Letter to the Editor: Trump Officially Attempts To End Free Speech on College Campuses. Emerson Administration Wants To Know What Took Him So Long.

The following letter was submitted to Discipline News by an Emerson student. 

On March 8, Palestinian activist Mahmoud Kahlil was unlawfully abducted by ICE for practicing his legal right to protest in Columbia’s pro-Palestine rallies. On March 4, Donald Trump announced his plans to revoke federal funding for any college campus that “allows illegal protests,” doubling down on his promise to deport international students who protest for Palestinian freedom and liberation, this time including additional threats of arrests and expulsions for students born in the country. Trump’s announcement also calls for no more masks; Emerson officials, having already instituted policies effectively banning students from masking at protests, are simply wondering what took him so long. Perhaps the recent disappearance of Mahmoud Kahlil, a permanent American resident from Syria who likened his unlawful detainment to his friends who were disappeared under the Assad regime , reassures them that students will now be thoroughly intimidated from protesting anew.  

Along with other institutions, Emerson made it clear months ago that civil disobedience is contrary to school policy and “not protected by the First Amendment,” laying the groundwork for the Trump administration’s latest attacks on free expression. In normalizing the far-right conflation of anti-Zionist action with antisemitism, those who run our college have willingly ceded ground to Trump’s rabidly racist anti-intellectualism and xenophobic attacks on Arab and Muslim students. They continue to push the false narrative that the April protests were somehow unsafe for Jewish members of our community—an ironic claim, considering that those who ultimately faced physical harm last spring were pro-Palestinian demonstrators, roughed up by state troopers and BPD Gang Unit wielding batons while Emerson officials looked on—a narrative not only laughable on its face but emblematic of the very same manufactured hysteria Trump weaponizes frequently to rile up his base on numerous issues: not just Palestine but immigration enforcement, Trans health care, and DEI practices.

As we are seeing now, as a means of justifying its McCarthyist silencing of pro-Palestinian protestors without risking the appearance of hypocrisy, the administration has decided to tone itself down in regards to its historical alliance with marginalized groups. In the face of such an aggressive returning Trump administration, the school’s weak response has not gone unnoticed. In a February letter to The Berkeley Beacon entitled “Emerson’s refusal to publicly support its transgender community speaks volumes,” distinguished artist in residence P. Carl called out the school’s silence as its Trans community falls under attack. The second-to-last paragraph of the letter ends, “When a government decides to openly erase a population and institutions stand by in silence our very humanity is at risk.”

Carl’s incredibly true statement is as potent as ever. Even as our government doubles down openly on its intention to erase the Palestinian population of Gaza, our institution still stands in silence. As history would support, this systemic suppression of Palestinian voices on campuses is not just so Emerson and like-minded private entities can continue their cowardly, ADL-informed “neutrality” stances in the face of principled demands to divest from an apartheid regime. It’s also a test to see just how much they can silence you when it is your turn, a test that continues up until they’ve managed to silence us all. And the question must be asked: If they manage to do that, who will be left to fight for you?

-An Emerson Student