Latest / Question Everything / Rümeysa Öztürk is Locked Up for an Op-ed: An Urgent Summit with the Student Newspaper that Published It

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Rümeysa Öztürk is Locked Up for an Op-ed: An Urgent Summit with the Student Newspaper that Published It · Question Everything

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Speaker 1: Today on Question Everything, we're hosting an urgent live summit
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Speaker 1: from the site of the most egregious attack on journalism
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Speaker 1: that I've seen in America. We're at Tufts University. Welcome, everybody.
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Speaker 1: A little more than a month ago, on March 25th,
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Speaker 1: about a 10-minute walk from this auditorium, we're here on
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Speaker 1: Tufts campus, Tufts PhD student Rumesa Oz Turk was apprehended
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Speaker 1: by a group of ICE agents while walking down the
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Speaker 1: street talking to her mom on the phone. There's video
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Speaker 1: of this taken from a neighbor's security camera. The agents
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Speaker 1: wore plain clothes. Some were masked. Ramesa was handcuffed, put
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Speaker 1: on a plane to Louisiana, and locked up in an
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Speaker 1: ICE facility there. In the month plus that she's been held,
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Speaker 1: she has not been charged with any crime. The only
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Speaker 1: obvious reason that the U.S. government has done this to
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Speaker 1: Ramesa is because of an op-ed that she co-authored with
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Speaker 1: three other graduate students last year in the Tufts Daily,
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Speaker 1: the student newspaper here, urging Tufts to heed resolutions that
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Speaker 1: had passed the student senate, which demanded that the university
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Speaker 1: acknowledge the Palestinian genocide and divest from companies with ties
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Speaker 1: to Israel. In other words, right now, a Tufts student
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Speaker 1: is being imprisoned by the U.S. government because of her journalism.
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Speaker 1: My name is Brian Reed. I host a podcast called
1:23
Speaker 1: Question Everything from KCRW and Placement Theory, where we try
1:26
Speaker 1: to confront the most challenging questions facing journalism. And as
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Speaker 1: my colleagues and I have tracked what happened to Ramesa Ozturk,
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Speaker 1: we're convinced the Tufts is ground zero for arguably the
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Speaker 1: most important story in journalism right now. This country was
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Speaker 1: founded on strong protections for freedom of the press. No
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Speaker 1: one here is supposed to be retaliated against by the
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Speaker 1: government for doing journalism, for voicing opinions, for speaking their mind.
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Speaker 1: not to mention lose their freedom because of it or
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Speaker 1: their right to be here. And I have to say
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Speaker 1: that if the government's goal here is to scare people,
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Speaker 1: to silence opinions it doesn't like, and quash dissent about U.S.
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Speaker 1: foreign policy, about Israel's actions in Gaza, then there's evidence
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Speaker 1: that it is working and that it's working well beyond Tufts.
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Speaker 1: The other day I read a column in the Yale
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Speaker 1: Daily News by their outgoing opinion editor, Millen Singh, expressing
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Speaker 1: his concerns about the way the U.S. government is suppressing
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Speaker 1: student speech. And he mentioned in the column that since
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Speaker 1: Ramesa Ozturk was abducted here at Tufts, he at Yale
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Speaker 1: had been getting requests from international students and alumni to
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Speaker 1: remove columns they'd already published in the Yale Daily News.
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Speaker 1: Millen told me he's holed up in the library right
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Speaker 1: now studying for finals this week, so he wasn't available
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Speaker 1: to talk on the phone. But he and I have
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Speaker 1: been sending voice memos.
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Speaker 2: To each other.
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Speaker 1: Let's listen. This is Brian Reed. voice memoing you from
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Speaker 1: question everything. I know you're in the library studying. Um,
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Speaker 1: I just was interested about that part of your column
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Speaker 1: where you said that you got a bunch of requests
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Speaker 1: from current international students and alumni to, it sounds like
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Speaker 1: scrub their, um, previous articles and columns from the Yale
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Speaker 1: daily news site. I was just wondering if you could
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Speaker 1: say any more about that. And he sent me a
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Speaker 1: voice memo back to Brian.
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Speaker 3: Um, So I received a total of about four to
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Speaker 3: five emails. The tone of all these emails were pretty worried.
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Speaker 3: Some students didn't explicitly mention deportation, but only mentioned being
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Speaker 3: on visa. Some did explicitly mention deportation or immigration status fears.
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Speaker 3: It was palpable that they were worried. All but one
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Speaker 3: of the articles they were concerned about was about Palestine
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Speaker 3: or were about Palestine. And one of the articles they
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Speaker 3: were worried about was just the generic anti-Trump piece.
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Speaker 1: Thank you. I appreciate it. Um, I'm just curious, have
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Speaker 1: you had an experience where you've tried to commission pieces or, or,
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Speaker 1: or found that people are afraid of writing something in
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Speaker 1: the first place now? Like, are you, are you noticing
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Speaker 1: the chilling effect in other ways?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, we have had some chilling effect on speech. One
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Speaker 3: of the students, a current student has not submitted anything
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Speaker 3: since they requested. Um, and I imagine that's out of
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Speaker 3: fear of, uh, of it affecting their immigration status.
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Speaker 1: I'm not sure what was going on there in the library,
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Speaker 1: but he says that one of the students he was
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Speaker 1: writing with hasn't submitted any new columns or writing to
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Speaker 1: the paper since the student requested that their past piece
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Speaker 1: be taken down. The chilling effect's way bigger than I
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Speaker 1: even imagined. After we started promoting this event just a
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Speaker 1: few days ago, we got an email from a place
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Speaker 1: called the Student Press Law Center, which is an organization
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Speaker 1: that gives legal help. and other support to student journalists.
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Speaker 1: And they wanted to let us know that after Rumeza
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Speaker 1: Ozturk's apprehension, they started getting a flood of student journalists
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Speaker 1: from around the country calling or writing into a hotline
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Speaker 1: that they have asking for advice about what to do
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Speaker 1: in the wake of it. The SPLC hotline recently had
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Speaker 1: their busiest week on record. Calls have been up by
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Speaker 1: nearly 40% from this time last year. They told us, quote,
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Speaker 1: the detention of Rumeza Ozturk was a watershed moment.
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Speaker 4: It definitely was, you know, after the arrest of Remesa
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Speaker 4: at Tufts that, you know, I think the alarm bells
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Speaker 4: really started going off and people said, what's going on?
