It's right to be outraged, and it's fair to question Columbia's motives and messaging, but the dean is probably right that anyone who isn't a citizen is now at risk if the administration doesn't like their speech about Israel. - ThreadSky

kenwhite.bsky.social • 1 day ago

It's right to be outraged, and it's fair to question Columbia's motives and messaging, but the dean is probably right that anyone who isn't a citizen is now at risk if the administration doesn't like their speech about Israel.

Reposted from Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News

Great. Columbia J-school students from abroad are being told to obey in advance by their dean. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/12/n...

Comments

pyperkub.bsky.social•1 day ago

Or Tesla. Or Canada. Or Ukraine. Or Perkins-Coie . Or LGBTQ+ folks. Or... (this list goes on)...

dankeevy.bsky.social•1 day ago

I mean, he's right. Keep your noses clean and get out safely. The better part of valor is discretion.

thegiantcraw.bsky.social•1 day ago

Just Israel? Or can they shoehorn any speech against the current administration into something that warrants deportation?

pimpy.bsky.social•1 day ago

Yeah this is exactly what I would tell someone I didn’t want to get deported.

convolver.bsky.social•1 day ago

Hard to blame Cobb for just pointing out that his non-citizen students are in danger from an anti-Constitutional regime that has full backing from one party and a very qualified and ineffectual opposition from the other. It's not on a student visa holder to put their body in the line of fire for us.

wescontreras.com•1 day ago

Cobb's bosses, on the other hand, could put institutional weight behind the defense of their students.

marnanightingale.bsky.social•1 day ago

Yeah the tone sounds a lot closer to "look, we want you to get your degree and get safely out of the country". The fact that the person saying that is a First Amendment lawyer ... I mean I have said to a few people that if a First Amendment lawyer is telling you to stop talking you probably should.

marnanightingale.bsky.social•1 day ago

Reminds me of the time an immigration lawyer said to me "as a lawyer I'd love to take that to the Supreme Court. As YOUR lawyer let's see if we can just avoid that whole deal, ok?"

sluggishcheetah.bsky.social•1 day ago

That’s how life is in a dictatorship. 🤷‍♂️
Get used to it or push back.

marnanightingale.bsky.social•1 day ago

I’m not sure who that advice is for but those students aren’t American citizens — not sure how many are residents — and neither am I. I don’t think International students have to risk being disappeared to Gitmo to save the US from itself.

sluggishcheetah.bsky.social•1 day ago

That’s not really their purpose here. They’re here to get an education, not save us from ourselves.

marnanightingale.bsky.social•1 day ago

And, at this point, even before getting their degree they need to think about making it home alive, which is not a sentence anyone should ever be typing, and is not a topic any department head should have to give advice on. I wish I thought that Columbia would look at that and feel shame.

sluggishcheetah.bsky.social•1 day ago

Columbia should have put itself in front of its students, not hide behind them. Giving in while never make anyone here safer. It’ll just get 45 and his raiders what they want faster.

sanjuans52.bsky.social•1 day ago

This is their future professional lives. Fair is where you go to ride the ferris wheel and eat cotton candy. It has nothing to do with these students real lives. I understand there dean's message

bmacknight.bsky.social•1 day ago

Jelani Cobb is accurate.

theglobalvc.bsky.social•1 day ago

💔

cmurf.com•1 day ago

Once it succeed with non-citizens, who's next? Vandals of Teslas charged with terrorism - are they argued to be less than a full citizen? Deported to a country happy to accept money and trade preference in exchange for helping the U.S. regime disappearing its political enemies?

cmurf.com•1 day ago

Revoking all green cards that haven't paid the gold card tithe?

