Journalists charged with terrorism, professors disciplined or fired, students arrested and expelled: this is our current moment
One bright spring morning, I descended the stairs to the campus mail room. As it was Saturday, the place was practically deserted, quiet enough to let my footsteps echo. After checking my mailbox, I headed over to the back of the central room, where complimentary newspapers and magazines were available. Above the table, on the bulletin board, a torn-out page caught my eye. It was a black-and-white photo, and on it in orange marker was scrawled the word ‘RACIST.’
I peered at the page and saw that it had been taken from one of our campus magazines, Mouth. (All names have been changed, including that of the magazine.) Mouth was a satirical mag, one that enjoyed a reputation on campus for being fun and irreverent. As someone who worked on a different student publication, I was surprised that any magazine on campus would be involved in anything that could be construed as racist. My alma mater wouldn’t stand for that. So I picked up a copy of the mag to see what this was all about.
It turned out that the photo was of one of the official student groups on campus, the Asian and Asian-American Alliance — A4. It was of some of their members on the lacrosse field, which was empty except for the goals. So this photo took place on the green, and what stood out was that the members were sitting on a sofa. Inexplicably, there was a sofa on the green.
It seemed like what was going on was a sanctioned get-together, but it was unclear — the photo simply showed some students lounging on the sofa. The set-up was bizarre, because it was unexplained: what, exactly, was going on? But, again, Mouth was known for its irreverence, and the inclusion of this bit of unusual setting in their pages seemed a choice the editors would make about any group that decided to tote a sofa onto the lacrosse green.
But the campus was up in arms. Clearly, some saw the photo as racist — and not just somewhat racist, but racist on its face.
I wrote a lengthy, detailed, ardent defense of Mouth’s right to publish such material in a letter to the editor of my school’s newspaper. First, I noted that the charge of racism seemed misplaced, because 1) the photo captured things that actually happened, and 2) nothing that was depicted drew upon any recognizable stereotype for Asians or Asian Americans.
It would be difficult to say that the feature furthered racism, because nothing derogatory was being reinforced. In fact, one might say that the random items in the environment of the shoot cut across the prevalent benign stereotype of the ‘model minority,’ pairing studious archetypes with a symbol of slack. Had the student group in question been of a different background, then the feature might have been facially racist, precisely because then it would have drawn from established stereotypes and would have bolstered those stereotypes.
Without a basis for calling that spread racist, that meant that the magazine had every right to print it, and it was up to all of us to support and uphold that right. In one way, the issue was press freedom, but more fundamentally it was about the freedoms of speech and expression. Those are the backbone of civil freedom, and only under the direst of circumstances should such liberties be infringed.
I stood up at a student forum organized around the controversy and said the same thing. I remember the looks of daggers thrown at me by those on the other side of the issue — primarily folks of the campus’s minority groups. They understood as well as I did that my skin color was a symbol, that the fact that I am Black underscored the point I was making insofar as it undermined the point they were making. It mattered that a Black student spoke out in favor of freedom of speech and refuted the idea that the feature was racist.
There is a reason I bring up the Mouth incident:
We are now in a time of severe repression.
Scholars are being detained at airports for questioning and having their electronic devices searched without a warrant, and this without the detainee having access to a lawyer.
This happened this past spring to Israeli historian Ilan Pappé at Detroit Metro Airport, where he was interrogated for multiple hours. His crime? Arriving in the area to give an anti-war speech to a congregation.
Pappé described his ordeal to Democracy Now! in May:
I arrived in Detroit after eight hours’ flight from London and was taken immediately to a side room by two federal agents. And they had two sets of questions for me. One was about my views, my views about the Hamas, my views about what’s happening in Gaza. Do I frame what happened in Gaza as genocide? They wanted to know my reaction to the slogan, “Palestine should be free from the river to the sea.” They refused to tell me why they stopped me, why did I have to answer these questions. And then another set of questions had to do with whom do I know among the American Muslim community, the American Arab community and the Palestinian community in the United States. And that was followed by taking my phone for a long period, copying everything in it, and making me wait another time for phone conversations before letting me in, into the country.
Now, particularly in the UK, journalists are coming under similar attack — even worse, they are being arrested and their homes overturned in avid police searches. One of those journalists, Richard Medhurst, who has a Substack and is internationally accredited in his profession, conveyed his experience of arriving at Heathrow Airport in London on August 15th:
I was told to sit on a bench, remove my shoes; remove my socks. I was told to turn my socks inside out and hold them up for the officers to inspect.
They also made me hold up my feet for them to check.
The officers took me to a room with UV lights, which they told me is used to catch burglars sprayed with something—I have no idea why they did this, since they just removed me off a plane.
