WEBVTT - Palestine and the American University feat. Dana El Kurd 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:02.880 Col Zone Media. 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:08.880 Hello everyone, I'm welcome to it can happen here. My 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:11.840 name is Daniel Kurd, and I'm a writer, analyst, and 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:16.000 researcher of Palestinian and Arab politics. I'm an associate professor 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:18.520 of political science and a senior non resident Fellow at 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:21.919 the Arab Center Washington. I'm also occasional co host of 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:24.919 The Fire These Times. Today, I want to talk about 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:30.240 the attacks on American universities in American academia and what 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:33.199 role Palestine plays in all of this, and maybe end 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:36.560 on what's being done to stop it. So you may 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:39.440 or may not have heard about the attacks on universities 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:43.520 in academia, but given the general onslaught of disastrous news, 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:46.559 even for those of you who have noted something is 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.640 happening in higher education may not be keeping up with 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:52.240 the details. So let me give you a brief summary. 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:58.200 A number of universities, including Harvard, Brown, Columbia, and UCLA, 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:02.959 have been investigated for campus anti semitism related to pro 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.480 Palestine protests on those campuses over the past two years. 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:12.040 From there, the Trump administration has escalated by slashing federal 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:16.319 funding that those universities receive and forcing those universities to 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:20.959 settle with the administration not only monetarily, but also by 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:25.400 implementing changes to how their universities are run. So, for example, 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:29.840 Columbia University agreed to pay the Trump administration two hundred 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:33.120 and twenty million dollars punish seventy students involved in the 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:36.520 protests in a variety of ways, including by expelling them, 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:39.920 and they agreed to monitor and report their programs for 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:44.320 unlawful DEI goals. That's a quote. One of the ways 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:48.360 Columbia has agreed to monitor, as the Intercept reported in April, 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.800 is by appointing a vice provost in charge of monitoring 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:55.480 the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department, in 0:01:55.520 --> 0:02:00.000 particular for quote balanced curricula. The faculty in that department 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.400 will no longer run that department, and as the Middle 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:07.000 East Studies Association, in a statement back in March, noted this, 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:12.640 placing the department under administrative receivership is a quote fundamental 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:16.720 abrogation of the autonomy of university governance. This comes at 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:19.920 a time when the Trump administration has also attacked the 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.720 National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:27.040 National Institutes of Health, All of these are federal funding 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:29.600 sources for the majority of research that happens at universities 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:34.120 across disciplines the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities. The Trumpet 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:38.000 administration has also attacked foreign students and the processes by 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:39.959 which they are able to get visas study in the 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.280 United States, which is just another way to get at 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:47.120 a major revenue source for many universities. But why is 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:50.799 the Trump administration doing all this? Here is Vice President JD. 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:54.240 Vance speaking to the National Conservatism Conference back in twenty 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:54.760 twenty one. 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:58.960 We have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:02.720 this country. Ladies and gentlemen. The universities do not pursue 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:06.280 knowledge and truth. They pursued deceit and lies. And it's 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:09.919 time to be honest about that fact. And we subsidize, 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:13.519 we support, and in our own ways all of us 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:17.760 reinforce the power of universities to control our lives and 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:20.880 control how we live them. So much of what drives 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.079 truth and knowledge as we understand it in this country 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:28.560 is fundamentally determined by, supported by, and reinforced by the 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:29.840 universities in this country. 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:33.560 So that's Vance before him and Trump won the election, 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:39.160 identifying that universities are sites of power. Therefore, he argues 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:43.440 very explicitly that conservatives must destroy these sites of power 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:47.120 or submit them to their will. Our universities truly sites 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:50.840 of power? The short answer is yes, for two reasons. 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:57.080 Number One, as Vance himself identifies, universities produce knowledge, and 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:00.600 that knowledge produce that universities drives in innovation in the 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:06.440 private sector, in tech, in health, and weapons manufacturing. Universities 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:10.680 are a main engine of economic growth. In fact, universities 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:14.280 are part and parcel of American global power. They are 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:16.520 a major source of that power for the United States, 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.920 whether in the students and scholars they attract, whether for 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:22.760 their research that they produce that various arms of the 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:26.200 American government can use, or whether for the legitimization that 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:33.800 universities provide for certain frameworks like the frame market, liberalism, etc. Etc. So, Really, 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:38.720 universities largely generate power for the powers that be. But 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:44.080 sometimes universities are also sites of power that can challenge orthodoxies. 