RANT: SCHOOL DAYS, SCHOOL DAYS, DEAR OLD GOLDEN...

 

I’VE MENTIONED MY CONCERNS in several posts, here, here, here, here, and here about online censorship, freedom of expression, the ability to publicly protest, and how our rights to do so are being eroded more and more each day. Many will find such concerns misplaced, wrong-headed, paranoid even. To that, I would only say: complacency in a democracy is a dangerous bedfellow lest we wake to discover those cherished rights are no more.

 

    Mahmoud Khalil

👉One example of this erosion of citizen rights is with the high-profile extradition case of Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent resident of the United States, a “Green Card” holder, and married to an American. He is a Columbia University graduate student who helped organize pro-Palestinian student protests at the campus of the New York City university. He has broken no laws; he has not been charged with a crime, and the U.S. State Department says the reason for his deportation is because his “presence in the country could pose unfavourable consequences for American foreign policy.” (BBC News) The State Department cites the  "Immigration and Nationality Act" of 1952 as the basis for its complaint against Kahlil. Critics have called the crackdown on international students for their pro-Palestine speech as akin to a McCarthy-era 'witch hunt', demonstrating gross governmental over-reach and is a violation of citizens' free speech rights under the First Amendment. Such an absurd claim that the Syrian-born Palestinian could (not "does", BTW) cause some sort of "unfavourable consequence" for American foreign policy should be laughed out of court.* Instead, Khalil faces the threat of deportation and is being held in a federal facility in Louisiana. The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) notes that the New Jersey court ruling on Khalil’s case

 

“...came less than 48 hours after the US government handed over the 'evidence' they have on Mr. Khalil - which included nothing more than a letter from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that made clear Mr. Khalil had not committed a crime and was being targeted solely based on his speech". (BBC)

 

SEC OF STATE RUBIO also raised the tried-and-true specter of anti-Semitism when explaining that the government’s actions against Khalil were done “to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States” even if his activities “were otherwise lawful". (BBC) Mahmoud Khalil is ‘guilty’ of wrong speech—this, in the land of the First Amendment (to the Constitution) which gives citizens the right to freely speak their minds.¹ Amazing!

👉A RECENT REPORT NOTES there are over six-hundred international students across the U.S. in more that one-hundred educational institutions that have had their visas revoked and await deportation or have ‘self-deported’. Onerous fines along with possible jail time is threatened for those who contest the deportation orders.  

 

AND MEANWHILE in the True North Strong and Free, McGill University pro-Palestinian demonstrations are continuing since their start in early 2024. While there are still some tent encampments on campus, the administration and student organizers have, for the most part, kept the protests within bounds of what the university finds acceptable. Recently, however, there have been demonstrations demanding the university divest its wealth fund of any direct Israeli investments. One estimate suggests McGill has a stock portfolio of over $70 million in “military technology” firms that have contracts with the IDF (Israeli Defense Force). These April 2025 protests have entailed some property damage on campus, prompting the university to cut ties with the student union, the Society of McGill University (SSMU), citing in its complaint that the union’s leadership, "has been neither unanimous nor explicit in dissociating itself from or rejecting groups without recognized status at McGill that endorse or engage in acts of vandalism, intimidation and obstruction as forms of activism…." (CBC) And I would think de-linking McGill from the SSMU would remove an important venue and go-between for students to raise concerns with the university administration, thus making it easier for McGill to keep students in line.  

MEANWHILE, the protests continue, if more muted; the legal disputes around the student union are before the courts; McGill receives dividends from its arms manufacturer stocks, and bombs are falling again on Gaza.

So it goes.

 

 

Cheers, Jake.____________________________________

 

 

*  The United States doesn't need help from student activists in creating "unfavourable consequences" for its foreign policy. American support for Israel's genocidal rampage in Gaza is tanking whatever vestiges of trust and respect the world community once had for the "shining city on the hill".

 

1. This should give freedom of speech and expression advocates pause to consider the ramifications of the changing climate in the United States around what can be said or published or demonstrated. [BTW, Public rallies are a form of speech protected by the First Amendment. Ed.] Thus, because U.S. government policy is stridently pro-Israel, any criticism of American foreign policy vis-à-vis Israel or criticisms of the Israeli state directly are met with increasingly harsher government sanctions and censure. Jewish lobby groups like AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) and Canada’s CIJA (Canada-Israel Jewish Affairs) comb publications and social media accounts to find deviants from the accepted pro-Israel narrative, and then denounce them as anti-Semites, demanding authorities censor or charge them with specious hate crimes or breach of the peace infractions.

If this travesty of justice (Muhamoud Khaili’s case) can be done in America, it will only be exacerbated elsewhere in countries lacking America’s (once) robust speech protection laws. Stay tuned!