20 Apr 2026 3:29 pm
////////////////The January 29th executive order directs government agencies to report on possible civil and criminal actions they can take "to curb or combat antisemitism." It also calls on government agencies to recommend trainings for universities to be able to identify, monitor, and report on non-citizen students and staff based on broadly defined security-related inadmissibility grounds, including any "unlawful activity." Its wider impact will be to sow a climate of fear and suspicion on campus, and to chill speech critical of Israel or supportive of Palestinian rights. Alongside ongoing efforts by the government to strong-arm universities into policing and punishing Palestine scholarship and activism, this new Trump directive aims to further co-opt universities as arms of the surveillance state and will disproportionately impact Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and other students of color.