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:48.000 With greater inclusion of scholars and students from a variety 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.960 of backgrounds, we get a diversity of thought, and because 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:55.680 of how universities are supposed to run in theory, as 0:04:56.080 --> 0:05:00.080 governed by faculty and as sites of free inquiry. If 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:05.239 that means sometimes occasionally knowledge is produced that can challenge 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:10.360 power too. That sometimes occasional knowledge production is too much 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:13.320 for the jd vances of today's politics, though, so they're 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:17.640 cracking down. The number two reason why universities are sites 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:21.359 of power is because they offer a promise of social mobility. 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:27.239 And that's generally true too. Even the most modest regional 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.240 public school in America still offer some of the highest 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:33.120 quality of education you can get around the world. But 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:36.720 that shot at upward social mobility that you can get 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:41.800 with the university education is definitely getting harder and costlier 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:45.719 and less accessible. There's this book by Mark Busque I 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:50.520 highly recommend reading titled How the University Works. In it, 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:56.279 the author details how as universities became more corporatized, tuition increased, 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:01.040 university workers were disempowered, and the value of a degree plummeted. 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:06.000 And this process started way before Trump. Clifford Ando, professor 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:08.920 of Classics and history at the University of Chicago, wrote 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:12.200 for Compact magazine recently on what's happening at the University 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:14.880 of Chicago right now For those who may be unaware. 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:19.160 At the University of Chicago, the university is stopping PhD admissions, 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:24.160 it's increasing enrollment numbers, it's slashing budgets, it's even proposing 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:28.160 to teach some courses using chat. Gpt Ando argues that 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:31.560 this current dismantling of University of Chicago that we're witnessing 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.599 is again not Trump related, but can be traced to 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:41.320 this corporatization of the university, where universities prioritized money making 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:45.880 technologies and investments and as he writes, quote, fundamentally corroded 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:52.200 policymaking at universities. So to get a high quality education today, 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:55.080 at a university that isn't trying to trap you as 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:58.800 cheap labor or doesn't just use overworked adjuncts to teach 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:02.039 courses to avoid paying faculty they're worth, you need to 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:04.640 either come from money, or you need to be highly 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:08.680 highly exceptional, or you need to accrue exorbitant amounts of debt. 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:13.960 And yet, and yet, marginalized people still made advances in 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:18.280 this system. We saw, for example, more African American presidents 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:24.920 of universities, more women, We saw diversifying scholarship courses, pathways 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:29.040 for students, as universities became more inclusive. That's what diversity, 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:32.800 equity and inclusion efforts did. Imperfect as they were, and 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:37.120 even though the university as an institution continues to exploit labor, 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:41.720 continues to exploit their own students, often doesn't deliver enough 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:45.360 on the promise of social mobility. Even delivering a little 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:48.440 was too much for the Jdvans's of the world. They 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:52.600 don't want upward social mobility for some Americans, and they 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.160 don't want those challenges to power even at the margins, 0:07:55.680 --> 0:08:01.600 so they're cracking down. The attacks on Harvard, Brown, George Washington, UCLA, 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:06.400 the list goes on, is predicated on attacking DEI diversity, 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:11.000 equity and inclusion. Conservatives alleged that universities taking a person's 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:15.920 background into consideration in admissions or in hiring, or in scholarships, etc. 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:20.480 All of that violates anti discrimination laws, and our conservative 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.240 Supreme Court, in its recent ruling in the cases of 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:26.880 Students for Fair Admissions versus University of North Carolina and 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:31.160 Students for Vera Admissions versus Harvard, agreed they overturned the 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:33.560 two thousand and three Grutta versus Bullinger case that had 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:38.320 allowed higher education institutions to consider race and admissions. And 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:40.880 all of this comes at a time after decades of 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:45.040 the university as an institution eroded itself. But I would 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:50.880 say attacking DEI wasn't effective enough, especially after the Black 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:55.800 Lives Matter movement. Saying DEI is bad is a harder 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:58.959 sell for an American public fifty one percent of which 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:02.319 say they support Black Lives Matter, and this was according 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:05.160 to a twenty twenty three study by the Pew Research Center. Now, 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:08.280 fifty one percent isn't overwhelming, but it's not nothing either. 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:13.520 So conservatives to attack the university have had to exploit 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:17.160 the weaknesses that already exist within the academy. That has 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:20.720 meant exploiting the way the university as institution has become 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:25.439 sensitive to money and endowments and donors, and that has 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:28.440 meant exploiting the way the university has not actually been 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:31.880 a site of free inquiry or expression for particular people 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:37.000 and particular topics. And by exploiting and expanding that gap, 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:40.640 they are now trying to take those freedoms away from everybody. 