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Speaker 1: This is Mike Heastand. He's been a lawyer at the
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Speaker 1: Student Press Legal Center for 34 years. I just talked
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Speaker 1: to him as I was hustling over to this event,
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Speaker 1: like an hour and a half, two hours ago.
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Speaker 4: And particularly as it turned out, you know, that it
5:26
Speaker 4: became clear that the only reason that she was detained
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Speaker 4: and has undergone all that she's undergone here is because
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Speaker 4: of what she published in the op-ed. And if anybody
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Speaker 4: has not read the op-ed that led to all this,
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Speaker 4: they need to do so because it is the sort
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Speaker 4: of op-ed that students have been running for years and years.
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Speaker 4: I remember back in the 80s when I was a
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Speaker 4: student journalist, you know, our student newspaper was calling on
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Speaker 4: our school to divest from, you know, investments in South Africa.
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Speaker 4: So this is nothing new. I mean, it was 100%
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Speaker 4: fully protected speech, at least under the old rules.
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Speaker 1: Taking down stories from the internet, from publication websites like
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Speaker 1: Milan over at Yale, Mike also says that's what he's
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Speaker 1: hearing on these calls. It's the biggest thing. that student
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Speaker 1: journalists are calling in about now that the government's been
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Speaker 1: going after international students?
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Speaker 4: You know, people just asking about, hey, you know, people
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Speaker 4: are asking me to, you know, take down stories that
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Speaker 4: they were sourced in or, you know, again, in some cases,
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Speaker 4: you know, worried about some of their staff that were
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Speaker 4: international students or I even heard from international students themselves
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Speaker 4: who are concerned about this. Those are the calls that
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Speaker 4: we were getting. Should we take it down? Do we
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Speaker 4: need to take it down?
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Speaker 1: How does it feel for you to be kind of
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Speaker 1: inundated with these questions? after doing this for so long,
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Speaker 1: three decades.
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Speaker 4: It blows my mind that I'm having to. I mean,
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Speaker 4: it really is just something that I never would have
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Speaker 4: anticipated we'd even, you know, have to be talking about that.
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Speaker 4: You know, we'd be worried about, you know, if you
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Speaker 4: call on your university to divest of a particular investment,
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Speaker 4: that's going to be enough to completely upend your life,
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Speaker 4: you know, to have you, you know, taken off the
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Speaker 4: city streets and thrown in some detention facility in Louisiana.
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Speaker 4: I mean, it's just insane. So I think just like everybody,
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Speaker 4: we are just trying to figure out what's going on
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Speaker 4: and react the best way that we can while continuing
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Speaker 4: to do the job.
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Speaker 1: Today for Question Everything, we've been working with the wonderful
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Speaker 1: staff of the Tufts Daily to pull together this event
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Speaker 1: where we have student journalists, professional journalists, attorneys, and we're
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Speaker 1: kind of thinking of this as a strategy session to
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Speaker 1: figure out what can we do right now while Rameza
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Speaker 1: Ozturk is being held and what can we do to
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Speaker 1: try and thaw or at least stop a bit of
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Speaker 1: this chilling effect while keeping people safe. What should we
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Speaker 1: do at this unprecedented moment in our country? And let's
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Speaker 1: get right to it. I want to invite Elora Onyenday
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Speaker 1: on stage from the Tufts Daily. ELORA ONYENDAY- Hi. ALAN SEALES-
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Speaker 1: Elora helps run the Daily as an associate editor and
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Speaker 1: a member of their managing board. You're a sophomore, right,
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Speaker 1: studying international relations from Brooklyn. And Elora's going to take
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Speaker 1: it from here and introduce our first couple of guests.
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Speaker 5: ELORA ONYENDAY- Hi, everyone. I'd love to introduce our first
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Speaker 5: two panelists. We have Robert Birchie, a First Amendment lawyer
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Speaker 5: based here in Boston, and he has decades of experience
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Speaker 5: working with college newspapers and has provided advice to the
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Speaker 5: Tufts Daily. We also have Carol Rose, the executive director
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Speaker 5: of the ACLU of Massachusetts, and she is part of
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Speaker 5: the team representing Rumesa right now.
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Speaker 3: Thank you.
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Speaker 5: Carol, my first question is for you. I'm wondering if
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Speaker 5: you could take us through what has happened to Rumesa
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Speaker 5: and tell us what was most unsettling for you as
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Speaker 5: you learned of it.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 6: Thank you. First, I just want to say what an
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Speaker 6: honor it is to be here and especially with the
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Speaker 6: Tufts Daily, where it's sort of been ground zero for
9:12
Speaker 6: a lot of what we're going to be talking about
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Speaker 6: today and the courage that all of you show and
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Speaker 6: every journalist out there and would-be journalist, I want to
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Speaker 6: say thank you. because it's so important that the fourth
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Speaker 6: estates stay vibrant and robust in our democracy. So, yeah,
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Speaker 6: so what happened is, actually, five days before Remesa was
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Speaker 6: picked up, the government went in and actually canceled her
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Speaker 6: visa without telling her. And they've subsequently tried to use
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Speaker 6: the fact that her visa's not valid as the reason
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Speaker 6: to imprison her, which is nuts, because she had a
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Speaker 6: valid student visa. There was no reason to remove that
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Speaker 6: And as we've seen from the video, and I hope
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Speaker 6: we can see that video, Ramesa was walking home, she
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Speaker 6: was going to have iftar with her family or their
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Speaker 6: friends or community here, talking to her mom on the phone.
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Speaker 6: And then suddenly she was surrounded by six plainclothes people.
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Speaker 1: We have the video right here, Carol.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, that's great.
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Speaker 1: And I encourage.
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Speaker 6: Everybody to see that video and to compare that to
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Speaker 6: the op-ed that we just talked about people reading. And
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Speaker 6: you can see this incredible difference between what she wrote,
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Speaker 6: which was incredibly reasoned and peaceful, and then what happened
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Speaker 6: to her on the street. So she was surrounded. She
10:27
Speaker 6: thought she was being kidnapped. She didn't know who they were.
