AAUP, Allies Sue over Trump Policy of Arresting and Threatening to Deport Students and Faculty for Lawful Speech

The national AAUP; chapters at Harvard, Rutgers, and NYU; and the Middle East Studies Association today filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration from carrying out large-scale arrests, detentions, and deportations of noncitizen students and faculty members who participate in pro-Palestinian protests and other protected First Amendment activities. We believe that the administration’s ideological-deportation policy violates the First Amendment by targeting constitutionally protected speech that Americans have a right to hear and engage with. The policy has created a climate of fear and repression on campuses around the country. We are represented in the case by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, Ahilan Arulanantham, and Zimmer, Citron & Clarke LLP.

Following executive orders issued by President Trump in January, the federal agencies that enforce immigration laws have arrested and detained several people associated with U.S. colleges and universities, including a legal permanent resident, on the basis of constitutionally protected speech and association. Today’s filing argues that the ideological-deportation policy has created a climate of repression and intense fear on university campuses, “terrorizing students and faculty for their exercise of First Amendment rights in the past, intimidating them from exercising those rights now, and silencing political viewpoints that the government disfavors.” 

“The Trump administration is going after international scholars and students who speak their minds about Palestine, but make no mistake: they won't stop there. They'll come next for those who teach the history of slavery or who provide gender-affirming health care or who research climate change or who counsel students about their reproductive choices. We all have to draw a line together—as the old labor movement slogan says: an injury to one is an injury to all,” says AAUP President Todd Wolfson. 

“The First Amendment means the government can’t arrest, detain, or deport people for lawful political expression—it’s as simple as that. This practice is one we’d ordinarily associate with the most repressive political regimes, and it should have no place in our democracy,” says Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute.

Read today's complaint here.

Read more about the case here.