On March 4th, 2025, President Trump posted the following on Truth Social, an alt-tech social media platform of which he owns a majority share:
All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter.
In context, this post was made shortly after the Federal Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced that it will visit 10 university campuses that have experienced antisemitic incidents since October 2023. This stems from allegations that these universities have failed to protect their Jewish students and faculty members from unlawful discrimination. However, Trump’s post reaches far beyond this, and for those who are at least somewhat acquainted with our country’s history, raises alarms.
This begs the crucially important question: what constitutes an illegal protest? Our consideration of this question is critical, for protests are one of our few means of protection against our government, which, by its very nature, any government can easily transform into one of fascism, oligarchy, technocracy, or any number of freedom-constricting regimes. We, as a people, must exercise extreme prudence when drawing the line between legal and illegal protesting.
As of March 5th, 2025, our laws are as follows: protests must not block access to buildings or passage through sidewalks. They may make use of sidewalks so long as they do not prevent others from doing the same. Protest organizers may apply for a permit to block traffic on roadways or otherwise use them to such a degree that traffic is naturally blocked. If they do not, their use of roadways must not block vehicle or pedestrian traffic, and they must obey police instructions to move away from these roadways. Above all, protestors must not commit acts of violence. The same laws apply to counter protests, and police must protect protestors and counter protestors equally. In cases where these laws are violated, our judicial system already has measures in place to try alleged violators and enforce punitive measures as necessary.
Trump, in his post, is stating his intention to add new punitive measures, both to the individuals who participate in illegal protests and to the universities to whom those students are associated. I find there are three main disconcerting elements to this proposal.
The first disconcerting element is the ambiguity behind Trump’s use of the word “illegal.” In American history, as well as those of other nations, political pundits and demagogues alike use words and phrases such as “illegal,” “anti-nationalist,” “heathen,” and a multitude of others to decry speech, action, and even groups of people that run counter to their own beliefs, platforms, and prejudices. Arguably, the most famous and dangerous example from our own history is that of McCarthyism. During the early 1950s, Senator McCarthy aggressively attacked politicians, scientists, and any public figure who held anti-right-wing views, accusing them of communism and working to strip them of their positions, reputation, and livelihoods. An initiative that started as a legitimate effort to protect America from communist agendas quickly devolved into a campaign to silence opposing viewpoints and curtail free speech. None of this necessarily implies that Trump is, in fact, using the word “illegal” to stand in for “contrary to my political platform,” but given the context of this post in relation to free speech, I would advise vigilance – if Trump, or the government at large, begin using the rhetoric of illegality or anti-Americanism as a tool of manipulation, we must be prepared to recognize it and counter it, just as Americans of the 1950s eventually did against the scourge of McCarthyism. We must ensure the definition of “illegal” never grows so large that it encompasses peaceful criticism.
The second disconcerting element is Trump’s proposal to enforce direct consequences upon universities for the conduct of their students outside of the classroom. Even if we assume the best of intentions, that Trump has no intention to mark protests that oppose him as illegal and only seeks to combat antisemitism, how will universities adjust their behaviors and policies if they are held responsible for the protests of their students outside of their purview? Universities would naturally need to protect themselves against inappropriate protest behavior, those that do violate the law or advocate ethically deplorable beliefs, such as the 2022 Harvard University protests where students advocated antisemitic beliefs. However, they would also need to protect themselves against behaviors that the government may deem inappropriate, particularly those that directly criticize the government’s actions, the president, or the government at large. Again, even assuming the best of intentions, universities would err on the side of risk aversion, opting to take action that minimizes the risks against them at the expense of infringing upon the students’ rights to free speech. They could potentially restrict demonstrations, mandate the requirement of prior approvals subject to their agreement or risk assessment of the views in question, or even preemptively penalize students to avoid government repercussions, fundamentally changing campus discourse for the worse. The balance between risk aversion and infringement of rights would lie at different points of the spectrum for different universities.
The third, and most important disconcerting element, is the direct threat to our freedom of speech posed by Trump’s post. If the United States government were to attempt to curtail our first amendment rights, they would not start by taking direct action, such as repealing the first amendment or creating laws to impose restrictions upon the first amendment. Instead, they would take steps to gradually reduce our first amendment protections, to chip away at its edges one piece at a time. In public discourse, they would test the waters with statements such as Trump’s, gauge reactions, and see what liberties they can take. As history has shown time and time again, once a government begin taking liberties, it won’t stop – each step alone will be a single, small step, but their collective descent will lead us to a place where our freedoms are stripped.
This doesn’t necessarily imply that Trump is doing this now, but again, we must remain vigilant. Our freedom of speech is perhaps our strongest pillar that bolsters our American ideals. It certainly is our last line of defense against oppression, and ultimately, fascism. We must recognize and combat any and all potential threats to our freedom of speech, however small or benign it may seem, as the risks of its loss or diminution are catastrophic. Regardless of Trump’s intentions, and regardless of whether our current president is a Republican or Democrat, this statement poses a direct threat to our freedom of speech.
I vehemently denounce antisemitism, racism, prejudice, and dehumanization of all kinds, but I will never advocate for the imprisonment or destruction of those who express those ideas in a peaceful, legal manner. A battle of ideas must take place on an ideological battlefield, and such weak ideologies which weak individuals subscribe to will necessarily lose, if and only if we have the freedoms necessary to properly participate in this battlefield. We must continuously work to ensure these freedoms are protected. As Thomas Jefferson, a founding member of the United States famously stated, “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
