Trump’s deportations of student anti-war protesters are a significant escalation of the attacks on the movement against the genocidal war on Gaza. But it’s no surprise that many of the same university administrations that have been unleashing police to arrest and attack peaceful protests are caving to Trump’s demands for draconian anti-protest policies, to alter curricula, to end affirmative action, and more. 

To open up a seat at Trump’s negotiating table and hoping to restore $400 million in government funds, Columbia administrators immediately crumpled under the pressure. They agreed to update campus restrictions so protesters are not allowed to wear masks, campus police have been deputized with arrest powers, and most egregiously, the university suspended, expelled, or revoked the degrees of 22 activists who participated in the Gaza encampment last spring, including the president of the graduate student union organized under UAW.

On the other hand, Harvard University administrators, bolstered by their $53 billion, tax free endowment, showed willingness to resist the pressure campaign by declining Trump’s demands. Despite this, it is crucial we don’t put our faith in these universities to fight back for us. 

The billionaire class, including both Trump and those who run these elite universities, understands the power students can wield in the battle to resist imperialism and their reactionary agendas. They know students have played crucial roles in spurring on working-class struggle throughout history, including during the anti-Vietnam war movement and, even more recently, in Bangladesh. We need to fight to broaden out the student movement on and off campus, and link up with the wider anti-Trump movement. The labor movement, especially on-campus unions, needs to take up the fight against repression.

The Campaign To Silence Dissent 

The campaign of campus repression reached new heights on March 8, when Donald Trump ordered the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident and student activist at Columbia who helped lead the pro-Palestine encampment there last spring. Over a month later, an immigration judge has just set a dangerous precedent by ruling Khalil eligible for deportation because Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, single handedly deemed Khalil’s beliefs “in conflict” with US foreign policy.

On April 14, another Columbia student, Mohsen Mahdawi, was targeted for his pro-Palestinian beliefs when he was arrested by ICE at what he thought was his citizenship test. Like Khalil, Mahdawi was persecuted under the logic that exercising the right to free speech to criticize US imperialist interests poses a threat to U.S. foreign policy and national security. An estimated 1,000 student visas have been revoked since Trump’s inauguration.

The White House claims that this campaign is designed to root out antisemitism on campuses. But protesting the horrific genocidal war on Gaza is not antisemitic. Beyond this, falsely tying the violence of the Israeli state to the protection of Jewish people in any way only further encourages antisemitic sentiment. Jewish students have played a critical role in organizing and supporting demonstrations against the war. 

Dueling Visions Of Higher Education 

For years, Trump has promised sweeping reform to the higher education landscape and now he’s seized on student anti-war protests as an opening to these many-sided attacks on universities.

Many working people see universities like Harvard and Columbia as the ruling class bastions that they are, and Trump is able to tap into that class anger. The skyrocketing cost of attendance, predatory student loan systems, and legacy admissions that favor the rich have pushed these already inaccessible universities even further out of reach for ordinary Americans. By pointing the finger at “woke” colleges and universities—and their students—as the enemy, he pits a section of working class people against social struggle and the anti-war movement.

If we want to defeat Trump’s agenda once and for all, is resisting demands like those put on Columbia and Harvard enough? The answer is clearly no. While we must absolutely reject the withholding of public funds as leverage to get universities to enforce Trump’s authoritarian crackdown, we need to go further. Private universities, which largely represent the liberal wing of the ruling class, should be brought into public ownership, with free tuition and democratic working-class control over research and scientific exploration, guided by public need, not private profit. The elite universities will never be on board with this, as their interests ultimately lie with the rest of the ruling class, not working people. 

Fight Back With Solidarity And Class Struggle 

Many students, particularly immigrants and international students, are understandably fearful right now. This fear of fighting back is exactly what Trump wants. But the only power that can stop this repression is courageous, united mass action of students and workers. There is strength and safety in numbers, so we need to build on our campuses for the biggest protests possible. And while students must build for this, campus workers and unions need to join the fight in order to really shut down Trump’s repression.

The movement should link up with the fight against mass deportations, attacks on trans rights, the mass firing campaign of federal workers, and the rest of Trump’s authoritarian agenda. We need organized national days of escalation—like walkouts, occupations, and strikes—demanding the release of Khalil, Mahdawi, and all other political prisoners. To bring in as many students and workers as possible, we must take up a program that goes even further to fight for broader working class demands like taxing the rich to fund free public college, affordable housing, and universal healthcare.

Now more than ever, the labor movement needs to show up in solidarity with student protesters. If Trump can deport student protesters, he’ll also be emboldened to come for workers on picket lines. Just one day before contract negotiations were set to begin, the president of UAW Local 2710, which represents graduate student workers at Columbia University, was expelled. UAW, which Mahmoud Khalil was also a member of, should be calling for mass rallies, strikes, and protests against this repression.

Only the strength of the labor movement, combined with the strength of movements of young and working people, can actually force Trump to back down and protect our democratic rights.

We Demand:  

• For a nationally coordinated student and campus worker walkout against attacks on the right to protest—tax the rich and elite universities & end military spending to fund free public college for all!
• Release Khalil, Mahdawi, and all ICE prisoners—make all universities sanctuary schools!
• Drop the charges against student activists who led non-violent campus protests 
• Restore federal funding to universities and convert them into free, public institutions
• Open the books—students and campus unions deserve a say in how their tuition dollars are spent