Major Assault on Free Speech in the USA | With FIRE's Sarah McLaughlin

## A watershed moment for campus speech The exchange captures a striking claim: the United States is entering a period of free-speech repression not seen since the Red Scare. That is the throughline of the conversation — a set of recent federal actions, centered on the detention and threatened deportation of a Columbia student and the conditional withholding of federal funds, amount to a new, politically driven effort to police campus speech. The broader implication is stark. When the state treats non-criminal political speech as grounds for immigration enforcement or curriculum intervention, it reshapes the rules of civic debate, narrows the boundaries of academic autonomy, and risks creating a two-tiered public square where legal status determines how loudly one is allowed to speak. The discussion, led by voices from FIRE and an independent journalist, grounds these concerns in concrete events: Mahmoud Khalil’s detention as a legal permanent resident, federal letters demanding that Columbia adopt particular definitions of anti-Semitism and place a department in receivership, and the administration’s public framing that certain campus speakers are “anti-American” or “pro-terrorist.” Taken together, these measures signal not merely targeted law enforcement but an institutionalized appetite for regulating dissent, especially around the Israel–Palestine debate. The stakes extend beyond any one protest or one student’s fate; they are about who gets to participate in democratic argumentation at all. ## The Khalil case and the erosion of due process At the center of the conversation is the Khalil case, a vivid illustration of the legal and constitutional questions at play. According to the government’s own admission in the exchange, Khalil has not been accused of committing any criminal offense. Yet he faces detention and potential deportation on the asserted ground that his speech allegedly threatens U.S. foreign policy or national security. That move raises a host of constitutional concerns. Historically, key precedents — such as Bridges v. Wixon — have recognized that lawful residents acquire constitutional protections while in the United States, including First Amendment rights and due process guarantees. The debate in the discussion turns on whether those precedents still constrain executive discretion in these post-9/11 security-centered times. The conversation exposes an unsettled seam in immigration law: how to reconcile the government’s plenary power over immigration with the First Amendment’s promise of free expression. FIRE’s Sarah McLaughlin emphasizes that if the government believes Khalil has committed a crime, the burden is on the state to make that case. Absent criminal conduct or a narrow, well-established exception — such as material support for terrorism shown with evidentiary rigor — speech cannot be equated with criminality. Treating rhetoric or political solidarity as grounds for removal risks bypassing procedural protections and converting administrative discretion into substantive punishment for dissent. That path not only undermines due process for the individual but also invites future administrations to weaponize immigration law against unpopular political views. ## Chilling effects for international students and campus life One of the clearest consequences explored in the discussion is the chilling effect on international students and other non-citizen community members. Universities are global marketplaces of ideas; international students enrich debate precisely because they bring perspectives that are distinct from those of U.S.-born peers. But when federal policy signals that certain viewpoints — or even the mere suspicion of “anti-American” thought — can trigger deportation, the calculus for participation changes overnight. Students with green cards, student visas, or tenuous family ties abroad begin to self-censor for fear of being singled out. McLaughlin draws a sharp parallel to the dynamics she’s observed among students from authoritarian states. Those young people are accustomed to policing their own speech because of potential reprisals at home. Hearing similar threats from U.S. authorities — an environment many come to by seeking academic freedom — is not merely ironic; it is corrosive. The result is not only loss of individual expression but an impoverishment of campus deliberation. Conversations about foreign policy, human rights, and geopolitical conflicts become less frank, less probing, and less intellectually honest when a subset of participants feels they could be punished for speaking. ## Title VI, IHRA, and the encroachment on academic autonomy The conversation moves from individual rights to institutional levers: how federal funding and anti-discrimination frameworks are being deployed to shape university conduct. The recent federal correspondence with Columbia — pressuring adoption of particular definitions of anti-Semitism, suggesting the IHRA definition as the standard, and even proposing receivership of an academic department — illustrates a novel use of the federal purse and administrative law to influence curriculum and campus norms. This raises fundamental questions about academic freedom and the constitutional limits of federal intervention in university governance. McLaughlin stresses that many IHRA examples, as applied in some contexts, would categorize ordinary political critique of Israel as anti-Semitic. That is the crux of the problem. Title VI enforcement against discrimination is appropriate where it protects students from harassment and threats. But converting Title VI into a cudgel against politically controversial speech blurs the line between protecting students and policing ideas. When the federal government conditions grants on the suppression of protected political expression or mandates curricular control, it intrudes into the core functions of higher education: fostering inquiry, debate, and intellectual risk-taking. The danger is not only legal — it is pedagogical and institutional. Universities that fear losing funding may preemptively over-censor, undermining their mission and chilling faculty research. ## Political realignments and the fragility of principled defense One of the most sobering insights from the exchange is the observation about shifting political alliances around free speech. For years, complaints about Title VI enforcement originated from conservative students who felt silenced; now some of the loudest calls to deploy the same machinery are coming from those aligned with causes on the left. The result is a