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Speaker 6: They were plainclothes. And then they handcuffed her, they shackled her,
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Speaker 6: and they put her in an unmarked car and they
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Speaker 6: took her away. So she told her mom, like, call
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Speaker 6: my friend. And the friend knew enough to call Bramesa's
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Speaker 6: immigration attorney. who's been amazing on this case. And that
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Speaker 6: attorney contacted the ACLU because we have a rapid response
10:57
Speaker 6: for what's called habeas petitions. And so that's in the
11:01
Speaker 6: constitutional law. You file a habeas petition, habeas corpus. It
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Speaker 6: means produce the body, right? So that's the basic fundamental
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Speaker 6: legal constitutional right that says that our government isn't supposed
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Speaker 6: to do what they did to Rumesa and just lock
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Speaker 6: you up. for no reason and throw away the key.
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Speaker 6: So we filed the habeas petition right away, the same night.
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Speaker 6: And we couldn't find her for 24 hours. Nobody knew
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Speaker 6: where she was. Her attorney didn't know. Her friends didn't know.
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Speaker 6: We didn't know. We tried going to the US Attorney's
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Speaker 6: Office to get help. We tried going to the Turkish
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Speaker 6: consulate to get help to try to just find her.
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Speaker 6: There was this amazingly frightening dash to try to find.
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Speaker 6: We found her on an ice tracking website.
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Speaker 1: Carol, at that point, did you even know which agency
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Speaker 1: had apprehended her?
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Speaker 7: No.
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Speaker 1: So did you know that it was an agency? Like,
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Speaker 1: what did you know? Or what did you think at
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Speaker 1: that point of a period of uncertainty, I guess?
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Speaker 3: Right.
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Speaker 6: All we knew was that she'd been picked up and
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Speaker 6: somebody had flashed a badge. And so.
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Speaker 1: But it could have been like Boston PD or.
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Speaker 6: It could have been anybody.
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Speaker 8: Right.
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Speaker 6: So we found her on an ICE tracker, but without
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Speaker 6: a location. So at that point, we were able to
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Speaker 6: determine that she had been picked up by ICE, but
12:13
Speaker 6: we didn't know where she was. And so we filed
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Speaker 6: the habeas petition in Massachusetts because that's where she had
12:19
Speaker 6: been picked up. What was happening to her, though, is
12:23
Speaker 6: they drove her around, hopscotching around New England. So they
12:26
Speaker 6: took her up to Methuen, and then they went up
12:29
Speaker 6: to New Hampshire, and then they went over to Vermont.
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Speaker 6: And so at the time we filed, which is 10,
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Speaker 6: 15 p.m., she was in a van in Vermont. And
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Speaker 6: that's really important about where the location is because that's
12:42
Speaker 6: where the habeas petition is supposed to be filed. But
12:45
Speaker 6: before we could find out where she was, they had
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Speaker 6: shipped her 1,300 miles away down to a really notorious,
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Speaker 6: what's called the Black Hole site down in Louisiana. And
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Speaker 6: that's where she is still today.
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Speaker 1: Where does that name come from?
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Speaker 6: The Black Hole name comes from a report that the
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Speaker 6: ACLU of Louisiana did looking at the various detention centers.
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Speaker 6: There's 7,000 people being held. The only state that has
13:11
Speaker 6: more is Texas. So being held down there. without due process.
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Speaker 6: So we went into court and we said, she should
13:18
Speaker 6: be returned. We filed this writ of habeas corpus and said,
13:21
Speaker 6: bring her back. And the government began to fight us
13:25
Speaker 6: about it right away. And so we've been caught up
13:27
Speaker 6: in a jurisdictional battle. So the government initially said, well,
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Speaker 6: she doesn't belong in Massachusetts because she didn't file the
13:34
Speaker 6: habeas in Massachusetts. And so you have to bring the
13:37
Speaker 6: habeas down in Louisiana or throw it out altogether. And
13:40
Speaker 6: the Louisiana courts aren't going to be friendly at all.
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Speaker 6: We know that. And that's why they took her down there.
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Speaker 6: They didn't want to have a fair hearing. We argued
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Speaker 6: that she should either be brought back to Massachusetts or
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Speaker 6: brought to Vermont because that's where she was when we
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Speaker 6: filed the habeas petition. And the same thing happened in
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Speaker 6: the Mahmoud Khalil case when he was picked up in
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Speaker 6: New York and then they shipped him out and they
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Speaker 6: filed the habeas petition in New York, but he was
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Speaker 6: in New Jersey at the time.
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Speaker 1: Right, in an immigration. That's correct. A protester at Columbia
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Speaker 1: who's also been detained?
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Speaker 6: He's also been detained.
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Speaker 1: Without charge, correct?
14:14
Speaker 6: Right, similarly, also being held. So in both of those instances,
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Speaker 6: the courts have ruled, the federal district court, which is
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Speaker 6: your trial court level, they ruled that the jurisdiction should
14:25
Speaker 6: be in Vermont for Remesa and in New Jersey for
14:29
Speaker 6: Mumpin Khalil because that's the appropriate place where they were
14:33
Speaker 6: physically when the petition was filed. So that's what we've
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Speaker 6: been fighting over is literally like, where should she be brought?
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Speaker 6: So just last week, the district court in Vermont ruled
14:45
Speaker 6: that in fact, she should be brought back to Vermont
14:48
Speaker 6: and ordered that she be brought back to Vermont by Thursday,
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Speaker 6: May 1st, and that there'll be a bail hearing on
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Speaker 6: the 9th. The government has appealed that to the Second
14:59
Speaker 6: Circuit Court of Appeal, which is in New York. And
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Speaker 6: the Second Circuit has now, yesterday, last night, issued an
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Speaker 6: order that says, okay, we're going to press pause so
15:09
Speaker 6: that we can have time to consider this appeal on
15:11
Speaker 6: the jurisdictional issues itself. And so that hearing is going
15:15
Speaker 6: to be coming up on the 6th, so next Tuesday.
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Speaker 1: So she won't be coming back to Vermont this week?
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Speaker 6: That's correct. That's correct. And so, you know, delay is
15:26
Speaker 6: this tactic that we've seen, you know, the President Trump
15:30
Speaker 6: use in his personal life and his business dealings. And
15:33
Speaker 6: now the Department of Justice is using these same kinds
15:36
Speaker 6: of delay tactics as a way to prevent people from
15:39
Speaker 6: getting justice in this country.
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Speaker 1: When was the first time you or someone on the
15:42
Speaker 1: legal team spoke to Ramesa after she was apprehended?
15:46
Speaker 6: The first time was right after she was picked up
15:50
Speaker 6: when we first found out she was in Louisiana. So
15:53
Speaker 6: that's when her immigration attorney was able to talk to
15:57
Speaker 6: her on the phone.