Reversing naturalization?

treziok.bsky.social•1 day ago

ADL is putting a lot of pressure on uni's. I'm not sure that's been reported yet.

jamespio.bsky.social•1 day ago

in which direction? To uphold traditional values of the jewish faith founded upon the teachings of their ancestors and developed over 3 millenia frequently spent under oppression? Or to push them to crack down on anyone who criticizes Israel?

zyphex-skybreaker.bsky.social•1 day ago

The latter.

volcanicsand.bsky.social•1 day ago

I had no idea that New Yorker staff writer was a dean!

caseydriscoll.bsky.social•1 day ago

I don’t think citizens are safe either.

fraochs.bsky.social•11 hours ago

Cobb is not doubt putting himself at risk for being this blunt.

coolpapabell.bsky.social•1 day ago

The dean could’ve said, ‘America is no longer safe for you, if you want to leave tonight we’ll ensure you can complete your degree remotely.’ While his warning wasn’t inaccurate, it did have a ‘if you don’t scrub your social media, it’ll be your own damn fault’ ring to it.

dougwar40k.bsky.social•1 day ago

Sure. But this would be a lot more palatable if it was followed up with a "...but we're sure as hell gonna fight for you," instead of a shrug.

clevernickname23.bsky.social•1 day ago

Students who aren't citizens should probably do everything they can to relocate to a Canadian or European university. I don't think America is safe for non-citizens, or if it is, I don't know if it will be for much longer.*

*Russian and white South African students are probably fine.

morgalyn.bsky.social•1 day ago

This isn't reasonable or practical for most students, particularly the ones graduating this year.

clevernickname23.bsky.social•1 day ago

Yup. That’s why I said “everything they can do.” That phrase indicates my understanding it may not be possible for everyone.

kaltnull.bsky.social•1 day ago

As a noncitizen, I am quite anxious about this getting worse. Because this doesn't take much to become "anyone not a citizen, including LPRs, is at risk if the administration doesn't like their speech." And from THERE it really isn't far to "ANYONE is at risk if the admin doesn't like their speech."

eagerpebble.com•1 day ago

And they've told us, time and again, that they do not intend to stop with non-citizens. It'll be the naturalized citizens next, then the birthright citizens, and rounded out with anyone not white and the "right type of Christian".

amyp-nobs.bsky.social•1 day ago

Believe me, Jews are on that list. They are ALWAYS on that list.

icytrails4ever.bsky.social•1 day ago

Next step: deciding who qualifies as a citizen.

jenonymous.bsky.social•1 day ago

There isn’t much Columbia can do to protect its visa holders from a lawless administration, but I’d be less angry about this messaging if they were making clear that if we don’t band together and resist authoritarian self-censorship now, all speech (including citizens’ speech) will be suppressed.

burtonad.bsky.social•1 day ago

Cobb is right, but I hope there was a lot of “here’s what Columbia and similar organizations with a lot of institutional, financial and political capital are doing to see that none of our students are singled out for mistreatment.”

burtonad.bsky.social•1 day ago

And I hope every supporter of Israel joins the barricades with Columbia and its allies if the administration uses transparently bad faith assertions about its policy towards Israel, or its devotion to seeing that antisemitism gets no foothold in the United States, in a case against an individual.

lawdawg.bsky.social•1 day ago

burtonad.bsky.social•1 day ago

Respectfully, please keep your gun pointed at people wearing a different uniform to yours. 😀

lawdawg.bsky.social•1 day ago

The idea that the Fettermans and Greenblats of the world are going to defend the guy that they just had blackbagged is laughable, so I'm going to laugh at it

otagian.bsky.social•1 day ago

"If"? You're a few days late on that one.

burtonad.bsky.social•1 day ago

Respectfully, please keep your gun pointed at people wearing a different uniform to yours. 😀

wwahammy.com•1 day ago

Sadly, I think it's abundantly clear that they don't care as long as the tuition and grant checks clear.

zyphex-skybreaker.bsky.social•1 day ago

It would be less outrageous if Colombia hadn't just *intentionally pointed* ICE at one of their students, and didn't have a member of faculty who not only *openly endorses genocide* but *harasses* those against said genocide.

