In April 2024, about thirty students from the Columbia university He entrenched himself on the campus of New Yorkstarting a protest that extended for two weeks. On the night of April 30 –with Joe Biden Even in the White House – the police broke into the facilities and dissolved the camping. However, the protest spark already set fire to the American university network.
In different countries and periods of history, universities have been criticism and social denunciation. The genocide that is committing Israel in Gaza – A live and live massacre – it is no exception, and has motivated countless students in different countries.
“The camping ones were great“says a Public Stephanie SieburthEmeritus Professor of Romanesque Philology at the University of Duke (North Carolina). “The dominant press had a Sensationalist vision of violence and riots, [pero] They were actually peaceful camping. “
In protests Students “Muslims, Jews, Christians, atheists … all together” participated.. Also teachers, who “gave class to explain a little the story of the Palestine War.” The role of the Jewish community in these mobilizations was fundamental, because “there are many Jews who are against what is happening”, including Sieburth. The teacher still remembers the celebrations of the Jewish Easter that were held within the camping.
“Violence came when the university decided to call the police to dislodge them by force,” recalls the teacher. In fact, in some cases not only the police undertook against the protesters. At the University of California (Los Angeles) the first attacks came from “Agitators from outside, who were not even Jews in favor of Israel; they were; Trumpist“. Police” was looking at them and let the protesters attack without doing anythingand then they entered. “
Since Donald Trump came to power, on January 20, he has not only taken Biden’s relief to silence those voices that shout in the sky demanding the end of the slaughter in Gaza, but also that It has come even further. The Republican has not trembled his pulse when attacking universities and students as he knows how to do: based on cuts and deportations.
“Trump is using all this issue of Palestine, Israel and an alleged anti -Semitism” to relate the proper being to be linked to Hamas, Sieburth affects. “It has been an Israeli tactic for decades: if you are a Palestinian, you are a terrorist; and If you support the Palestinians, you support terrorists“.
And now, “under the pretext of protecting the Jews,” the Republican President “is revoking visas of students who are legally in the country, doing their studies, because either they participated in the camping, or in demonstrations,” says Professor Emerita at Duke University.
Stephanie Sieburth: “under the pretext of protecting Jews, [Trump] is revoking students visas “
In recent weeks cases of this type have been known, such as that of the South Korean Yunseo Chung or the Turkish Believe Ozturkwhose name appeared in the files of the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE) for writing an opinion article published in the University newspaper. The most recent case, last Tuesday, is that of the arrest of the Palestinian Mohsen Mahdawi.
But, without a doubt, the most popular has been the Mahmoud Khalila Palestinian student who led the marches in Columbia. “Had green card, that is permanent residence In the United States. I was not even with a visa. And it is in a Horroring Louisiana detention center, “Lizes Sieburth.
Terrorism and contortionism of the law
Azahara Palomeque, writer and doctor in cultural studies by the Princeton Universityexplains a Public: “The word terrorism It is used to mold a kind of criminalization that has been adjusted to a series of interests of the State “, so” as There is no very clear definition within international law“The Trump administration can use this in your favor.
The writer mentions the term “Law contortionism“, coined by Judith Butler in Precarious life: the power of duel and violence. “It cannot be said that it is completely illegal (…) but it is a kind of contortism, to seek a way of integrating into this nomenclature, in this categorization that is a bit old, the student action that is contrary” to the interests of the Trump administration.
Sebastiaan FaberProfessor of Hispanic Studies at the Oberlin College (Ohio), Comenta a Public that “it is the easiest, legally, to ignore the rule of law: since September 11, 2001, a link with the terrorismeven if it is only an allegation, markedly weakens the judicial and constitutional mechanisms of guarantees. “
Frozen cuts and funds
In addition to this persecution towards foreign students, Trump has chosen to cut the proper movements at the root, and has directly threatened universities with Block millionaire financing On which these centers depend.
