President Trump says he will stop funding for colleges that allow 'illegal' protests
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that all federal funding will stop for colleges and schools that allow “illegal” protests and that agitators will be imprisoned or sent back to the country they came from.
“American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
Columbia University in New York City was at the center of college protests last summer in which demonstrators demanded an end to U.S. support for Israel due to the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s assault on Gaza.
There were allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia in protests and counter-protests.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said in a press release that Trump’s post threatens free speech.
“President Trump needs to stand by his past promise to be a champion for free expression. That means doing so for all views — including those his administration dislikes,” the foundation said.
Ten colleges set to receive visits from DOJ
Columbia and nine other universities are set to be visited by a Justice Department antisemitism task force. The visits come as pro-Palestinian students have held large demonstrations at universities protesting Israel’s war in Gaza.
The ten universities 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.
Earlier this week in Barnard College, an affiliate of Columbia University, Pro-Palestinian student protesters entered an academic building and staged an hours-long sit-in. Moreover, two students were expelled from the same school after disrupting a class called the “History of Modern Israel.”
Trump scrutinizes campus protests
Soon after taking office in January, the president signed an executive order promising “immediate action” from the Justice Department to prosecute “terroristic threats, arson, vandalism and violence against American Jews.”
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” Trump said in the fact sheet. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”
The Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment on whether there were similar reviews over allegations of Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias, according to Reuters.
Contributing: Paste BN’s Sudiksha Kochi and Reuters
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for Paste BN. Reach him at fernando.cervantes@gannett.com and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.