Contact The Editor
Articles By This Author
The head of the nation's leading organization fighting antisemitism questioned the Trump administration's aggressive effort to find and deport foreign students who have protested on behalf of Palestinians, suggesting that the administration is betraying American values, denying due process and punishing people for their views rather than their actions.
In pulling student visas and seeking to deport protesters who hold green cards, the administration has failed to ensure due process that is central to America's justice system, wrote Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive and national director of the Anti-Defamation League.
"If we sacrifice our constitutional freedoms in the pursuit of security, we undermine the very foundation of the diverse, pluralistic society we seek to defend," Greenblatt wrote in an essay published on the website eJewishPhilanthropy on Thursday.
He wrote that there was a "substantial difference" between merely expressing controversial views and depriving others of civil rights, and he said ADL has a long history of supporting free speech.
"We should be holding people accountable for actual crimes, not Orwellian thoughtcrimes," he said, adding that it's not possible to know whether the immigration enforcement was targeting "constitutionally-protected speech" or "genuine violations of law" because the administration has not explained the charges.
Administration officials have defended their approach. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that "no one has the right to a visa. "If you are in this country on a student visa and are a participant in those movements, we have a right to deny your visa," he told reporters.
Taylor Rogers, a spokesperson for the White House, added on Thursday that Donald Trump has "done more to fight anti-Semitism and preserve free speech than any other president in American history. The Trump administration will continue fighting to preserve free speech for American citizens and push back against the anti-Semitic violence that plagued our college campuses on Joe Biden's watch."
The ADL has been a leading voice in condemning antisemitism on college campuses, most recently in the wake of some of the intense pro-Palestinian protests following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the war in Gaza that followed.
University leaders often struggled to balance competing rights - protesters' rights to free speech and assembly, and students' rights to feel safe on campus without discrimination or harassment.
The ADL consistently encouraged schools to do more to combat anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiments, a mantle that the Trump administration has seized with vigor.
Within days of his inauguration, Trump issued an executive order calling on federal agencies to familiarize colleges with the grounds for revocation of visas, so that schools can report international students and faculty for investigation or deportation.
Last month, immigration officers seized a graduate student who had been involved in pro-Palestinian protests and negotiations at Columbia University, even though he has a green card. Officers also sought another Columbia student, a native of South Korea who also was a lawful permanent resident, who had joined a pro-Palestinian protest. Both have challenged the government's actions in court.
Several international students at Columbia - the center of protests last spring - have been sought or detained by immigration officers and threatened with deportation. And at other schools across the country, several students on visas have been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
The administration has also threatened to pull federal funding from dozens of schools if they do not take action to combat antisemitism, and it canceled $400 million in contracts and grants to Columbia, arguing that the school had failed to address threats to Jewish students and faculty. Princeton University announced that several dozen federal grants had been suspended this week.
Trump and his aides have cast their actions as defending Jewish students and taking antisemitism seriously, something they say the Biden administration failed to do. Now the country's leading group fighting antisemitism pushed back.
Greenblatt welcomed some of what the Trump administration has done to combat antisemitism, saying it had taken a number of "bold and important steps" in recent weeks. "This new posture has led to demonstrable and dramatic improvements in policy and in practice on many college campuses," he wrote.
But the thrust of his essay suggested the administration had gone too far. The headline was, "We must fight for Jewish students - and our values."
Discerning the line between peaceful protest and antisemitism has been challenging for universities, with some academics calling chants, posters and symbols such as "globalize the intifada" expressions of Palestinian rights, and others saying they are hostile messages that frighten Jewish people who support Israel's right to exist.
Last spring, after police cleared a demonstration at Columbia, similar tent encampments popped up at colleges across the country and, at many schools, police crackdowns followed.
This academic year has been much calmer, in part because of clearer and stricter rules regarding demonstrations at many campuses.
(COMMENT, BELOW)