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:53.800 This is where Palestine comes in. The truth is a 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:57.640 tax on student protesters for Palestine, a tax on scholars 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:01.360 who work on Palestine or speak on Paliste. That all 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:04.960 started before Trump, and that has become the blueprint for 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:09.800 attacking universities and academic freedom. Generally, they're using the pro 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:15.000 Palestine protests, pro Palestine programming, or just any knowledge production 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:20.480 about Palestine as an excuse to allege anti Semitism. Enter 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:24.280 into these investigations and demand the universities do what they want. 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:29.080 After the Hamas October seventh attacks, we saw student protesters 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:33.760 detained like Mahmud Trilt Columbia and Remisa auster G at 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:38.400 Tufts and many more. We have seen diplomas withheld, like 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:42.200 what Virginia Commonwealth University attempted to do to many students, 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.920 including students sitty in Haded. We have seen professors put 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.320 on leave or fired like what Muhlenberg College did to 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:53.400 Moura Finkelstein. The list goes on and on, but again, 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:57.040 a lot of this pattern started before Trump. In a 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:01.520 November twenty twenty three poll conducted by political scientists Mark 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:05.800 Lynch and Shibley Telhem called the Middle East Scholar Barometer, 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:09.680 the results show that sixty six percent of faculty members 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:13.560 who study the Middle East quote self censor when speaking 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:16.280 about the Middle East in an academic or professional setting, 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:19.600 and that number goes up to seventy seven point four 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:24.040 percent when talking about Israel Palestine. On the Israeli Palstinin 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.640 issue in particular, almost fifty two percent of scholars have 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:32.240 concerns about pressure from external advocacy groups, and of those 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:35.280 who said they self censor, a full eighty three percent 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:37.840 said the issue they most feel the need to censor 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:41.840 themselves about is anything related to criticism of Israel. This 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.440 is a crazy number if you consider that of the 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.840 same group, only one point six percent of respondents said 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:53.199 they censored criticism of US policy, and a full ninety 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:57.640 eight percent of assistant professors, untenured professors who work on 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:00.679 the Middle East quote field and new need to self 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:04.000 censor when speaking about the Palestinian Israeli issue in an 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:09.120 academic or professional capacity. Part of this story, the censorship story, 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:13.840 is the large scale adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:18.480 Alliance definition of antisemitism. Back during his first term, President 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:23.760 Trump's Executive Order on Combating Antisemitism directed government bodies to 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:27.720 take the IRA definition into consideration when enforcing Title six, 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:29.760 which is a part of the Civil Rights Act of 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:34.839 nineteen sixty four that prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:38.400 and national origin. The Biden administration didn't overturn any of 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:43.000 that either. They implemented that executive order themselves throughout their tenure. 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:47.160 And this definition is one definition of anti semitism that 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:52.920 critics say conflates criticism of Israel with anti semitism. In fact, 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:56.839 the main drafter of the IRA definition, ken Stearn, has 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:00.800 expressed concerns that this definition is being used as a 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:04.840 quote blunt instrument to label anyone an anti semi and 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:07.240 it's for that reason that Human Rights Watch and one 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:10.880 hundred and four other organizations signed a letter urging the 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:13.920 UN not to use this IRA definition. As a result, 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:17.240 there are, of course, a number of competing definitions of 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:21.800 anti Semitism, such as the Jerusalem Declaration on Anti Semitism, 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.120 that has a more nuanced understanding of one criticism of 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.600 Israel becomes anti semitism. As their website notes, the Jerusalem 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.480 Declaration is a product of an initiative that originated in 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:35.440 Jerusalem and includes in their numbers international scholars working in 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:40.400 anti Semitism studies and related fields, including Jewish Holocaust, Israel 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.880 Palestine and Middle Ast studies. But of course the IRA 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:46.760 definition is the one that the Trump administration wants to 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:50.920 follow and the one that universities are adopting. Maybe it 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:54.360 goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. It's not 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:58.280 because this administration that engages with the far right and 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:01.920 propagates conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement, It's not like 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:04.959 they actually care about anti Semitism. It's just a tool. 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:08.960 As Jewish organizations working to combat anti Semitism, such as 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:12.520 the Nexus Project explicitly point out, it's a way to 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:18.320 quote weaponize anti semitism by attacking free speech DEI foreign students, 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:21.440 and in this environment, we can understand why there's so 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:24.760 much fear to speak up and so much self censorship. 