We're international students at Harvard. We're afraid to write this. But we have to speak up.
Writing this letter carries a great deal of personal risk for all of us. The ordeals of Rumeysa Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil make clear that the Trump administration does not hesitate to snatch international students off the streets and put them in detention facilities for speaking up. But we refuse to silence ourselves at a time when our community is under attack. We can't afford to be silent. Neither can Harvard.
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News24
2 hours ago
- News24
Harvard scores a temporary victory in battle against Trump administration ‘vendetta'
A court on Thursday put a temporary stay on Donald Trump's latest effort to stop foreign students from enrolling at Harvard, as the US president's battle with one of the world's most prestigious universities intensified. A proclamation issued by the White House late Wednesday sought to bar most new international students at Harvard from entering the country, and said existing foreign enrollees risked having their visas terminated. 'Harvard's conduct has rendered it an unsuitable destination for foreign students and researchers,' the order said. Harvard quickly amended an existing complaint filed in federal court, saying: 'This is not the Administration's first attempt to sever Harvard from its international students.' '(It) is part of a concerted and escalating campaign of retaliation by the government in clear retribution for Harvard's exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government's demands to control Harvard's governance, curriculum, and the 'ideology' of its faculty and students.' READ | 'Such a disgrace': Outrage as Trump ramps up attacks on Harvard, Columbia US District Judge Allison Burroughs on Thursday ruled the government cannot enforce Trump's proclamation. Harvard had showed, she said, that without a temporary restraining order, it risked sustaining 'immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties'. The same judge had already blocked Trump's earlier effort to bar international students from enrolling at the storied university. The government already cut around $3.2 billion of federal grants and contracts benefiting Harvard and pledged to exclude the Cambridge, Massachusetts, institution from any future federal funding. Harvard has been at the forefront of Trump's campaign against top universities after it defied his calls to submit to oversight of its curriculum, staffing, student recruitment and 'viewpoint diversity'. Trump has also singled out international students at Harvard, who accounted for 27% of total enrolment in the 2024-2025 academic year and are a major source of income. In its filing, Harvard acknowledged that Trump had the authority to bar an entire class of aliens if it was deemed to be in the public interest, but stressed that was not the case in this action. The president's actions thus are not undertaken to protect the 'interests of the United States' but instead to pursue a government vendetta against Harvard. Harvard filing Since returning to office Trump has targeted elite US universities which he and his allies accuse of being hotbeds of antisemitism, liberal bias and 'woke' ideology. Trump's education secretary also threatened on Wednesday to strip Columbia University of its accreditation. The Republican has targeted the New York Ivy League institution for allegedly ignoring harassment of Jewish students, throwing all of its federal funding into doubt. Unlike Harvard, several top institutions - including Columbia - have already bowed to far-reaching demands from the Trump administration.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
NYPD arrests pro-Palestinian protesters after Columbia University library takeover
NEW YORK − Police arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators who took over part of Columbia University's main library on May 7. Ahead of finals week at the Ivy League campus, student activists clashed with campus public safety officials and contracted security guards inside and outside Butler Library. New York City police took 80 people into custody after responding to Columbia's campus, according to the agency. Videos posted to social media showed confrontations between university officials at the entrance to a reading room inside the library. Outside, scores of students gathered, with some trying to force their way into the building. Dozens of people donning masks and keffiyehs could be seen chanting and hoisting signs in support of Palestinians and Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate student who has been held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention over his pro-Palestinian advocacy. Claire Shipman, Columbia University's acting president, said in an update that the university asked NYPD to assist in securing the building. 'Disruptions to our academic activities will not be tolerated and are violations of our rules and policies; this is especially unacceptable while our students study and prepare for final exams,' Shipman said. 