My suitcase was then opened in the lobby and ransacked; all my journalistic equipment and devices were seized, including phones, sim cards, wireless microphones, microphones and headphones. Even my shoelaces.
He was arrested under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act of 2000 for things he said in the course of reporting on events in the Middle East. Officials “accused me of allegedly ‘expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization’ but wouldn’t explain what this meant,” Medhurst wrote. He surmised the treatment to which he was subjected was intended to dehumanize him and evoke feelings of psychological dishevelment.
Another journalist in the UK, Sarah Wilkinson, works for MENA Uncensored, an international news and media outlet, according to Middle East Monitor. Wilkinson said that, as the police tossed her house, they spilled her mother’s ashes after fracturing the urn in which they were kept. That’s an especial form of trauma on top of the violation of the search in the first place. Journalists, by dint of profession, enjoy some of the highest standards of press freedom, and the police trampled all over them (and cracked, and scattered).
All of this is in service of shutting down voices speaking against the military offensive in Gaza. Concomitant with that is the renewed suppression of student protests on campuses across the country, a continuation of the tactics used this past spring. There have been arrests, standing police presence, new gating and security enforcement measures; suspensions and even firings of faculty members for their stances on or their illumination of the Gaza offensive.
Notably, NYU recently designated ‘Zionists’ a protected class, which promises to strike at the heart of academic freedom as well as the freedoms of speech and of expression, as those who reference Zionism in a critical manner will be subject to disciplinary measures, up to and including suspension or expulsion.
NYU so far is the only college campus to bestow such a designation; but, as the Guardian reports, the school is not alone in its pursuit of curtailing student activism and speech surrounding Zionism, remarking, “In Florida, the state university system administration ordered its 12 universities to essentially ‘keyword search’ syllabuses and course descriptions for terms like Israel, Palestine and Zionism,” a directive, according to Chancellor Ray Rodrigues, intended to “flag all instances of either antisemitism or anti-Israeli bias.”
This inevitably will lead to self-censorship in a chilling of speech, subverting the principles of academic freedom. Hollowed out, the university setting becomes useless, a caricature of itself. As Sheryl Nestel and Rowan Gaudet, authors of the report “Unveiling the Chilly Climate: The Suppression of Speech on Palestine in Canada,” warned in 2022 (pp. 1-2):
Interviewees recounted that their experiences included: political intervention into hiring, attempts to prevent access to event venues and the attempted cancellation of public events on Palestine, as well as targeting and doxing…. Students were subject to warnings and disciplinary measures by university administrators whom respondents often described as being hostile to Palestine solidarity activism on campus.
Faculty respondents reported restrictions on academic freedom, self-censoring of expression on Palestinian human rights, discriminatory treatment by academic publishing platforms, harassment by pro-Israel advocacy groups and media outlets, attacks from colleagues, political interference by university administration, classroom surveillance by pro-Israel student groups, and anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism. Indeed, the suppression of speech on Palestine has significant consequences in academia, where it threatens principles of academic freedom and encourages surveillance of critical intellectuals and activists and of the oppositional knowledge that they produce.
It’s a bad time, and I’m not sure how we’re going to make it through. As Greg Stoker, commenting by way of Mint Press News, recently said, things are going to get worse before they get worse.
This is all the more exacerbated by the fact that these arrests and clampdowns are in conjunction with a taboo subject — support for Palestinian civilians, over and above support for the state of Israel — and so all of these actions are being ignored by official press organs. The wider public has no idea this is going on, or, if they do, they may not feel that they can speak out about something so taboo.
Without the First Amendment — without freedom of the press, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly — democracy fails.
It’s especially concerning that this taboo is being enforced by The Powers That Be in the service of the state of Israel, largely behind the baseless canard that anti-Zionism is equivalent to anti-Semitism. That’s simply untrue and ultimately is based on the idea that Zionism is the same as Judaism, a twist of the truth. It is exactly this wrong idea that is being put into use as a shield of the state of Israel as it goes on slaughtering, massacring, murdering and assassinating Palestinians in this nearly year-long siege.
Yet I return to the stance I held during the Mouth controversy. What these student demonstrators, journalists, professors and others engage in is describing reality, just like that photo spread in Mouth; and what they’re doing cannot be construed as racism except through the most distorted of lenses, from a perspective so biased that such distortion all that can be perceived. And, as what they’re saying is not racism, is not hate speech — is not a crime — they must be allowed to speak.
Richard Medhurst, journalist
“Keep in mind the conditions I outlined previously: the psychological element that you’re made to wait endlessly, you’re not told what you’re accused of, nor when you’ll be questioned.