political whiplash: tactics once criticized by one side are lauded when they target the other. McLaughlin and the conversation participants push back against this transactional approach. FIRE’s credibility, they argue, stems from a steady commitment to defend speech across the ideological spectrum. This part of the discussion surfaces an important normative point: free speech protections cannot be selectively invoked. They gain legitimacy precisely because they apply even to speech one disagrees with or finds odious. When political actors weaponize civil-rights enforcement or immigration tools for partisan ends, they not only threaten the rights of their opponents but erode the public’s confidence in the very mechanisms designed to protect vulnerable groups. The long-term consequence is a weaker First Amendment culture in which rights are affirmed only when convenient. A consistent, nonpartisan defense of civil liberties is therefore not merely a legal stance; it is a political strategy to preserve robust civic space for all viewpoints. ## What universities, courts, and civil-society actors must do The conversation concludes with a call for institutional countermeasures. Universities must reaffirm clear, principled policies that distinguish between harassment (unprotected conduct) and political speech (protected activity), and they must resist

Major Assault on Free Speech in the USA | With FIRE's Sarah McLaughlin We haven't seen a crackdown on free speech in America like this since the Red Scare. The Government admits Mahmoud Khalil has not committed any crimes. He has not even been accused of any either, yet the Trump administration has ordered him deported without charges or trial, all because of his constitutionally protected speech critical of Israel. At the same time, the government has paused federal funding to all Universities which refuse to sufficiently censor and punish criticism of Israel on their campus. At Columbia, they have ordered the Middle East studies department to be placed in a government receivership: state control of the curriculum. To discuss this unprecedented crackdown on free speech in America, independent journalist Harrison Berger is joined by the FIRE's Sarah McLaughlin #M3 In February, J.D. Vance traveled to Europe, where he challenged the EU for their aggressive and expansive censorship regime. Yet just a few weeks later, it seems like the United States is embracing a censorship regime of its own. FIRE is an organization that has consistently defended the free speech rights of Americans, regardless of their political affiliation. If it's constitutionally protected speech, regardless of the ideology of the person saying it, they'll defend it. Here to discuss the latest threats to free speech from the Trump administration is FIRE's Sarah McLaughlin. #F1 Thanks for having me. #M3 So let's begin with the detention and impending deportation of Columbia student and legal permanent resident of the United States, Mahmoud Khalil. The government admits that Mahmoud Khalil has not committed any crimes. He hasn't even been accused of any either. Instead, the Trump administration claims that he's a threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States, and that alone justifies his arbitrary detention and deportation. Trump tweeted that his administration would not tolerate, quote, anti-American, pro-terrorist, or anti- Semitic activity on campus and that Khalil's arrest would be the first of many to come against anyone who, quote, sympathizes with any group the administration puts on a terror list. Your organization, FIRE, immediately sent a letter to the Trump administration demanding that they provide a legal basis for Mahmoud Khalil's detention and deportation and asked whether or not -- 1 of 6 -- Mahmoud Khalil will be granted any due process rights. Did your group receive any response or clarity from the Trump administration? #F1 No, to my knowledge, we have not received a response. But I think part of the troubling and difficult aspect of this case, among the many difficult and troubling aspects, is the various justifications that the administration has put forth. And they're the ones you named. You know, President Trump suggested that any immigrant who engages in anti-American speech may be liable for punishment. And that's very concerning. I mean, there isn't really a limiting principle on what is anti-American. I couldn't tell you where that starts and when it ends. #M3 There was a similar case like this one that was ultimately argued before the Supreme Court in 1945, and it involved an attempt by the federal government to deport a legal resident like Mahmoud Khalil over his sympathy for and affiliation with the Communist Party and communism. The court ruled in Bridges v. Wixon and has affirmed really ever since that, quote, once an alien lawfully enters and resides in this country, he becomes invested with rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all people within our borders. These rights include those protected by the First and Fifth Amendments and by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, which seem to come into play with this case. Now, government defenders dispute that. They assert that the administration can arbitrarily deport and punish immigrants, permanent legal residents, without due process, not for any crimes they commit, but for their political opinions and speech. Is there any basis for their argument? #F1 Well, the case law has been somewhat murky, but we believe that the arguments put forth in Bridges v. Wixon are the right ones, that the First Amendment is for people who are legally here in the United States. And we believe it does protect Khalil, and it should protect Khalil. We hope the courts make that clear in this case, because what we don't want is immigrants who are here in the United States feeling that they're not able to freely participate in the exchange of ideas that makes America such a wonderful place. #M3 Well, I want to drill down on that and ask how the government is defining Mahmoud Khalil's politics and what danger that might represent to anyone with similar or even more radical views than him. Now, the government accuses Khalil of pro-Hamas activity. It promises to go after other students engaged in similar behavior. Now, even if Mahmoud was a fan of Hamas, that opinion would be -- 2 of 6 -- protected speech under the First Amendment. But Sarah, what pro-Hamas activity has Mahmoud Khalil even engaged in? I looked hard, and Mahmoud's critics have looked even harder than I have to find any evidence of Mahmoud Khalil's support for Hamas. And there is none. By all