Stanford Daily sues Trump administration for citing threats threatening freedom of speech
Stanford student newspapers are suing the Trump administration, claiming threats to expel foreign students against Israel’s handling of the Gaza war, which is shocking freedom of speech.
The threat hinders the document’s ability to cover campus demonstrations and get protesters to speak, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Northern California.
Some Stanford Daily Writers, who are foreigners with student visas in the country, have even refused to write about unrest in the Middle East because they fear they will be deported. The lawsuit says the authors also asked the paper to remove previously published stories from its website and cite the same concerns.
“In the United States of America, no one should worry about a midnight knock to express a wrong opinion,” the newspaper’s lawyer wrote in the complaint.
The lawsuit accused Trump administration officials, especially Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristin Noem, expelled their statutory powers from a foreign visa holder whose belief is considered a non-American belief (guaranteed by the First Amendment) to freedom of speech before constitutional rights.
“When federal regulations collide with First Amendment rights, the Constitution prevails.”
Homeland Security spokesman Tricia McLaughlin mocked the lawsuit, calling it “badly unfounded.”
“Among other terrorist sympathizers in the world, there is no space in the United States and we have no obligation to recognize them or keep them here,” she said in a statement.
The lawsuit, filed by a 133-year-old student newspaper, not the university itself, is the latest in a growing struggle between Trump and elite universities in many countries. The president has made it clear that he believes that top schools are a breeding ground for liberal ideology and brings breeding grounds to breeding sites for anti-American sentiment.
His weapon of choice is threatening to withhold billions of dollars in federal research grants from institutions that refuse to adopt policies on issues such as diversity, trans rights and Israel that are in line with his ideology that makes America stand out again.
Critics say Trump’s campaign is an attack on academic freedom but fears massive budget cuts, with several Ivy League schools including the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia and Brown recently struck a deal with the Trump administration to limit damage.
Stanford announced this week that it will be forced to lay off hundreds of employees due to research funding and cuts to change federal tax laws.
The lawsuit at the Stanford Daily centers on two unnamed students, John and Jane Doe, whose lawyers say they began self-censorship for fear of being revoked and deported.
Rubio claims that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 allows the Secretary of State to revoke the legal status of a non-citizen if the person’s actions or statements “destroy convincing U.S. foreign policy interests.”
Rubio used this explanation to justify the March arrest of Columbia University’s legal American resident and pro-Palestinian activity, Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained in a Louisiana prison before a federal judge ordered his release.
The complaint cites two other foreign students’ cases – one in Colombia and one in Tufts, who were arrested for attending a pro-Palestinian campus demonstration.
At Stanford, the plaintiff was known as Jane Doe and was a member of the Palestinian Judicial Group student. She has made online comments accusing Israel of committing genocide and segregation, according to the lawsuit. She also used the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, which has become a flashpoint in the Israeli Gaza debate.
Quoting the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea (including Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip), the slogan is regarded by the Palestinians as a call for freedom and self-determination. To many Israelis, it sounds like a call for them to destroy them in an all-out way.
As a result, the DOE profile appeared in Canary Mission, a pro-Israel website that the creator said was dedicated to “hate of the United States, Israel and the Jews.” Department of Homeland Security officials have admitted that they consulted the website’s profile (mostly students and faculty at elite universities) to get information about people worth investigating.
As a result, Jane Doe has deleted her social media account since March and “avoided publishing and expressing her true opinion on Palestine and Israel.”
John Doe participated in a Pro-Palestine demonstration, accusing Israel of genocide and chanting “from the river to the sea.” But after the Trump administration began deportation against campus protesters, he “avoided publishing a study containing criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza.”
Unlike Jane Doe, John has since resumed public criticism of Israel despite the threat of deportation, the lawsuit says.
