Faculty group demands protections for non-citizens who 'express support' for Hamas

 A national faculty coalition is pushing to grant non-citizens First Amendment protections, demanding that the Trump administration be permanently barred from revoking visas over pro-Palestinian activism or support for terrorist groups.

The initiative is led by the American Association of University Professors and several of its university chapters, including Harvard’s, in partnership with the Middle East Studies Association.

A court victory for the AAUP in September stated that the Trump administration was violating the First Amendment by revoking visas of pro-Palestinian activists, according to The Harvard Crimson.

The national coalition’s new proposal seeks to block the Trump administration from continuing what it calls unconstitutional arrests and deportations. However, it also demands that any relief must apply to all noncitizens, not just members of the petitioning organizations.

It also includes a list of pro-Palestinian statements that cannot warrant a threat to a person’s visa.

The list includes statements considered “to express support or sympathy for terrorism or a designated foreign terrorist organization such as Hamas.”

However, not everyone agrees that citizens and noncitizens should share the same rights.

Foundation for Defense of Democracies Program Director Brandy Shufutinsky told The College Fix via email that Secretary of State Marco Rubio “has the power to revoke visas as they are a privilege, not a right.”

In her experience, no one has faced deportation or visa revocation solely for pro-Palestinian speech. However, she noted that visa-holders who express support for terrorism or violate U.S. civil-rights laws have faced appropriate consequences.

“If we do not allow criminals and terrorists into our country, why would we allow noncitizens who are already here to engage in criminal or terrorist activity?” Shufutinsky said.

She said there are some “who seek to spill American blood, and some of those folks use the rights and privileges guaranteed by our Constitution to do so.”

The national security expert added that it the government’s job to protect its citizens. “That includes making sure that anyone and everyone who steps foot on our shores have been properly vetted by national security experts,” Shufutinsky said.

Anyone entering the U.S. who incites disorder or promotes terrorism should be denied that opportunity, she said.

Shufutinsky cited laws that operate to this end, including the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which stipulates that the federal government can intervene if the states fail to protect their citizens.

“If someone is calling for terrorist actions and that call is likely to produce terrorist violence, then it should not be considered protected speech,” she told The Fix.

She also said that events since the Hamas-led terrorist attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, have shown that in many instances, speech has shifted from protected expression to material support for terrorist groups that advocate for violence.

She referred to examples such as activists distributing “literature produced by terrorist organizations” and student groups hosting “teach-ins and conferences featuring terrorist speakers calling for escalations in violence.”

“If courts rule in favor of allowing noncitizens who glorify or justify terrorism into the United States, we can expect foreign adversaries to use that decision to flood our campuses and communities with individuals hell-bent on our destruction,” Shufutinsky said.

Similarly, Teresa Manning, policy director at the National Association of Scholars, told The College Fix in an email that the NAS “opposes any attempt to blur the distinction between citizens and noncitizens.”

Visa-holding students lack core citizenship privileges like voting and jury service, meaning their rights clearly differ from those of American citizens. Courts have yet to definitively settle which constitutional rights extend to them and which do not, she said.

Manning called visa students “house guests,” saying they should be treated well but not treated as family members.

“The lawsuit AAUP v. Rubio has been brought by American organizations who claim to suffer a chilling of their speech rights when visa students are treated differently from American citizens,” Manning said.

“That claim seems far-fetched and perhaps brought in bad faith. One could theorize that these plaintiffs are using the courts – weaponizing the courts – to erase the distinction between citizen and noncitizen,” she said.

Manning also said the request is “premature.” While the courts decide what rights visa holders have, “further action by Judge William Young would therefore be inappropriate.”

Further, she said that part of the problem lies with the visa programs themselves.

“Right now Americans cannot find employment, are disfavored in university admissions and are struggling to maintain their standard of living,” Manning said.

Despite this, Americans are expected to support foreigners “to their own detriment” through programs such as H-1B and student visas, which she described as being frequently abused.

Manning told The Fix that “This attack on Americans by rapacious multinational corporations, by America-hating multiculturalists and by greedy, opportunistic colleges and universities must stop. Trump was elected to do precisely this since 2016.”

On the other hand, a senior attorney for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression told The College Fix via email that he supports the AAUP’s move, as “the First Amendment applies equally to noncitizens.”

The proposal from the AAUP would “provide a significant amount of protection to noncitizens in the United States to engage in protected first amendment activity in a way that would be consistent with the legal conclusions in the judge’s order,” Conor Fitzpatrick said.

He pointed to the 1945 Bridges v. Wixon Supreme Court case which “held that noncitizens are entitled to freedom of speech and freedom of the press.”

Addressing free speech on campus, Fitzpatrick said it is important that universities provide an environment that fosters respectful disagreement.

“I think universities need to be very firm that there should be no horizon on the ideas that people can share and that if you don’t like an idea from a classmate or from a professor, you offer your own idea, but you don’t try to shut down a disagreeable speaker,” he said.

However, Fitzpatrick noted that free speech protections do not extend to actions that harm others or destroy property, and universities ought to provide an environment where free speech is not misunderstood for crimes.

For example, no one can vandalize something just to make a statement, he said.

Still, “universities can play a role by standing up for the right of their students and faculty to engage in freedom of speech and freedom of the press and not qualifying it,” Fitzpatrick said.