National SDS Calls on Students: Smash Trump’s Anti-Palestine Task Force Visits, Protect Free Speech and the Campus Movement for Palestine

Trump’s Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism has announced that it will be visiting 10 universities around the US to investigate so-called antisemitic incidents – which, in reality, are what they call pro-Palestine, anti-genocide protests. According to Trump, schools that are found to harbor these protests will lose federal funding. We in Students for a Democratic Society condemn this anti-free speech campaign that the Trump administration wants to wage on Palestinian and pro-Palestine students everywhere, and we are determined to protest these visits.

The 10 schools to be visited by the task force include Columbia University; George Washington University; Harvard University; Johns Hopkins University; New York University; Northwestern University; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Minnesota; and the University of Southern California.

After October 7, 2023, the apartheid government of Israel launched an attempt to genocide the Palestinians in Gaza using bombs, chemical warfare, starvation, massacres, and more. They reduced the population of Gaza by at least 6%, and even now the Israeli occupation kills Palestinians in the West Bank everyday. Every cent of this venture was provided by Biden’s White House. For 18 months, students rose up across campuses in the United States to demand that their schools divest from Israeli businesses and academic partnerships. They were met with unprecedented repression – police brutality, mass arrests, suspensions, and deportations and expulsions, for actions as simple as posting flyers or giving speeches on behalf of pro-Palestine groups. As recently as a few days ago, more students at Columbia University were expelled.

This task force is meant to accomplish two things for Trump: one, it is meant to deliver on his promise to eliminate campus free speech and pro-Palestine protests, and two, it is meant to weaken higher education and make way for new private schools where his “America First” platform rules the curriculum. It would penalize any school that permitted any student advocacy around issues such Palestine – advocacy which is free speech activity protected by the First Amendment – and would also open the door to more anti-protest campus policies, which many universities have already begun enacting.

We heartily reject both positions. We think that regardless of anyone’s opinion on events in the Middle East, students on campus should still have the right to express their views and host events such as vigils and protests. We think that universities should be a place for student political activity around US foreign policy and for studying the reasons for US aggression, not a place where these activities are banned. We think the campus movement for divestment from Israel is an important movement that is standing on the right side of history and should be protected.

We are committed to disrupting any visits made by this task force to these 10 schools and to any other schools it will visit beyond that. We call on all students, faculty, workers and pro-Palestine campus groups to join us and do what we can to defend free speech on our campuses, as well as the pro-Palestine campus movement. We should be loud and clear: Trump and his pro-apartheid, anti-free speech task force are not welcome at our schools and we will make them regret every visit.

Protect Free Speech, Say No to Trump Task Force Visits!
From the US to Palestine, Protesting is Not a Crime!
Free Palestine!