www.nytimes.com/2024/10/09/n...

Wrap your mind around two things at once, Isaac. What the Trump administration is doing to Khalil is lawless, terrifying, and wrong. Also: CUAD has been super-explicit about its support for Hamas, and he has served as a spokesman for CUAD. I oppose his deportation. I also oppose his whitewashing.

Isaac, what is going on w you? I thought of you as one of the grownups.

A few items of CUAD protest paraphrenialia: Hamas and Hezbollah flags, green headbands, inverted red triangles, literature stamped "Hamas Media Office." I can't prove anything about Khalil's feelings about this, which is protected speech. But nothing hidden about it. It comes out at every protest.

Isaac, have you ever been up to Columbia and seen a protest? Did you see the encampments? I feel like you're functioning with a fairly abstract understanding of what CUAD is.

Isaac, I'm not the government and I'm not making a case. I get to speculate. CUAD, of which he is an active member, has been unabashed about its support for Hamas as well as Hezbollah, Nothing controversial there.

9/So Khalil is no hero. It's just that there is no basis in law, as far as I can tell, for the way the government is mistreating him.

8/ they handed out flyers (well, since the students refused to take them, they flung then on the ground) that featured, among other things, a giant jackboot stomping on the Star of David. None of this is protected speech. It's also effectively heckling--preventing the *teacher* from speaking.

7/ against threatening or harassing a group on the basis of national origin, and maybe on the basis of religion.

And let's think for a minute about what they were protesting: the expulsion of students who burst into a class taught by an Israeli and shut it down and refused to leave. Meanwhile,

6/ That's not something that should be prosecuted by the government--it should have First Amendment protection--but private universities don't have to abide by the FA; they do have to abide by Title VI. The material they distributed celebrated the massacre of Israelis. That is a violation of rules

5/ It is expressly forbidden to do that, because's it's a dramatic disruption of the educational process. Call it the hecklers' veto of studying. Then he was part of a group that handed out leaflets stamped by Hamas, among other things, and put up a poster of Sinwar.

4/ Is protest allowed indoors? No. Here's FIRE: *Because of concerns about disruption, noise, and even fire safety, colleges may generally impose more restrictive rules on what students can do inside buildings.*

Then Khalil was part of a group shouting through a bullhorn into a library...

3/ First, he was part of a group that barged onto the campus without permission--the campus is not open. Then he was part of a group that barged into the library, knocking over or manhandling (not clear which) a security guard to the point at which he had to go to the hospital.

2/ because even free speech is constrained by rules--time, place, manner, and other legitimate restrictions. He hasn't been punished by any disciplinary body, but he's no martyr. Take the case we've all followed closely: the occupation of the Barnard library.

2/ higher ed. That is not to say there hasn't been a shocking outburst of antisemitism on campus. It's just that Trump doing what he would have done anyway for his own reasons, then citing antisemitism, turns Jews into villains. In other words, scapegoats.

3/ while I find them odious, they are far from sufficient cause for deportation. No question that Trump and Rubio are out to degrade our civil liberties and that this is just the beginning