Key points:
- Targeted enforcement action against students and scholars should be deeply concerning to all within the academic community
- What will higher ed look like after the Department of Education is dismantled?
- The urgency of now: Fighting back against the destruction of public institutions
- For more news on academic freedom, visit eCN’s Campus Leadership hub
As a doctoral student currently engaged in scholarly research within a U.S. higher education institution, I find myself increasingly alarmed by recent developments that suggest an erosion of academic freedom and civil liberties.
The arrests and detentions of fellow students and scholars, including Rumeysa Ozturk of Tufts University, Mahmoud Khalil of Columbia University, and Badar Khan Suri of Georgetown University, among others, have shaken the foundations of what it means to pursue knowledge in a free society. These individuals, many of whom held legal immigration status and had not been charged with any crimes, were detained by federal agents–often masked and in plain clothes–under accusations tied primarily to their political speech and protest activities concerning the ongoing war in Gaza.
The case of Rumeysa Ozturk is particularly harrowing. A Turkish Ph.D. student and Fulbright scholar studying child development, she was forcibly taken by masked agents in broad daylight as she walked to a university interfaith center to break her Ramadan fast. The arrest, which was captured on video, drew national outcry and protests in Massachusetts. Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and Columbia graduate, was similarly detained without criminal charges, ostensibly for his presence at pro-Palestinian demonstrations, despite his documented opposition to antisemitism and his role as a mediator during campus protests. Meanwhile, Dr. Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral scholar at Georgetown University, was arrested outside his home and accused of ties to Hamas, without public presentation of evidence and amid court orders now blocking his deportation.
These incidents are not isolated. At least 600 other scholars and students, including Columbia student Leqaa Kordia, Brown University physician Rasha Alawieh, Indian doctoral student Ranjani Srinivasan, and French scientist Marc Leclerc, have faced arrest, deportation, or visa revocation in recent weeks. Each case appears tied to either social media activity or participation in protests critical of U.S. foreign policy, rather than any provable connection to violence or criminality.
To observe such targeted enforcement action against students and scholars is to witness a shift that should be deeply concerning to all within the academic community. While U.S. authorities cite national security and counterterrorism, the lack of transparency, the absence of formal charges, and the obscurity of legal provisions used to justify these arrests evoke comparisons to darker moments in global and American history. Richard J. Evan’s second book in his acclaimed trilogy on the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, during the 1930s, explored how students and professors were among the first to be purged from universities for voicing opposition to state ideology. Academic dissent was branded as treason, and intellectuals were scapegoated in service of nationalist propaganda.
Closer to home, the United States has witnessed the repression of student voices during periods of political unrest. In the 1960s and 1970s, university campuses became sites of resistance to the Vietnam War. The violent suppression of protests–most tragically at Kent State University in 1970–revealed the state’s willingness to target young people for their dissent. Similarly, award-winning historian Jeanne Theoharis researched that during the civil rights era, students at institutions such as Howard University and the University of Mississippi faced surveillance, arrest, and administrative retaliation for challenging systemic racism and advocating for equality.
These historical precedents highlight the pattern now emerging: When governments feel threatened by movements of youth and intellect, they often seek to criminalize expression, undermine due process, and weaponize legal systems against those who dare to speak out. What distinguishes the present moment is the sophisticated use of immigration law and national security rhetoric to silence lawful dissent within institutions of higher learning. The implications for academic freedom are profound.
This leads us to ask: Where does this end? If the state can detain a Ph.D. student for co-authoring an op-ed, or expel a professor for attending a protest, then no member of the academic community–whether citizen or international scholar–is immune. The answer, tragically, is that we do not know. But history teaches us that silence only accelerates decline. If we, as students and scholars, do not stand together across disciplines, identities, and nationalities, then the erosion of rights we see today may become the norm of tomorrow.
To speak out in defense of others is never without risk. Yet, the greater risk lies in inaction. Higher education thrives only when critical inquiry is protected and when scholars are free to explore, question, and challenge dominant narratives. If we allow fear to dictate our response to these detentions, then the very purpose of the university–as a space of knowledge, dialogue, and justice–will be lost.
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