Mia Vesely | Is free speech on college campuses a thing of the past?

This time last year, college campuses across the United States looked very different; encampments in support of Gaza were established at over 130 American universities, including Penn, and while they have since been dismantled, the fallout from interference with student speech is just beginning to materialize.

I wrongly assumed I was done speaking about this topic. After confronting the open expression guidelines Penn put in place at the beginning of this year, I didn’t think any developments of note would arise. However, I now see that I was wrong, and that speaking up is more important than ever before.

Multiple students at universities across the United States have been detained in response to their exercise of free speech. Namely, Rumeysa Öztürk’s case has garnered significant media attention. Öztürk, a doctoral student at Tufts University, was detained in late March by plainclothes officers in broad daylight while she was on her way to meet friends. She allegedly “engaged in activities in support of Hamas.” However, her friends said she did not go to any protests and that her only involvement in activism is an op-ed she co-authored alongside other graduate students at Tufts.

I encourage you to read up on the situation, including her op-ed, to get your own grasp on what she said and her continuing detention. This is not a black-and-white issue. Members of a pro-Israeli group at Tufts have since spoken up against her detention. The restriction of free speech is the underlying fear we all now face — regardless of political positioning.

While I’m completely in support of actual “security risks” to the United States being removed, doctoral students who engage in civic activism are not the problem. The methods in which these students are being rounded up and moved to out-of-state detention facilities — in most cases swiftly and before judges can approve it — should be alarming for every college student and citizen of this country. Öztürk was detained by plainclothes officers — can you imagine being handcuffed by what appears to be a group of random men without identification? I can’t, and if you told me two weeks ago that that was the reality we were living in, I’m not sure I would have believed you.

The first calls for change often come from students, and while terrorists should be removed, it’s telling to see the government wield such heavy claims against international students who are arguably the most vulnerable. In the case of Columbia University undergraduate student and U.S. permanent resident Yunseo Chung, she has lived in the United States since the age of seven and is a straight-A student. The government claims that she is a Hamas sympathizer, yet it has been unable to produce sufficient evidence to back up these claims. U.S. district judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled that Chung cannot be detained and deported at this time and granted a temporary restraining order against the government.

Everyone’s voice is powerful — I personally value the platform the Opinion section of The Daily Pennsylvanian has given me every day — but am saddened by the fact that many on this campus can’t utilize it anymore due to fear of deportation and government retaliation.

I love my country, and one of the reasons why lies in our First Amendment rights. The ability to speak up for what you believe in, against what you don’t, and hear viewpoints from all sides that challenge you is something that makes us unique and has put us at the forefront of worldwide democracy. I fear now that we are taking steps backward and turning away from these founding values.

For those who are citizens but believe this isn’t their problem or that their documentation will protect them, I’m sure these students felt the same way about their green cards and student visas. How long is it before an issue important to you is at stake? I don’t know, but I do know I want to be able to speak about it and engage in the wonderful discourse that is a cornerstone of our freedom. I don’t want to live in a world where we witness people grabbed off the street for expressing their opinions, and neither should you.

MIA VESELY is a College junior from Phoenix studying philosophy, politics, and economics. Her email is mvesely@sas.upenn.edu.

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