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:29.680 You can be falsely accused of anti semitism for bringing 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:33.880 up Palestine as a topic of discussion, for trying to 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:38.040 study what's happening, for trying to produce any sort of 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:41.680 knowledge on what's going on. I also really want to 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:47.000 underscore that this self censorship and fear that already existed 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:51.440 in a space in academia is a worsening trend today, 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:55.320 but it definitely existed before October seventh two. Take it 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:57.800 from me as someone who studies Palestine in American academia. 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:01.400 Palestinian scholars have long been on attack in the American academy. 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:05.520 But after October seventh, and before Trump, this of course 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:09.720 got worse. External actors and donors got involved in campus governance. 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:12.840 As we saw in Harvard and many other places, university 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:17.720 administrations cracked down on students, professors, everyone, often preemptively doing 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:20.040 the work of the right wing because they thought that 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:22.440 taking away freedoms from some groups wouldn't come back to 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:25.920 bite them. And this is how Palestine is now one 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.520 of the cudgels that Trump is using to attack universities 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:32.880 and the academy. And it's an effective cudgel because some 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:37.480 liberals in universities and outside universities can also be persuaded 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:41.320 to attack scholarship on Palestine and students who speak on Palestine. 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:45.960 But those exceptions to academic freedom that have long existed 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:49.680 in the academy are now being used to attack everyone. 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:53.160 A quick note here to outline what academic freedom for 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:57.160 a faculty member actually means. As the American Association of 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:02.440 University Professors the AAUP on their website academic freedom has 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:06.880 these main elements. Number one, the freedom to discuss relevant 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:10.320 matters in the classroom. Number two, the freedom to explore 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.480 all avenues of scholarship, research, and creative expression, and to 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:17.560 publish the results of such work. Number three intramural speech 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:22.040 freedom from institutional censorship or discipline when addressing matters of 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:26.840 institutional policy or action. And number four extramural speech freedom 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:31.119 from institutional censorship or discipline when speaking or writing as citizens. 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:35.520 So faculty members are allowed to speak on matters as citizens. 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:38.280 Being a faculty member and being a member of the 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.640 university community does not take away their right to be citizens. 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:46.080 That last one is worth emphasizing. To maintain universities as 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:48.720 sites of free inquiry and knowledge production, there has to 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:54.600 be academic freedom, and that freedom includes teaching, research, intramul speech, 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.240 and extramural speech. You can't censor people you don't like 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:02.040 or don't agree with think your institution and your university 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:05.040 will continue to function. You certainly can't do that and 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:08.080 think the right wing won't sniff it out and use 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:12.480 it against you. So what's to be done? Things are happening, 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:15.880 People are fighting back, and just like Palestine has been 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.480 the Canarian the coal mine for so many things, including 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:22.600 the assault on American academia. Palestine may be one of 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:26.040 those crucial issues that helps academics and students and faculty 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:29.520 to organize in this moment. For example, because of the 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:34.080 arrests of pro Palestine students and their attempted deportation, the 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:38.040 American Association of University Professors, alongside the Middle East Studies 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:42.680 Association and the Night First Amendment Institute, sued the Trump 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:46.520 administration over this policy of arresting and threatening deportation for 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.760 lawful speech on Palestine. The AAUP is also now ap 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:52.959 plaintive in a number of cases challenging the Trump administration 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:56.399 on the tax on DEI, attempting to abolish the Department 0:17:56.440 --> 0:18:01.159 of Education cuts, and federal funding of research except an 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:04.480 attacks on students and faculty after October seventh, which set 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:07.280 off this whole barrage of attacks on university since then 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:12.639 have galvanized people to demand their university administrations uphold academic freedom. 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:16.280 In twenty twenty four, nearly forty chapters of the AAUP 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:20.119 were founded or re established across the US, Even professors 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:22.560 who don't teach or study the Middle East or Palestine 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:24.760 are starting to speak out about the dangers of these 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.040 moments and these trends. I think people are starting to 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:31.840 realize that American universities will have to uphold their ideals 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:37.040 of faculty governance, free inquiry, free thought for everyone, or 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:41.159 they really will cease to exist. That's all I have 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:43.199 for you today. I'll be back soon to talk more 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:46.560 about the latest developments in Palestine. Stay strong, everybody. Thanks 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:47.000 for listening. 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:52.720 It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:55.840 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:59.720 Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.320 podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:05.560 find sources for It could Happen Here, listed directly in 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:07.760 episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.