Student protesters face potential Trump crackdown

Student protesters could be in the crossfire of the Trump administration’s crackdown on colleges, with activists increasingly concerned about freedom of speech for pro-Palestinian advocates.  

Those on campus have already seen stricter rules around demonstrations this academic year, but President-elect Trump, as a candidate, threatened protesters with everything from military action to deportation.  

“While there has already been harsh crackdowns and repression across the country under the Biden administration, there is concern of a Trump administration ramping up and taking even more extreme unlawful and unconstitutional crackdowns on student protesters who speak out against U.S. support for Israel’s genocide of Palestine,” said Amr Shabaik, legal director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in California. 

Trump has repeatedly floated deportation as a punitive tool, threatening to take away the visas from international students.

“One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country. You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave,” Trump said at an event to donors, according to individuals who spoke to The Washington Post in May. 

The platform adopted by the Republican National Committee over the summer also listed as a goal to “deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again." 

“Trump has threatened mass deportations of millions of people, including students. Immigrants are a vital part of our communities, and we stand against his threatened use of violence, law enforcement, intimidation and the separation and breakup of families that will result from his threatened actions,” said Shabaik.

The president-elect has also regularly threatened financial repercussions for colleges and universities as a way of imposing his agenda. Legal experts fear the schools may soon face outside pressure to exert their own repercussions on their student bodies, particularly as Trump rolls out a Cabinet full of loyalists.

“In his last administration, he did appoint Kenneth Marcus, who pioneered the strategy of misusing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to try to censor speech critical of Israel on college campuses,” said Radhika Sainath, senior staff attorney with Palestine Legal. 

“So, I do think that there is a very, very strong possibility that he will appoint people who are looking to quash the movement for Palestinian rights, either by redefining or using definitions of antisemitism that make it impossible to criticize Israel,” Sainath added. 

Pro-Palestinian protesters have already faced a challenging environment under the Biden administration, with schools releasing stricter rules around protesting over the summer so the encampments that canceled some graduation ceremonies last spring cannot happen again.  

“I can’t speak for all students, but over the past year, students have shown their resolve, bravery, and ingenuity under a hostile Biden administration and while dealing with hostile school administrations, law enforcement agencies and district attorneys,” Shabaik said.  

Since Trump was elected, he has quickly shown he will remain staunchly pro-Israel.

As of this writing, the president-elect has so far only announced an ambassador for one nation, Israel, with Mike Huckabee, a self-proclaimed Zionist, getting the nod. Trump had also spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu three times in the week since Election Day.

Back in October, The Washington Post reported Trump told Netanyahu in a phone call to "do what you have to do."

And well before he takes office, experts say free speech is under attack at colleges.

“Professors right now are having their syllabi questioned, being told by administrators to stick the syllabus and to not talk about Israel and Palestine. So, there is this very McCarthy environment that's happening right now, and we do expect it to intensify with Trump,” Sainath said. 

“We've long said that Palestine is the canary in the coal mine, right? And so that these types of things ... could also make it harder for students to talk about, or professors to teach, critical race theory or to discuss topics that have been targeted by the right,” Sainath said. “We do see more of that happening as well."