meatieocre.bsky.social•1 day ago

There's right and then there's reality

uofagrad97.bsky.social•1 day ago

He’s telling them the truth.

johnjnj1.bsky.social•1 day ago

I think Columbia is simply looking at what is going on and sees that Trump is going to do what he wants whether it is legal or not and hope that SCTUS affirms what he does after the fact. There is little if anything Columbus could do for noncitizens.

drfohead.bsky.social•1 day ago

Citizens are at risk, too.

kenwhite.bsky.social•1 day ago

Thanks, I was wrong to say everything was swell for everyone else

abejitareal.bsky.social•1 day ago

Or on any matter of foreign policy like tariffs, Ukraine funding, etc.

canopenerdude.bsky.social•1 day ago

Yeah what is the Dean going to do if ICE or the Police show up at your house in the middle of the night? Guy's probably never even thrown a punch in his life. It isn't a good look but there really isn't anything the Dean can do other than say "be careful".

debaurah.bsky.social•1 day ago

So basically, we aren't a free country, anymore. Got it.

uofagrad97.bsky.social•1 day ago

We might not be. Up to the courts now.

uslongtorso.bsky.social•1 day ago

Who the hell does Columbia serve?

Who the heck would choose to be a student there?

4thstringer.bsky.social•1 day ago

I don't blame Cobb (who is probably a j school dean trying their best), but it's hard to trust Columbia when they are letting the stormtroopers in without a warrant and changing their website afterwards to try to justify it.

zyphex-skybreaker.bsky.social•1 day ago

Not just letting them in, but pointing them at students.

epistemicrisis.bsky.social•1 day ago

It’s a monstrosity what the Trump Administration is doing. It is the very witch hunt they accuse others of.

thecommunistpig.audio•1 day ago

That list will expand beyond Israel and then at that point, why have a journalism program that admits international students?

debra.bsky.social•1 day ago

I hope universities realize they are about to lose those lucrative foreign students, unless they start to fight this administration.

debra.bsky.social•1 day ago

Citizens will be at risk shortly. Trump is already purging the govt of people who piss him off. It’s just a matter of time.

nofoco.bsky.social•1 day ago

Anticipatory obedience.

Fascism is here. We are in a very bad place.

stupidlikeafox.bsky.social•1 day ago

Are you still anticipating a thing if it already happened to one of your students?

abeconnally.bsky.social•19 hours ago

He forgot to mention that no one from Columbia is even going to try and save you.

txg1112.bsky.social•1 day ago

Let’s be honest, people are probably at risk even if they are citizens.

fraochs.bsky.social•11 hours ago

Like BLM folk or even habitat for humanity?

rhetorusrex.bsky.social•1 day ago

Dean is the last line of student defense typically before you tip over into administration. He knows what he can and cannot protect his students from, and it's his responsibility to let them know.

tobioboi.bsky.social•1 day ago

As a foreing student that is in the united states currently yeah man i'm very sorry but i'm not gonna risk losing my scholarship nor get deported away from my fiance cause of my politics. I'll keep doing semi anonymous politics but uh anything with my name on it is out

mrxianstovall.bsky.social•1 day ago

Columbia Law School endorsing all this presumably?

jamespio.bsky.social•1 day ago

One might think that with all the high-falutin' praise for our legal system that gets heaped on law students, that the law faculty would be loudly and continuously pointing out how Mahmoud's arrest was a direct assault upon the rule of law, and the First Amendment. They doin' that?

smbrnsn.bsky.social•1 day ago

No. Absolutely not. It was probably run by University counsel, but it was 100% not run by the law school.

5thgenfljane.bsky.social•1 day ago

This is heartbreaking and horrifying.

leetbmc.bsky.social•1 day ago

"Nobody can protect you, and this university is certainly not going to take the risk of trying."

castleelsinore.bsky.social•15 hours ago

They didn't bother to protect the jews the encampments were attacking either

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