accounts, Khalil is a pretty conservative voice among the Columbia protesters, and he was even trusted by the Columbia administration to be a mediator for negotiations because the administration recognized him as a good faith actor with integrity. If the government is defining Khalil's actions on campus, which amount to merely participating in protests against U.S. support for Israel, as pro-Hamas, and the government vows to go after other pro- Hamas individuals, what danger does that represent, not just for people who hold Khalil's views about U.S. support for Israel, but even more radical views than his? #F1 Well, you know, I can't account for everything Khalil has said. I'm not familiar with all of his political positions. But the issue here is that if the government believes that Khalil has committed a crime, it's on them to make that argument. Engaging in protected speech that the government doesn't like, to my knowledge, is still not a crime in this country. So that's the issue there. And the question of his support for Hamas or if he's aligned with Hamas, engaging in speech is a separate thing from providing material and financial support to a terrorist group recognized by the United States government. So I think there's been some murkiness created by this issue where they're suggesting that he is aligned with Hamas. But speech alone, rhetoric, propaganda, those are things that are protected by the First Amendment, even if a lot of people, including people in the federal government, don't like that speech. #M3 What effects are you concerned that Mahmoud's detention for his political speech, critical of Israel, might have on campus discourse generally around these important foreign policy questions? #F1 Well, you know, to start with, we have hundreds of thousands of international students in the United States. There are millions of immigrants in this country. And what's at risk here is that we're essentially creating two classes of people on campus: people who are citizens and who feel free to speak, and students who are legal residents but not citizens of the United States, who have very good reason to fear that if they say something that the federal government considers perhaps anti- American, they might be on the next plane out of the United States. And of course, that's going to chill speech. Hundreds of thousands of people may suddenly now be thinking, am I free to say what I think? And that is not something that we want people who are here in the United States to be experiencing. Those are things that I hear from international students from authoritarian countries about their own nations. I don't want to hear that said about the United States. -- 3 of 6 -- #M3 I meant to ask you about that because you have a new piece in The Guardian. It's called "Deporting Speakers Over Supposed Propaganda is a Stock Authoritarian Move." And you say, here in the United States, I advocate for the rights of international students originating from authoritarian regimes who study on our nation's campuses and carry fear that research or political activity challenging their government will create consequences at home. Now, immigrants legally in the United States, either with a green card or a student visa, may be forced to make some of the same calculations as those who live or work in authoritarian states abroad, but about our own government. How does the current crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus speech mirror the crackdown on dissent in authoritarian countries, something that you've looked very closely at? #F1 I've worked with many international students, especially from China, who have very good reason to fear that because they join a protest about the Chinese government on a college campus, there might be consequences either for them or their families. Some of them have even had their parents brought in for questioning to say, what are your children doing? Why is your son holding that sign? Why did your kid post that tweet? And so to hear those same concerns from these students is, you know, now I'm concerned that the U.S. government is going to be watching what I say, is going to be trying to target me. It's very concerning. And it's, you know, the opposite of what we want students to get from coming to the United States. International students that come here, we want them to be able to fully participate in the freedom of speech that we think makes American higher ed and America as a whole so special. And I don't want this to limit that ability for these students. #M3 I want to ask you one more question about what's been going on at Columbia because this detention is part of a larger crackdown on anti-Semitism. In order to tackle anti-Semitism, the federal government has taken a number of measures recently, including an attempt to seemingly condition federal funding for universities based on their willingness to censor and punish certain viewpoints about Israel on campus. In a letter sent to Columbia, the Trump administration demanded that the university adopt a formal definition of anti-Semitism, strongly suggesting that they embrace the IHRA definition, a controversial definition of anti-Semitism as a basis for anti- discrimination enforcement on campus. They told the university that they must place the Middle Eastern Studies Department under a receivership, government control of the curriculum. What constitutional basis does the federal government have to do that, to impose its own curriculum and dictate the limits of acceptable debate on Columbia's campuses? #F1 -- 4 of 6 -- So we're very concerned about both that letter and the process that's been undertaken with it. This is not really the way that the federal government is supposed to go about contacting and working with universities over the revocation of federal grants. As you mentioned, there are some really concerning things in that letter that went out to Columbia last week. I don't know what exactly it will look like to see an academic department put into receivership, but I have very good reason to believe there are academic freedom concerns there. The IHRA definition, as you mentioned, includes examples that, in many circumstances, would just be political speech about Israel that's protected under the First Amendment. Whether it's popular speech, whether it's fair, whether it's well-liked is a separate question from whether it's protected. That's what the First Amendment is for. It's not to protect speech that everybody likes. #M3 Right. And I wanted to ask you about an increasingly common obstacle that free speech advocates encounter in these political debates. I want to use this issu