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Speaker 1: And what did she learn? What was her demeanor? What
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Speaker 1: was she saying?
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Speaker 6: Well, I mean, she's scared. And she's put this into
16:04
Speaker 6: a declaration that we filed with the court. She's incredibly scared,
16:08
Speaker 6: as you can imagine she would be. And the conditions
16:11
Speaker 6: of confinement are really scary, too. She's in a very
16:14
Speaker 6: crowded space with a lot of other women. It's very cold.
16:19
Speaker 6: They took away her hijab, her head covering. She says
16:24
Speaker 6: there are mice there. And really scary is she has asthma,
16:28
Speaker 6: and they took away her medication, her asthma medicine. And
16:32
Speaker 6: so she's had more asthma attacks in the time that
16:35
Speaker 6: she's been down there than in the rest of her
16:37
Speaker 6: life combined. So, you know, conditions of confinement are not good.
16:41
Speaker 6: That's why the report was called the black hole, right?
16:45
Speaker 6: But anytime your liberty is taken away, anytime you're put
16:47
Speaker 6: into a cage, that is when the power of the
16:50
Speaker 6: government is at its greatest. And that's why we have
16:53
Speaker 6: this constitutional protection of the writ of habeas corpus, because
16:56
Speaker 6: taking away your actual liberty and putting you in a
16:58
Speaker 6: cage is It's just such a fundamental and clear denial
17:01
Speaker 6: of rights. And let's be clear, she has not been
17:04
Speaker 6: accused of any crime, none whatsoever, or any immigration violations.
17:09
Speaker 6: She's only been punished and locked up because she published
17:14
Speaker 6: an op-ed with other students in the Tufts Daily back
17:18
Speaker 6: in 2024. That is the only reason that she's had
17:21
Speaker 6: her liberty taken away. And that cannot stand in a democracy.
17:26
Speaker 5: Thank you, Carol. So you just mentioned that the sole
17:34
Speaker 5: evidence you see is her co-authoring of this op-ed. I
17:38
Speaker 5: want to just hear this clip from Secretary of State
17:41
Speaker 5: Marco Rubio two days after Rumesa was taken, if we
17:45
Speaker 5: could play that.
17:46
Speaker 8: If you apply for a visa to enter the United
17:48
Speaker 8: States and be a student, and you tell us that
17:50
Speaker 8: the reason why you're coming to the United States is
17:53
Speaker 8: not just because you want to write op-eds, but because
17:55
Speaker 8: you want to participate in movements that are involved in
17:57
Speaker 8: doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings,
18:02
Speaker 8: creating a ruckus. We're not going to give you a visa.
18:05
Speaker 8: We gave you a visa to come and study and
18:07
Speaker 8: get a degree, not to become a social activist that
18:10
Speaker 8: tears up our university campuses.
18:14
Speaker 5: We want to mention that we invited Secretary Rubio to
18:17
Speaker 5: join us here, but his team said ultimately he was
18:20
Speaker 5: too busy. So, Carol, to clear this up for the record,
18:26
Speaker 5: is there any evidence that this is true? That she
18:30
Speaker 5: has engaged in activities that are destructive?
18:33
Speaker 6: Absolutely nothing. Nothing has been introduced to the court. And
18:37
Speaker 6: in fact, in another feed of good journalism, the Washington
18:40
Speaker 6: Post came out with a story that basically showed that
18:44
Speaker 6: there are actually memos in the State Department that show
18:48
Speaker 6: that they tried and they couldn't find any evidence that
18:51
Speaker 6: she had said anything or done anything anti-Semitic, that she'd
18:55
Speaker 6: said or done anything that supports a terrorist organization, that
18:58
Speaker 6: she's committed any crime. The government admits that, okay? The
19:01
Speaker 6: government admits that. And what Secretary of State Rubio is
19:05
Speaker 6: trying to say is that the rights that all people
19:08
Speaker 6: have in this country, whether they're citizens or non-citizens, like
19:12
Speaker 6: due process, like writ of habeas corpus, like freedom of speech,
19:16
Speaker 6: that they're saying that they're asserting that they can deny that,
19:19
Speaker 6: that they can lock you up simply because they're taking
19:23
Speaker 6: your visa away. And that is not true. That cannot stand.
19:26
Speaker 6: It is not a true statement of the law. And
19:28
Speaker 6: that's exactly what we're fighting about in the court right now,
19:31
Speaker 6: because the immigration courts and the immigration judges are part
19:36
Speaker 6: of the executive branch of the government. OK, so even
19:39
Speaker 6: though they're called immigration judges, they're administrative judges and they're
19:42
Speaker 6: actually part of the Department of Justice. So they're in
19:45
Speaker 6: the executive branch. What are called Article 3 judges setting
19:48
Speaker 6: forth Article 3 of the Constitution. are the judges who
19:51
Speaker 6: uphold our constitutional rights. And those are the judges that
19:55
Speaker 6: are appointed for life. And so it's really important that
19:59
Speaker 6: we're trying to say that Article 3 judges that defend
20:01
Speaker 6: constitutional rights have the proper jurisdiction, where the government and
20:06
Speaker 6: Rubio are trying to argue that, no, actually the executive
20:09
Speaker 6: branch can do whatever we want when it comes to
20:12
Speaker 6: visas and when it comes to due process and when
20:14
Speaker 6: it comes to free speech and when it comes to
20:16
Speaker 6: habeas corpus. And that's simply a misstatement of the law.
20:20
Speaker 6: That's what we're taking to the courts right now. And
20:22
Speaker 6: so far, that's what the courts have cited with the
20:25
Speaker 6: ACLU and other... all the lawyers who are arguing on
20:30
Speaker 6: behalf of setting these journalists free and making sure that
20:33
Speaker 6: people like Ramesa Osterk and other people aren't being punished
20:36
Speaker 6: simply for exercising their core protected right to core political speech.
20:41
Speaker 6: It's the most highly protected form of speech under the
20:44
Speaker 6: First Amendment is core protected political speech. And that's all
20:47
Speaker 6: this is. And she's committed no crime. And the government
20:50
Speaker 6: hasn't even asserted that she's committed a crime.
