I am no longer a News section beat reporter for The Daily, but I remember writing my first article like it was yesterday. I covered a protest where Stanford community members called on the University to adopt a more survivor-centered approach to sexual violence. Looking back on those demands for justice and accountability, I am reminded of what I gained that day. And it was not just my first foray into The Daily.

I would be remiss if I looked back without remembering a group that was of the utmost importance the day of the protest: students from outside the U.S., one of whom co-led the protest, received an email days later from Stanford’s Bechtel International Center that warned them of potential consequences of merely participating in protests deemed not “peaceful and respectful.” Bechtel did not merely warn international students to “leave the area at the first sign of disruption or violence in any form.” It instilled within them a deep fear that speaking their conscience could get them deported — thereby chilling their constitutionally protected speech. Stanford, to follow through on its many commitments to students’ civic education, must put its money where its mouth is, protecting international students by educating them on their rights and detaining the best defense attorneys possible.

Despite the protest taking place over two years ago, Stanford must look back on it as a cautionary tale on what not to do. Protests used to be off limits as far as federal immigration arrests were concerned. However, as part of what I believe is an “inherently exclusionary and blatantly unconstitutional” immigration agenda, President Donald Trump undid those protections, putting international students’ First Amendment rights on the chopping block. 

Just this year, Trump signed an executive order meant to crack down on the “pro-Jihadist protests,” “Hamas sympathizers” and “radicalism” on college campuses. The order authorizes colleges and universities to “monitor… and report activities by alien students” over speech at issue and comes off the heels of another executive order that opposes visa programs being used by those harming the nation’s “political, cultural, or other national interests.” To say that these policies are written intentionally broadly would be an understatement, and we ought to take notice.

Trump used “Palestinian” as a slur on national television. He spread false blood libel about Haitian migrants eating pets in Ohio. He even repeatedly peddled the lie that American Muslims expressed happiness over the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. In the White House, we have a so-called “leader” with clear racial animus and virulent hatred that breathes new life into the absolute worst of the War on Terror — absolute disregard for truth as a justification for dehumanizing those that the national security regime demands we view as nothing more than monsters that are out to destroy us.

Trump alleges that this is the necessary work to combat antisemitism in elite universities like Stanford. In principle, I’d agree with that goal. After all, Jew haters have vandalized Jewish students’ doors and, following an antisemitism panel on campus, screamed that they “go back to Europe!” I am not Jewish, but I will forever condemn “the world’s oldest hatred.” I stood up to that Jew-hating mob after the antisemitism panel and highlighted stories of Jewish joy and resilience. The same fibers of justice and humanity that were on display then are what now drive me to condemn our President’s beyond-the-pale agenda to combat the so-called “Jihadist” threat on our campuses. 

International students are facing, as the Harvard Crimson’s editorial board powerfully described, an administration “using the controversy over Israel-Palestine as a pretext to stoke xenophobic fear.” We should discuss reasonable campus safety and civic engagement initiatives, but the Trump administration has veered far from the reasonableness that the moment calls for. Just as we should stand by our undocumented community members in staunch defiance of its immigration agenda, we should stand by our international peers in staunch defiance of its campus speech doctrine.

The current administration wants to deport international students for opposing his efforts to declare American ownership over Gaza and expelling Gazans from their indigenous lands as part of “our” national interests. He even demands that higher education institutions, like Stanford, police their students’ speech. Stanford’s leadership must oppose citizenship exceptions to free speech and brazenly anti-Palestinian excuses for campus safety. Stanford needs to command the vast resources at its disposal to meet the moment. Such a message would finally turn the page on the University’s deeply anti-student record on free speech and campus safety. Only then could President Jonathan Levin’s ’94 “stronger culture of inquiry” preaching become reality. 

Stanford is at a crossroads. Will it succumb to political pressures and throw its international students under the bus? Or will it view the need to defend their rights as the true litmus test for its democratic commitments that it is? 

With Stanford being so committed to students’ civic engagement, the answer is clear. International students are uniquely positioned to help drive our societal conversations forward, and the University can only embody the nation’s democratic ethos if it defends their right to do so.