'Columbia strongly condemns violence on our campus, antisemitism and all forms of hate and discrimination, some of which we witnessed today." In the evening, the university sent a campus text alert that the library is closed and the area must be cleared. Shipman said two campus public safety personnel were injured in a crowd rush. The student radio news station WKCR reported demonstrators had also been injured. NYPD officers wearing helmets and face shields entered the campus from a closed-off street. "At the written request of Columbia University, the NYPD is entering the campus to remove individuals who are trespassing," Mayor Eric Adams said in a social media post. "We will not tolerate hate or violence in any form in our city." Charges weren't immediately available for the 80 people taken into custody, the police department said May 8. Police officers escorted dozens of people cuffed in zip ties onto NYPD buses and vans, Reuters reported. Secretary of State Marco Rubio tweeted that officials would review visa statuses for those who took over the library. Just outside campus gates, another group of demonstrators gathered in support of those arrested. The protest came just over a year after encampments at Columbia triggered similar protests at college campuses across the country. The demonstrators opposed Israel's siege of Gaza after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel. The university has restricted access to the campus and said the encampment protests created an unsafe environment, particularly for Jewish students. Demonstrators have denied accusations of antisemitism and said they are protesting mounting Palestinian death tolls. University officials earlier said there was a disruption in a reading room, and people were asked for identification. They were then asked to disperse. The protesters were told that failing to comply would result in violations of university rules and policies, and possible arrest. None chose to identify themselves and depart, university officials said. In a blog post earlier in the afternoon, student demonstrators said they entered the library, dubbing it 'Basel Al-Araj Popular University,' named for a Palestinian activist and writer. 'Repression breeds resistance,' the post said, 'if Columbia escalates repression, the people will continue to escalate disruptions on this campus.' In March, the Trump administration gave the university an ultimatum to adopt a set of policies to quell pro-Palestinian protests in order to receive federal funds. The policies included adopting rules around masks, protests and allowing law enforcement to arrest demonstrators. Just over a year ago, hundreds of NYPD in riot gear entered the campus after a group of student demonstrators took over a building. More than 100 people were arrested, though prosecutors dropped charges for most. This story was updated with new information. Eduardo Cuevas is based in New York City. Reach him by email at emcuevas1@ or on Signal at emcuevas.01. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NYPD arrests pro-Palestinian protesters in Columbia University library
CNN
2 hours ago
- CNN
A West Virginia prosecutor is warning women that a miscarriage could lead to criminal charges
Amid a constantly changing reproductive landscape, one West Virginia prosecutor is warning people who have miscarriages in his state that they could get in trouble with the law. Raleigh County Prosecuting Attorney Tom Truman says that although he personally wouldn't prosecute someone for a miscarriage, he made the suggestion out of an abundance of caution after hearing from other prosecutors. Truman even suggests people might want to let local law enforcement know if they've have a miscarriage. Several reproductive law experts say people around the country have, indeed, faced charges related to miscarriages — but they still wouldn't recommend reaching out to law enforcement. Truman says the idea first came up during a chat with other West Virginia prosecutors at a conference several years ago, and it's been been an ongoing conversation since. The initial conversation was theoretical, since at the time, women in the US still had the constitutional right to an abortion under Roe v. Wade. But some of the prosecutors believed they could charge a person using state laws related to the disposal of human remains. 'I thought these guys were just chewing on a Dreamsicle,' Truman said. But, he added, West Virginia's legal statutes include definitions that are 'pretty broad-ranging.' The way some prosecutors may interpret the law means people who miscarry could face criminal charges, including felonies, he said. 'It's a different world now, and there's a lot of discretion that prosecutors have, and some of them have agendas where they would like to make you an example,' Truman told CNN. 'What's changed is, Roe isn't there anymore, and so that may embolden prosecutors in some cases,' he said. 'I'm just trying to say, 'be careful.' ' Early pregnancy loss is common, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, It happens in about 10 of 100 known pregnancies, often because the embryo isn't developing properly. And some reproductive law experts say it's probably not a good idea to call the police when it happens. 