20:52
Speaker 1: That takes me to my first question for Rob, which
20:55
Speaker 1: is like so basic, it almost feels dumb. It's just
20:58
Speaker 1: How can the government do this? Like, don't we have
21:00
Speaker 1: the First Amendment? They can't do this, right? So why
21:03
Speaker 1: is it happening? Like, what am I missing? What are
21:06
Speaker 1: a lot of us not understanding here?
21:08
Speaker 2: You're not missing a thing, unfortunately. This country was built
21:12
Speaker 2: on creating a ruckus. And that's what the First Amendment
21:16
Speaker 2: is about, your right to create a ruckus. And in fact,
21:21
Speaker 2: that that is the way democracy works, that by creating
21:25
Speaker 2: a ruckus, We have a conversation that helps improve the
21:32
Speaker 2: democratic process. This is not normal. And the first time
21:37
Speaker 2: I got the call from a student newspaper asking, what
21:42
Speaker 2: do we do when students ask to take down the
21:45
Speaker 2: op-eds that they have written?
21:47
Speaker 1: Oh, you're getting those calls too?
21:48
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
21:49
Speaker 1: And an uptick recently? Or when did they start?
21:52
Speaker 2: Steadily, yeah.
21:54
Speaker 9: Really?
21:54
Speaker 1: Okay.
21:55
Speaker 5: Okay.
21:56
Speaker 2: And the calls that they are receiving from people who've
22:00
Speaker 2: engaged in protests and are just a subject of a story,
22:06
Speaker 2: their names are mentioned in the story and they want
22:08
Speaker 2: their name out of that story now. We used to
22:11
Speaker 2: say that creates a hole in history. We don't want
22:13
Speaker 2: to take out names from stories for any reason other
22:17
Speaker 2: than that they were false and we made a mistake.
22:21
Speaker 2: But those rules don't apply anymore. Mike Heaston said in
22:25
Speaker 2: the clip we heard that it used to be under
22:30
Speaker 2: the First Amendment that we didn't allow this sort of thing.
22:34
Speaker 2: I don't know what the rules are now. I know
22:38
Speaker 2: what I want the rules to be. But when a
22:41
Speaker 2: person comes to my office and says to me, should
22:45
Speaker 2: I write this op-ed? Should I put myself out there?
22:49
Speaker 2: I'm an international student. What should I do? As their lawyer,
22:56
Speaker 2: I can't encourage them to write that op-ed. That goes
23:00
Speaker 2: against every fiber in my being. But to protect themselves
23:06
Speaker 2: under this administration, I can't encourage them to do that.
23:11
Speaker 1: Discouraging them from voicing their opinion is what that goes
23:15
Speaker 1: against every fiber of your being.
23:16
Speaker 3: Yeah.
23:18
Speaker 1: So this is a new, basically, position of legal advice
23:22
Speaker 1: that you're giving to people. Is that right? Well, absolutely.
23:24
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, in 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court
23:28
Speaker 2: decided a case called New York Times against Sullivan, one
23:31
Speaker 2: of the most important First Amendment cases of our time.
23:34
Speaker 1: We just did a two-part series on it last week.
23:36
Speaker 1: Go check it out. It's in your feed right now.
23:37
Speaker 1: It's in your feed the last two episodes.
23:40
Speaker 2: But one of the concerns in that case that the
23:42
Speaker 2: Supreme Court had was the concern that we needed to
23:49
Speaker 2: allow space for around free speech. We needed to allow
23:55
Speaker 2: innocent error to be tolerated in our society, because otherwise
24:00
Speaker 2: you would create a chilling effect. You would chill people
24:03
Speaker 2: from going anywhere near the borderline between truth and falsity,
24:08
Speaker 2: and that would discourage civic discourse. We're beyond chilling now.
24:14
Speaker 2: We're frozen. We're absolutely frozen.
24:18
Speaker 3: And the.
24:20
Speaker 2: Other parallel I'll say, Brian, to the New York Times
24:24
Speaker 2: against Sullivan case is that the worry there was that
24:28
Speaker 2: the decisions were all going to be made in the
24:30
Speaker 2: courts of Alabama at a time of great segregation.
24:34
Speaker 1: Right, it was initially a civil rights case. It was
24:36
Speaker 1: about a civil rights ad that was being run in
24:38
Speaker 1: the New York Times.
24:39
Speaker 2: It was a civil rights case, as this is a
24:42
Speaker 2: civil rights case as well. And the worry was that
24:47
Speaker 2: the courts of Alabama were going to decide this case.
24:49
Speaker 2: And when the courts of Alabama decided the case, They
24:52
Speaker 2: decided against the New York Times. And it was only
24:58
Speaker 2: when it came to the Supreme Court that that was overturned.
25:03
Speaker 2: We have the same issue here. Carroll's fighting so hard
25:07
Speaker 2: to get this decided in Vermont instead of Louisiana, at
25:10
Speaker 2: least in part. Tell me if I'm wrong, because we
25:14
Speaker 2: know how the Louisiana court is likely to judge, and
25:17
Speaker 2: we have a sense of how the Vermont federal district
25:21
Speaker 2: court is likely to decide.
25:24
Speaker 5: There's something I'd like to clear up that I think
25:26
Speaker 5: has been a source of confusion for a lot of people,
25:29
Speaker 5: and it's the question of are non-citizens protected under the
25:33
Speaker 5: First Amendment, and to what degree?
25:35
Speaker 2: Yes.
25:36
Speaker 5: Okay, there's your answer. Are they being targeted by the
25:45
Speaker 5: government because of their sort of vulnerability?
25:48
Speaker 2: Yes.
25:49
Speaker 5: Of their immigration status?
25:51
Speaker 2: I think that's very clear. And I think that's purposeful.
25:53
Speaker 2: And I think, uh, secretary Rubio's comments confirm that.
25:59
Speaker 1: So legally constitutionally non-citizens are equally as protected or supposed
26:04
Speaker 1: to be under the first amendment, but I'm just trying
26:06
Speaker 1: to kind of process this or regurgitate it back. But
26:10
Speaker 1: the government does have this extra lever they can pull
26:12
Speaker 1: with a visa. Um, That's right. Basically to try and,
26:17
Speaker 1: you know, leverage against somebody whose speech they don't like technically.
26:20
Speaker 5: Right.
26:20
Speaker 6: So as a constitutional matter, um, free speech and due process,
26:24
Speaker 6: those are constitutional protections for every person in the United States,
26:29
Speaker 6: regardless of your immigration status.
26:31
Speaker 1: And that's been found by the Supreme Court in the past.
