]

I think it's really notable that you're talking there to someone who said that they're a Jewish student, because there clearly were cases of antisemitism on college campuses that happened as a result of, of, you know, some of these protests. And, and I think it's. There was an important op ed piece that was written by Jonathan Greenblatt, who's the head of the Anti Defamation League. He called what had happened since October 7th a, quote, catastrophe for Jewish students on campus. But he said that while we do not know all the facts, we do know that in every one of these cases, due process is essential in talking about whether or not to strip students of visas, as we've seen with a lot of international students, you know, he said, but it hasn't even remotely been clear that that's been the standard. Indeed, it's not about the letter of the law, but the spirit of the country. And he said there's a substantial difference between expressing controversial political views and engaging in conduct that deprives others of their civil rights. This distinction must guide enforcement actions. And, you know, he noted that we should hold people accountable for actual crimes, not Orwellian thought crimes. And as we navigate this challeng moment, we must resist false choices. But we know in politics we get a lot of false choices, don't we?

[Elena Moore]

Yeah. I mean, and just to be clear, the Anti Defamation League is a group that has been very, very critical of these campus protests. They've been tracking alleged acts of anti Semitism, and they have supported some of the actions that the president has taken to combat, in their words, anti Semitism. So this is a really striking criticism of the president, given the background of this organization.

[Ashley Lopez]

Yeah, and Domenico, you mentioned due process here. I mean, is that what feels different about this? Because, I mean, there really isn't nothing new about American presidents getting mad at college kids protesting, but the way in which the Trump administration has set its sight on college campuses, it does feel a little different than what we've seen in decades past.

[Domenico Montanaro]

College campuses have always been the incubator for, you know, protest movements. And college campuses have always been places that have prided themselves on being able to allow for the ability to express, you know, even controversial points of view. But then to have some education around that to back it up, to be able to have these open forums of discussion, you know, in the 1960s and 70s, obviously you had the Vietnam War and you had presidents very upset, obviously, with what was going on on college campuses. We saw moments of violence in those times. A lot of that was local. I mean, think of something like the Kent State massacre, for example. But you didn't have the same level of from the top saying ideologically, we're going to find certain people and we're going to kick them out of the country based on the fact that they were expressing a point of view that the US Government didn't support.

[Ashley Lopez]

Yeah. Okay. Well, let's take a quick break. More in a moment.

[NPR]

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[Ashley Lopez]

And we're back. So the actions of a few protesters seem like they're having potential long term impacts on the campuses themselves, Elena, things like civil rights investigations and funding. Can you talk more about how this is affecting some more like basic functions of universities?

[Elena Moore]

Yeah. I mean, the administration has threatened to pull funding from different schools over what they argue are civil rights violations. We've seen that. Most notably at Columbia University, which the administration threatened to pull $400 million of federal funding if they didn't agree to certain terms. And it seems like the school is going to adhere to those. But it's been something happening at a lot of different schools, including, you know, at Cornel last week, we saw the administration freeze a billion dollars in federal funds. So this is, like, strikingly large amounts of money that these private universities do really rely on. It stems from this larger investigation that the administration is doing into a number of schools over what they consider are violations to the Civil Rights act, you know, discriminating against Jewish students. And they are, you know, investigating all of these schools, and that's kind of one of the byproducts of that.

[Sarah]

Yeah.

[Ashley Lopez]

And, Domenico, this also reminds me of how law firms have been reacting to pressure from the Trump administration. I wonder how you compare the two. Like, how both institutions are acting in this moment.

[Domenico Montanaro]

You know, there are definitely parallels between what these law firms are, you know, doing or not doing and college campuses, because the president is using the funds from the federal government and the pressure that he could level against any of them to say, I will call you out. I will make your life miserable. I will make your life difficult if you don't work with us. I will withhold billions of dollars in funding in the cases of universities, and you won't be able to have your labs, you won't be able to pay professors. And all of those things really have chilling effects. And a lot of universities aren't sure what to do. And we've seen only a few presidents, really, of universities who've come out to say that they are against these things and that they're not gonna cow to the pressure. I'm thinking of the president of Wesleyan, the president of Princeton, and not very many others, to be frank.

[Ashley Lopez]

Yeah. And Domenico, how is that line being drawn here between what is protected free speech and criminal behavior?

[Domenico Montanaro]

There's a big difference, obviously, between the two things, and it's quite the fine line. But, you know, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, for example, when he was talking about the Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil, who the US Wound up detaining with the intention to deport, you know, Rubio essentially said that the US doesn't need a reason, that he doesn't need a reason to strip someone of their student visa, that he simply has the power. But, you know, again, as Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the adl, the Anti Defamation League, wrote in that op ed, he said, it's not just about the letter of the law, but the spirit of the country. And I think that that's where this is really running into the idea of, yeah, sure, you can do this, but is it American? Is it the way that the United States should be run? And on the other side of that, you know, the administration makes this argument that international student visas are really a privilege and not a right, and that the government decides who gets these visas and who doesn't.

[Ashley Lopez]

Yeah. And Alina, for the students who have been caught up in this, what kind of support are they getting from their campuses so far?

[Elena Moore]

I think it really depends. I mean, all of these schools are in our new territory, so to speak. I was talking to a student, an organizer at Cornell named Yehud Stith. He talked about how he's felt disenchanted with his university for a while. You know, he was an organizer protesting against the war last. But this level of scrutiny from the administration and seeing the way that campuses around the country are kind of handling it, it's made him even more disenchanted. And he's a citizen, but he's talked to international students who feel this way. And he remembered, he told me he talked to this one student recently, and when he started telling her about how he's trying to get the school to agree to more protections, trainings on how to deal with immigration officers, stuff like that, the students started to cry and was like, I didn't think anybod cared about us. So I think that there's just a feeling, even if it's like, well, the universities themselves may not know how to respond because this is so new and so much money. I do think there's like a hurt among a lot of students of like, well, what about me? You know, how am I protected here?

[Ashley Lopez]

Yeah. And Domenico, it strikes me that even if the administration were to reverse course on this, like maybe reinstate some of that funding or at least, you know, ceasing to deport international students who took part in protests, there still could be some pretty significant long term implications of chilling speech on campuses.

[Domenico Montanaro]

Well, I mean, I think, number one, you're gonna have a lot of students who rethink whether or not they want to go to school in the United States, depending on which administration is in office. And that could potentially mean a brain drain. I mean, we've seen that with some professors already who have either decided to leave or who were recruited and no longer gonna stay in the United States from other countries because, you know, they're sometimes leaders in their fields, you know, lead scientists, people who are have made tremendous breakthroughs in science and other fields. And, you know, that's something that a lot of people are concerned about, that you could see students and professors who just decide, you know what, it's not worth the risk to be deported or detained in the United States. And they'll do it somewhere else.

[Ashley Lopez]

Well, let's leave it there for today. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.

[Elena Moore]

I'm Elena Moore. I also cover politics.

[Domenico Montanaro]

And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

[Ashley Lopez]

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.

[NPR]

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