'It's always a mistake to invite law enforcement into your reproductive life,' said Kim Mutcherson, a professor of law at Rutgers Law School who specializes in reproductive justice. Calling police could prompt an unwanted investigation, she says. 'If they then decide, 'no, it actually wasn't a miscarriage, this was somebody who took pills,' or whatever sort of thing that they want to conjure up, then all of a sudden it goes from 'here's this poor woman who had a miscarriage' to 'here's a person who we're going to start to prosecute,' ' Mutcherson said. 'I understand the idea that caution is better than being caught up in something that you weren't anticipating, but it is difficult for me to imagine any circumstance in which I would think it was safe for someone who miscarried to call the police,' she added. Abortion is illegal in West Virginia, but there are exceptions in the case of a medical emergency or a nonviable pregnancy, or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. Kulsoom Ijaz, senior policy counsel with Pregnancy Justice, a nonprofit focused on the civil and human rights of pregnant people, said she doesn't believe there is anything in West Virginia law that criminalizes miscarriage. 'I think the law is pretty clear,' she said. 'There's nothing in the law that says someone can be charged with a crime in connection to their pregnancy loss or their conduct during pregnancy, or for how they respond to that pregnancy loss or miscarriage or stillbirth.' The fractured landscape of reproductive rights that came about in the wake of the Dobbs decision, the US Supreme Court ruling that revoked the federal right to an abortion, has increased the risk that a pregnant person can face criminal prosecution for a variety of reasons, not just a miscarriage, according to a report from Ijaz's organization. Between June 2022 – when Dobbs was handed down – and June 2023, there were more than 200 cases in the US in which a pregnant person faced criminal charges for conduct associated with pregnancy, pregnancy loss or birth, according to Pregnancy Justice. The number is most likely an undercount, Ijaz said. In West Virginia, there were at least three cases related to pregnancy prosecutions. In one, the state's Supreme Court found that the state could not levy criminal child abuse charges against someone for their prenatal conduct, which included substance use during pregnancy. Even with the strict abortion ban in place, Ijaz said, 'there are still protections for pregnant people.' In states like Alabama that have fetal personhood laws that give fertilized eggs, embryos and a fetus the 'same rights as you and I,' Ijaz said, it's a little different. 'We've seen people get prosecuted and face decades of incarceration for substance use during pregnancy, because that fetus that they're carrying is seen as a child,' she said. Last year in Ohio, a woman who had a miscarriage at home was charged with a felony on the advice of the Warren City Prosecutor's Office, but a grand jury dismissed the case. Ijaz said that she doesn't think there is an appetite for these kind of cases among the public but that no matter where someone lives, inviting the law into their life right after a miscarriage is ill-advised. The legal landscape for reproductive justice 'seems to almost be changing on a daily basis' – and generally not in favorable ways for pregnant people, said Brittany Fonteno, CEO of the National Abortion Federation, a professional association for abortion providers. 'The laws, the rhetoric, the culture in which we are living in within the US has become so incredibly hostile to people who experience pregnancy,' she said. 'I think that the intersection of health care and criminalization is an incredibly dangerous path,' Fonteno added. 'As a country, we should be supporting people and their ability to access the health care that they need, rather than conducting intrusive and traumatic investigations into their reproductive lives.' Fonteno recommends that people who experience pregnancy loss reach out to a qualified medical professional rather than law enforcement. 'While we are living in a very different country than we were pre-Dobbs, I believe still that this is an individual experience and a health care decision,' she said. 'Most providers believe that as well.' Mutcherson also says that the reproductive justice landscape in the US is 'scary' for people who are pregnant, who want to get pregnant or who have bad pregnancy outcomes. If there's any silver lining to the discussion about criminalizing miscarriage, she said, it's that it's good for people to know that such things can happen. 'Women have been criminalized for their pregnancies for decades, frankly, so to the extent that there is a wider and broader conversation about what it means to treat an embryo or a fetus as a person, and the ways in which that diminishes the personhood of somebody who was pregnant, that is in fact a valuable thing, right?' Mutcherson said. 'Maybe this is actually going to bring us to a better space.'