“Despite being released unconditionally, I do not feel that my bail is truly unconditional. I am effectively in limbo, not knowing if I will be charged in 3 months, or if I will go to prison.
“Journalism is my livelihood. I have an ethical and moral responsibility toward the general public to inform. But I feel that a muzzle has been placed on me.
“I simply do not know if or how I can work at all during the next months. Palestine—the humanitarian crisis in Gaza— remain the most pressing news story in the world, however, it seems that any statement, no matter how innocent, factual, and well-intentioned, can be skewed and twisted into an offense of the highest order.
“This is precisely the danger and absurdity of the Terrorism Act that I have always sought to impress upon the public, long before I ever became a victim of it myself.
“It is out of control and has no place in a democracy.”
Sarah Wilkinson, journalist
“The handcuffs were so tight that it cut off the circulation to my hands and fingers. … and I was sort of frog-marched out into a van. And during the time that I was away, these balaclava-clad men — I mean, a lot of them, unmarked — literally ransacked the house, took every piece of computer equipment, every phone….
“They also took money; it’s not on the list. They took my passport; that’s not on the list, so now I’ve got to hand in my passport, but I can’t, because they’ve actually taken it, but they haven’t declared that they’ve taken it — which will be an entrapment. I will probably get arrested for not producing my passport, but they have actually taken it. They also took about £200 worth of cash out of my wallet.
“And then they scattered my mother’s ashes all over the attic. I had a horrendous day yesterday, literally scraping my mother’s ashes out of old picture frames. They were everywhere. I’ve never had to do anything so horrendous as that before. And the urn obviously is meant to be three-quarters full. The urn is now half full, so my mother’s ashes are still scattered in places that I can’t retrieve them, in parts of the attic I just can’t — I can’t retrieve them. […]
“It is because I’m pro-Palestinian. It’s because I’m broadcasting news from Gaza. … It is to silence the people who are reporting on a genocide. And the point of that is so that, if no one’s reporting on it, they can continue the genocide. They can kill everybody, and nobody is reporting on it, so you’ll find out retroactively what’s happened in Gaza when it’s all finished and over.
“But because we’re reporting on it on a daily basis, that is what the government doesn’t want. It doesn’t want people to know what’s happening to the people of Gaza, how many deaths a day, how many children are being massacred and piled into plastic bags. It doesn’t want people to know this, so the only way they can do this is by silencing the journalists and the people that broadcast the news.”
Ilan Pappé, historian
“[T]o the questions of ‘Do I define Hamas as a terrorist organization?’ to that, I refused to answer that question. And I suggested to them that they should go and listen to my talks in the Michigan area, where I will discuss this issue. As for the question of genocide, I laconically said that, yes, I do frame the Israeli actions in Gaza as genocide. But again, I suggested that if they want a more detailed analysis of why do I frame it like this, they are most welcome both to read my articles and to come to the lectures in the Michigan area. […]
“I have to say, they were polite. I don’t want to describe it as an ordeal. They were polite. But what really bothers me is: Why at all do they have the right to ask me, and what was the real subtext for this whole affair? And I have my own understanding of that, although I don’t have the whole facts before me.”
Danny Shaw, professor
[quoting DD Geopolitics] “Professor Danny Shaw … was detained and interrogated by the FBI and DHS at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on August 28, 2024, following his attendance at the Free Palestine Film Festival in London.
“Shaw, who was recently fired from NYC’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice for opposing the genocide in Gaza, faced a three-hour grilling by Chicago-based federal agents. The FBI pressed Shaw on his activism at home and abroad, demanding the names of contacts and organizations with which he had worked. Despite requests, Shaw was denied the right to speak with a lawyer and was told he wouldn’t be released until he complied.
“Federal agents seized his cell phone, computer, notebooks, and other belongings while bombarding him with questions about his work and personal life.”
Steven Thrasher, professor
“I was one of a number of professors and graduate students who surrounded our students to try to make sure that nobody hurt them. The day before, there had been horrific violence at several other universities where we had seen that students had been brutally hurt by university police. […]
“I found out that the Northwestern police wanted to talk to me, and eventually found out that I was one of four people that they’re pressing charges against. Now, it was really disturbing. This was many months after the fact. … And the state of Illinois had thrown out all kinds of other cases. They threw out our case, as well.