The Administration has started in recent weeks various investigations that review contracts and subsidies with several of the university campuses. Prestigious universities such as Columbia, Cornell or even Harvard – whose funds, of 2.2 billion dollars, frozen last Tuesday – could lose important sums of money.
The faculties are under the point of sight, in the words of the US government, their “passivity to persistent harassment of Jewish students.” In order not to see their compromised financing, these universities have to “Correct your mistakes” and suppress the movements in favor of Palestine.
Little by little, some universities have yielded to Trump’s pressures. He Palestine solidarity committee From the University of Texas, for example, it was recently suppressed. Sieburgh even points out that in Columbia the Department of Studies of the Middle East are guardian.
Professor Emerita warns that with it “All they are doing is give Trump incentives” To require even more. “That you stop teaching African -American history, to stop teaching feminism … anything with the threat of money.”
Sebastiaan Faber: “The current government measures seem to be aimed to destroy the university system as it exists in the US”
Others have planted face, such as Princeton or Harvard herself, at the cost of suffering severe punishment, but they are a minority. “There is a very big crisis in universities because presidents and administrators They usually carry university as a companyand what they think is about money and how to keep it, “Sieburgh laments.
He adds that, “if you end up getting rid of free expression, the critical examination [o] The debate of ideas with evidence, (…) then what you have is something like the university under Franco, with totally mediocre academics who have been chosen for their loyalty to the dictator and no debate. That is not the university“.
“A brain leak is already taking place”
The imposition of silence in universities would mean a Huge loss for the US. Of the 13,000 students that Duke has, for example, 6,000 are international. Sieburgh acknowledges that, although “the United States has never liked it a lot (…) If something is big, they are its universities, and one of the reasons is that people come from everyone.”
Faber explains for his part: “The current government measures seem to be aimedA brain leak is already taking place.“
Palomeque, on the other hand, considers that, although “historically they have been a place for critical thinking,” universities have declined a lot since the 60s or 70s, “because The authorities realized that political force and then began to militarize[las]“Now there are embers of that previous spirit,” but obviously very diluted in what is an elite culture, where also the prices of university registrations have risen a lot. “
The writer and collaborator of Public He points out that “in fact, it is a program that he [Trump] I had for a long time“, and that applied in Republican states in which he was chosen.” They have been carrying out these policies against everything that had to do with racial, gender diversity, with the LGTBI movement and their rights, etc., such as Florida. “
Now that he is president, Trump “He has just continued with that program”“And he is extending it with all the amplitude that his executive powers allow him,” he adds.
The anti -Semitism paradox
Given the accusations of the Republican, the evidence shows that, if in the protests against the genocide in Gaza there were certain samples of anti -Semitism, it was minority. “The Jews They have always had a fairly protagonist in the camping, and They have said that they did not feel threatened“, explica Sieburth.
Adds that “Those who should fear Actually for your physical safety on campus They were the Muslim studentsand nobody has ever talked about how to protect them. “Therefore, the discourse that Trump tries to impose on university communities is a narrative that does not advocate for the end of xenophobia, but for an interested fight against anti -Semitism.
“What is circulating is a definition that includes the criticism of the State of Israel, and is not the definition accepted by experts in the field,” continues the Emeritus teacher, concluding: “It is anti -rush, not anti -Semitism”.
Azahara Palomeque: “The authorities realized the political force of the universities and then began to militarize them”
Sieburth also points out that Jewish protectors are the most anti -Semitic. Mentions cases such as disturbances in Charlottesville or the Assault on the Capitolwhere there were incitement to the extermination of the Jews. “Those people Trump indult”, so the president’s argument to want to protect the Jewish community is something that “costs to believe.”
“In addition, if the Jews have had an important role in these manifestations, it is because We are outraged to say that all this is done in our name, Both the massacres in Gaza –[hechas] also with American weapons that we pay for our pockets – as the attack on universities“The teacher concludes.
