A group of professors is asking a federal court to broaden a prior ruling on student speech to protect foreign nationals in the United States from any visa consequences for openly supporting terrorism.
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in September won a lawsuit against the Trump administration which determined “non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us.” Now, AAUP has presented a list of pro-Palestine statements to the court asking it to prevent the federal government from retaliating against foreigners for expressing “support or sympathy for terrorism or a designated foreign terrorist organization such as Hamas,” according to The Harvard Crimson.
The AAUP is asking the court to apply the order to all foreigners residing in the U.S., the Crimson reported. Harvard’s chapter of the AAUP joined the previous court battle and is also part of the new filing.
In March, the Department of State announced a plan to use artificial intelligence (AI) to scan the social media accounts of international students for content supporting terrorism and espousing anti-American views. Several administration officials have voiced concerns that allowing such foreigners to remain in the country threatens national security.
However, the Trump administration’s ability to actually enforce such standards has been continuously shot down in court. In May, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revoked Harvard’s certification to host international students, but the action was quickly frozen by a federal judge. A later attempt by President Donald Trump to accomplish the same goal through an executive order was similarly shot down.
Some universities that faced federal scrutiny over the violent and destructive anti-Israel protests on campus have agreed to improve vetting for foreign students and better enforce protest rules.
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