“But the day that I found out that the state of Illinois was throwing out the charges, I also found out that my fall classes had been canceled and that I was not going to be allowed to teach in the fall pending an investigation. So, this was, of course, very upsetting […] particularly because my classes were very LGBTQ classes. I’m the Daniel Renberg chair of social justice in reporting with a focus on the LGBTQ community. And I also was teaching a class on LGBTQ recording methods and viruses and viral media. So, my classes were canceled. I’m the only person who teaches LGBTQ classes. […]
“[I]t’s a really, really dangerous and sad situation. I’ll be fine personally no matter what happens, but the idea that a social justice journalism professorship cannot talk about one of the most important social justice measures — issues of our time, the genocide in Gaza, that a journalism professor can’t talk about a issue and a situation where 171 of our colleagues have been murdered, journalists in Gaza, that we can’t talk about these things, that we can’t take a stand for free expression and the safety of our students on campus as they’re becoming more militarized, all of this is, of course, extremely upsetting.”
Katherine Franke, professor
“[My termination is] on the table and has never been ruled out. And in the climate in which we are now living, particularly at Columbia, things that used to be routine and expected are not happening. There’s an overreaction by the university, a weaponization of the disciplinary system against students and faculty in ways that in my 40 — over 40 years at Columbia I have never seen. […]
“[W]hat we’re seeing now is that the university will no longer tolerate protests and critical engagement. I think it’s important to recognize the problem here is not just what’s happening in, like, the images you’re seeing here of protests outside the buildings, but they’re also regulating what we can do inside the buildings. They’re monitoring our syllabi. I have a colleague who was fired because he had the nerve to bring a settler-colonial analysis to the Israeli project, the occupation of Palestinians — something that is done routinely in academic settings. He was told, “No, that’s a step too far. We can’t talk that way about Israel or Palestine.” And he was terminated. So, not only is the university allowing itself to be weaponized by the right-wing conservative politicians in … D.C. in ways that are squelching and then punishing student protest, but the faculty are now experiencing it, as well.”
MOOC Chile: Freedom of Expression
Freedom of expression is understood as implying, on the one hand, both the liberty to hold opinions and impart information and ideas, by any means without interference; and the right to seek and receive information and ideas.
“Why to protect expressions that are deem for most people as offensive or plainly wrong? … A classical rationale for protecting speech, even in cases where a majority of people think it should be limited or prohibited, is that in order to discover the truthfulness of an assertion, in moral, religious, political or scientific matters, it is best to allow people to freely argue, criticize and debate.
“A second justification is that freedom of expression is essential for democracy, because it allows citizens to discuss matters of public interest or to criticize the government, thus contributing to making it more accountable to citizens, to illustrate the electorate, and to control the abuse of power.
“A third rationale is that freedom of expression is essential for human development. For people to be able to form their own ideas and to communicate with others, in a sincere way, an environment free of interference and censorship is needed.
“Freedom of expression is also necessary for the exercise of other rights inherent to the democratic form of life, such as political participation, association and union. Also, a robust regime of freedom of expression is an essential tool for combating corruption, both in government and in the private sector.
“Finally, without freedom of expression, a free market cannot properly work, because fair competition means that both consumers and producers have access to all the relevant information, in order to make the best decisions.
“All these reasons show why protecting freedom of expression is so important. In a word, this liberty is a necessary condition for the effective protection of human rights as a whole.”
The censoring of pro-Palestinian voices across the West illustrates why the concept of freedom of speech is meaningless. Every state, regardless of whether it is a liberal democracy, socialist, fascist, monarchist, etc. will go after speech that is threatening to the status quo. The fact that we are continually told that we absolutely must tolerate the speech of the KKK, neo-Nazis, and the most extreme Christian nationalists just indicates that the American government either doesn’t view these groups as a threat or it agrees with them on some level. This sort of grace is never given to leftists or their speech, as we see now. Pro-Palestinian scholars and activists are seen as nuisances at best and a national security threat at worst. This isn’t a matter of Democrats vs Republicans, because both are in on it. This is a cause that neither side has any use for, so they can repress them in a bipartisan manner. For all of the hysteria about how Trump is going to ruin “our democracy,” this Democratic administration seems to be doing a pretty good job of gutting our liberal freedoms.
Part of me wonders if this repression is meant to be the coup de grace to end progressive social movement organizing for the foreseeable future. The Democrats are making it crystal clear that they don’t intend to be pushed to the left on any issue, be it Palestine or healthcare. Even ordinary, grassroots Democratic supporters are so Trump-obsessed that they dismiss concerns about Palestine with, “So you want Trump to win?/(insert accusation of being a shill for Putin/Xi/Iran)” They’re moving further to the right without realizing it. The fact that they care more about Dick Cheney’s opinion than yours or mine tells me all I need to know. This administration and its successor, whether that’s Trump or Harris, is telling us we have nothing to look forward to perpetual war. We can’t stop mass shootings, improve healthcare, reduce inequality, or clean up the environment, but those bombs are going to fall and you’ll learn to love it.
So chilling.