26:34
Speaker 8: Yes.
26:34
Speaker 6: So what the government is trying to do here is
26:36
Speaker 6: to say that a different, a statute, a law called
26:40
Speaker 6: the Immigration and Nationalization Act, um, somehow trumps the Constitution.
26:45
Speaker 6: So it's a whole different body of law where there's
26:48
Speaker 6: a lot of deference given to the executive branch to
26:50
Speaker 6: sort of say, who do I want to give a
26:51
Speaker 6: visa to? Who do I not want to give a
26:53
Speaker 6: visa to? And what the government is arguing is that
26:56
Speaker 6: that power should trump our constitutional rights, which makes no sense.
27:01
Speaker 6: I mean, that's just simply not true. So they're trying
27:04
Speaker 6: to change the law by saying that the constitutional protections
27:07
Speaker 6: that extend to all people by virtue of being in
27:10
Speaker 6: this country somehow get trumped when they decide that to
27:13
Speaker 6: take away people's visas and take away their rights as
27:17
Speaker 6: an immigration matter. And we're arguing that's not the way
27:20
Speaker 6: the law should be read, and that's not what the
27:22
Speaker 6: law has been historically. So we'll see what happens in
27:24
Speaker 6: the courts. But that's exactly where the issues are being judged.
27:27
Speaker 1: Are there past examples or cases that you've looked at
27:30
Speaker 1: or that we can look to, like Red Scare, McCarthyism times? Like,
27:34
Speaker 1: you know, I've read a bit about cases where the
27:36
Speaker 1: government during that time tried to deport someone for being
27:39
Speaker 1: a member of the Communist Party, for instance. Like, are
27:42
Speaker 1: there things that you are looking at and that the
27:43
Speaker 1: government's relying on to say we can do this actually?
27:46
Speaker 2: Sure.
27:47
Speaker 6: I mean, both sides are bringing out all the cases
27:49
Speaker 6: and saying it's analogous or it's similar or things like that. Um,
27:52
Speaker 6: but the reality of it is, is they don't really
27:54
Speaker 6: have a very strong case here because these fundamental constitutional
27:58
Speaker 6: rights like habeas corpus, free speech, due process, historically those
28:02
Speaker 6: have always extended to all people who are in this country. Um,
28:05
Speaker 6: so they're, they're making these arguments, um, I don't think
28:09
Speaker 6: they're going to win. And so far in the district
28:11
Speaker 6: courts and the federal courts, both the court in Vermont,
28:14
Speaker 6: where the federal court ruled no, bring her back. We're
28:17
Speaker 6: going to have the hearing here in Vermont. But similarly,
28:20
Speaker 6: just a few minutes ago, there was a ruling from
28:23
Speaker 6: the district court in New Jersey in the Mahmoud Khalil
28:25
Speaker 6: case saying similarly, no, she should come back in front
28:28
Speaker 6: of an Article III, a constitutional judge. He should come
28:33
Speaker 6: back and be heard in this court. He's a legal
28:36
Speaker 6: permanent resident. So it's even more sort of interesting that
28:40
Speaker 6: they're trying to argue that he could have his legal
28:45
Speaker 6: permanent status taken away. And so we're seeing these different
28:49
Speaker 6: arguments being played out. But the situation with Ramesa is
28:52
Speaker 6: particularly alarming because, you know, some of the other people
28:56
Speaker 6: who are being detained actually engaged in student activism, legal
29:00
Speaker 6: student activism. She literally has done nothing but sign an op-ed.
29:06
Speaker 6: You know, and the Tufts president, you know, Sunil Kumar
29:11
Speaker 6: and others have said in court, she didn't violate any
29:15
Speaker 6: of the Tufts rules of student conduct. She didn't violate
29:18
Speaker 6: any of the campus policies. She's really involved in like
29:22
Speaker 6: child development, childhood development and working with children. And that's
29:25
Speaker 6: really her passion. And so the fact that they decided
29:29
Speaker 6: to pick her out of all the people they could
29:31
Speaker 6: because she co-signed an op-ed in the, you know, in
29:34
Speaker 6: the student newspaper, is particularly alarming because if they are
29:37
Speaker 6: allowed to get away with her, then they'll probably try
29:41
Speaker 6: it with a lot of other people.
29:42
Speaker 1: What's going on here? What is it actually about? Do
29:44
Speaker 1: you have insight into that, either of you, from reading
29:47
Speaker 1: about the case, from disclosures in the case? What's the
29:50
Speaker 1: government's motivation here, actually? Is this about free speech? Is
29:54
Speaker 1: this about immigration? Is it about Palestine? What is going on?
29:59
Speaker 6: I think it's about attacking our democracy. I think it's
30:02
Speaker 6: about literally dismantling our universities. And they've said they want
30:05
Speaker 6: to dismantle the universities. I think it's about dismantling the
30:09
Speaker 6: rule of law and going after law firms. I think
30:12
Speaker 6: it's about, you know, dismantling, you know, the right to vote.
30:17
Speaker 6: I think it's about dismantling science. And this is all
30:21
Speaker 6: about a power grab. I mean, this isn't a dress rehearsal.
30:24
Speaker 6: This is really about the rise of authoritarianism and fascism
30:28
Speaker 6: in our country. And it's incumbent upon all of us,
30:30
Speaker 6: and particularly those of us who have a little bit more,
30:34
Speaker 6: maybe a lot more legal protection because we're citizens, that
30:37
Speaker 6: we need to raise our voices where others are unable
30:40
Speaker 6: to do so.
30:44
Speaker 2: And I'd add that it's about administrative power. That chilling
30:49
Speaker 2: effect is happening in all areas, as Carol notes, education, journalism,
30:55
Speaker 2: You name it. Immigration obviously here. And the challenge from
31:00
Speaker 2: the public's point of view is the courts are slow.
31:05
Speaker 2: And the administration is working awfully fast. Think what has
31:09
Speaker 2: happened in the last 100 days. And the courts are
31:13
Speaker 2: still talking about jurisdiction in these cases. And that for
31:16
Speaker 2: me is awfully frustrating because Rumesa is not getting asthma
31:20
Speaker 2: medication while the lawyers are arguing about the fine points
31:24
Speaker 2: of jurisdiction. which seem very important when you're in law school,
31:30
Speaker 2: but seem marginal when you're talking about somebody's life.
