Get the latest tech news
The Trump administration is coming for student protesters
Lawyers called Trump’s actions ‘akin to the threat that McCarthyism posed’ 50 years ago.
At a press conference on Friday, deputy attorney general Todd Blanche said the Justice Department is investigating whether student protesters at Columbia violated federal terrorism laws and that it would prosecute “any person engaging in material support of terrorism.” Hours before the raids, Columbia received a joint letter from three government agencies demanding that it punish student protesters; empower “internal law enforcement”; and put its Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department under an “academic receivership” for at least five years, among other demands — or else risk losing its “financial relationship with the United States government.” On February 13, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce demanded that Columbia and Barnard produce all student disciplinary records related to eleven incidents, including last year’s Hamilton Hall occupation, a demonstration protesting the university’s financial ties to Israel. In their complaint against Columbia, Khalil and other students allege that the Trump administration’s repression of protesters is “akin to the threat that McCarthyism and the broad overreach of the role of the House Unamerican Activities Committee (“HUAC”) posed fifty years ago.”
Or read this on r/technology