31:35
Speaker 5: How does that change legal strategies when everything is being rewritten?
31:41
Speaker 6: Well, you know, I think part of it is, you know,
31:43
Speaker 6: I always say democracy is like a muscle. And the
31:45
Speaker 6: more we lean into it, the more we flex it,
31:48
Speaker 6: the stronger it gets. And so I think actually invoking
31:51
Speaker 6: the power of the courts, invoking the power of journalism,
31:54
Speaker 6: invoking the power of our universities. These are really important.
31:58
Speaker 6: People marching and protesting. It really matters. And the law is,
32:02
Speaker 6: as Rob says, incredibly slow.
32:04
Speaker 10: But you know what?
32:04
Speaker 6: Those are speed bumps, too. And a lot of those
32:07
Speaker 6: speed bumps are going to become traffic bollards. They're going
32:10
Speaker 6: to stop them. So I do think the courts and
32:13
Speaker 6: the law has an incredibly important role to play. And
32:16
Speaker 6: everybody says, well, they had all this time to get ready. Well,
32:19
Speaker 6: you know what? So did we. And we are ready.
32:22
Speaker 6: And we've been meeting them The ACLU has now filed
32:25
Speaker 6: 100 legal actions in the first 100 days. So we
32:28
Speaker 6: are in all 50 states and across the country. And
32:33
Speaker 6: we are fighting them at every step of the way,
32:35
Speaker 6: and we will continue to do so. But we also
32:37
Speaker 6: need the people who take to the streets and who
32:39
Speaker 6: write op-eds and who continue to do the stories and
32:42
Speaker 6: who continue to do the podcasts and continue to listen
32:45
Speaker 6: to the podcasts. Everything that we can do, whatever you
32:48
Speaker 6: can do within your power, within your sphere of influence,
32:51
Speaker 6: now's the time to do it. It's an all-hands-on-deck moment,
32:54
Speaker 6: and we can't afford to say, well, we're going to
32:56
Speaker 6: leave it to the courts or leave it to the
32:58
Speaker 6: journalists or leave it to the protesters. Every one of
33:00
Speaker 6: us has to be in this fight right now. And
33:03
Speaker 6: I think that if we all come together and we're
33:05
Speaker 6: able to do this, we will, in fact, hold them
33:08
Speaker 6: off and turn the tide.
33:09
Speaker 2: And we can't leave it to the international students either,
33:12
Speaker 2: because they're the ones who are most in peril about
33:15
Speaker 2: speaking out. So the rest of us have an obligation
33:18
Speaker 2: to be doing that.
33:19
Speaker 1: APPLAUSE I appreciate that spirit, not to be a Debbie
33:27
Speaker 1: Downer here, but I heard you say earlier, Carol, that
33:31
Speaker 1: like you're pretty confident you're going to eventually win when
33:33
Speaker 1: we raise this case. You're going to appeal and say
33:35
Speaker 1: this was protected speech. She's been retaliated against. It's unconstitutional.
33:40
Speaker 1: But have they already won? I mean, we're hearing like
33:45
Speaker 1: as I played in the beginning, you know, that people
33:47
Speaker 1: are not publishing things they want to publish. They're not
33:50
Speaker 1: speaking their mind. Rob, I'm curious if you even have
33:53
Speaker 1: an anecdote of a conversation you had in the last
33:55
Speaker 1: few weeks, if you say that you're having these conversations
33:57
Speaker 1: and advising people not to speak. Has the damage been done?
34:00
Speaker 1: And how do you roll that chilling effect back? Can you?
34:04
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I think you're absolutely right. And we have crossed
34:07
Speaker 2: a Rubicon that I don't think we can go back upon.
34:13
Speaker 2: We are not going to have international students come to
34:16
Speaker 2: the United States in nearly the same numbers anymore. because
34:22
Speaker 2: sensibly they say the United States is too dangerous a
34:26
Speaker 2: place for us to send our sons and daughters to.
34:29
Speaker 1: How about the effect on speech of people who are here, too?
34:34
Speaker 2: Same thing. Same thing. You know, you are taking that
34:39
Speaker 2: much of a risk if you speak out. You know,
34:43
Speaker 2: nobody wants to be, have to go through what Rumeso
34:47
Speaker 2: Ozturk is going through. even if you win in the end,
34:52
Speaker 2: you don't want to be subjected to that.
34:54
Speaker 1: You said you've had to have some conversations that go
34:56
Speaker 1: against the fiber of your being recently. Can you share
35:00
Speaker 1: one that you're able to talk about in some way?
35:03
Speaker 2: I have found myself in a upside down world because
35:09
Speaker 2: I'm asked, well, can we, should we take this down
35:15
Speaker 2: from our newspaper? Can I publish this dissenting voice. And
35:24
Speaker 2: last year, I'd have said, hell yeah, absolutely. That's what
35:29
Speaker 2: it's all about. That's what journalism is all about. I
35:35
Speaker 2: can't say that anymore with a straight face and protecting
35:38
Speaker 2: my client. I can say it in the abstract, but
35:42
Speaker 2: I can't say it if I'm really protecting my client.
35:46
Speaker 2: They have to make a decision for themselves. Um, and
35:52
Speaker 2: what I thought the first amendment said, well, maybe it
35:56
Speaker 2: says it in the law books, maybe it says it
35:58
Speaker 2: in the case law. Um, but right now in the courts,
36:04
Speaker 2: in the way that the administration is proceeding, the first
36:10
Speaker 2: amendment is cracked.
36:14
Speaker 1: And is this the best we can do right now? Like,
36:16
Speaker 1: is there anything we can do to repair that crack
36:18
Speaker 1: so that you can feel more comfortable saying, you know what,
36:21
Speaker 1: I think you actually can't publish it. I think it'll
36:22
Speaker 1: be okay. Like brass tacks. What can we be doing legally, journalistically?
36:27
Speaker 2: Um, I think we have to, those of us who
36:30
Speaker 2: can have to resist in every single way we can,
36:33
Speaker 2: both through protests, through courts, um, through op-eds, through, uh,
36:41
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know a better way.
36:42
Speaker 1: How does that work exactly? How does that stop it?
36:45
Speaker 1: Take me through the dream version.
36:47
Speaker 2: At some point, the public indignation, I believe I'm built
36:56
Speaker 2: on the optimism that that can have an effect.
37:01
Speaker 6: And I would just add, you know, hope is a
37:02
Speaker 6: political act and courage is contagious. And so we saw initially,
37:06
Speaker 6: for example, with the law firms that some of them
37:08
Speaker 6: backed down and then others came forward. like WilmerHale and
37:11
Speaker 6: Perkins Coie, and said, no, we're going to fight back.
37:15
Speaker 6: And when they did, it became okay, and then 700
37:18
Speaker 6: law firms signed on. We saw the same thing with
37:20
Speaker 6: the universities. When Columbia initially backed down, and then it
37:23
Speaker 6: looked like that was just the beginning of the negotiation,
37:26
Speaker 6: and then we've seen Tufts and Harvard and Williams and
37:30
Speaker 6: other colleges come forward and be courageous and give permission
37:33
Speaker 6: to other people to be courageous. And when people come
37:36
Speaker 6: out on the streets, it really makes a big difference.
37:38
Speaker 6: When people came out for the hands-off, event, it was incredible.
37:41
Speaker 6: And right after that, we had members of Congress take
37:44
Speaker 6: a delegation, go down to Louisiana and to visit Rameza
37:47
Speaker 6: Ozturk in that black hole where she's being held and
37:50
Speaker 6: to shine a light on that. We saw members of
37:53
Speaker 6: Congress going down to El Salvador and looking at the
37:56
Speaker 6: people in prison there. I think it's incredibly important that
38:00
Speaker 6: we take every action because when we do, We don't
38:03
Speaker 6: give in to despair because authoritarians want us to give
38:07
Speaker 6: in to despair. They want us to give in to fear.
38:09
Speaker 6: And they're the playground bullies. You know, the playground bully
38:12
Speaker 6: always goes back to the person who they can punch
38:15
Speaker 6: and take their lunch money. But the person who punches back,
38:18
Speaker 6: they don't go to them again. They go back to
38:20
Speaker 6: the person who backs down. So it's incredibly important that
38:23
Speaker 6: all of us in whatever positions that we have, and
38:26
Speaker 6: particularly those of us in positions of privilege, for example, U.S. citizens,
38:30
Speaker 6: that we raise our voices, that we speak out. There
38:33
Speaker 6: is safety in numbers, and we just simply cannot afford despair.
38:38
Speaker 6: We have to go forward. We have to overcome our fear.
38:40
Speaker 6: This is our generation's moment to speak out, to stand up,
38:44
Speaker 6: to march, to fight, to do whatever you can to
38:47
Speaker 6: fight back. so that the people who don't have as
38:49
Speaker 6: much privilege and power as we do are able to
38:52
Speaker 6: also live in peace and have their rights protected. So,
38:56
Speaker 6: you know, I don't have hope because I think we're
38:58
Speaker 6: necessarily going to overcome it. I have hope because I
39:02
Speaker 6: know that through action, hope is generated and hope is contagious,
39:05
Speaker 6: encourages contagious. And it's time for all of us to
39:08
Speaker 6: do our bit to make sure we defend the democracy
39:11
Speaker 6: that 250 years ago, our ancestors defended. Now it's our turn.
39:16
Speaker 6: And I'm damn sure that I'm going to spend my
39:19
Speaker 6: life doing that.
39:25
Speaker 1: Thank you, Carol Rose of the ACLU and First Amendment
39:27
Speaker 1: attorney Rob Birchie. Coming up, what advice do professional journalists
39:32
Speaker 1: have for student journalists like those here at the Tufts Daily?
39:35
Speaker 1: A student editor-in-chief gets to ask for advice from one
39:38
Speaker 1: of the most legendary pro-editors out there. That's after a
39:42
Speaker 1: quick break. Welcome back to Question Everything. We're live here
39:56
Speaker 1: at Tufts University. I'm here with the editor-in-chief of the
40:00
Speaker 1: Tufts Daily, Argea Talapragada. Argea, you're a junior from Lynchburg, Virginia, right?
40:06
Speaker 1: And you're studying engineering and philosophy? ARGEA TALAPRAGADA Yes.
40:14
Speaker 5: Yeah.
40:16
Speaker 1: I think it's remarkable that you're, at this moment, kind
40:18
Speaker 1: of having to shepherd the Tufts Daily through this very
40:21
Speaker 1: intense time. where a tough student has been detained and
40:24
Speaker 1: threatened with deportation for an op-ed that they co-authored in
40:27
Speaker 1: your publication. And so this is kind of, I think,
40:30
Speaker 1: an opportunity for you, I hope, to ask some pros
40:32
Speaker 1: about what they would do if they were in your position.
40:35
Speaker 1: And so to do that, we have Akayla Lacy from
40:38
Speaker 1: The Intercept. Akayla, are you out here? Akayla is a
40:44
Speaker 1: senior politics reporter at The Intercept. And in this second
40:48
Speaker 1: Trump administration, she's been covering protests, turmoil, speech and the
40:52
Speaker 1: government's influence on college campuses across the country. And we're
40:55
Speaker 1: also joined remotely here by Marty Baron. Marty. Hi, Marty.
41:01
Speaker 1: Hope you can see us. Marty was executive editor of
41:05
Speaker 1: The Washington Post for eight years, I believe, including during
41:08
Speaker 1: the first Trump term. And before that, he was editor
41:11
Speaker 1: of the hometown paper here, The Boston Globe, and oversaw,
41:14
Speaker 1: among many other things, the investigation into sexual abuse in
41:17
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church. argue, I think take it away. Like
41:22
Speaker 1: what questions you got for these guys?
41:23
Speaker 11: Thank you, Brian. So my first question is for you, Akaila. Um,
41:27
Speaker 11: so you're reporting on college campuses all across the country. Um,
41:31
Speaker 11: I want to know about the impact of Rumeysa's case.
41:34
Speaker 11: So are you hearing about columns being canceled or pieces
41:37
Speaker 11: being scrubbed? Um, student writers making tough decisions on what
41:41
Speaker 11: to say or publish. Essentially what we want to know is,
41:43
Speaker 11: is this having a chilling effect?
41:46
Speaker 1: Yeah.
41:46
Speaker 7: So, uh, Rumesa's case was obviously one of the biggest
41:51
Speaker 7: escalations that we've seen on the crackdown on college campuses
41:55
Speaker 7: that started, you know, last year prior to this administration.
41:59
Speaker 7: I've heard from students who at other schools who have
42:02
Speaker 7: been disciplined by their schools for writing op-eds, no one
42:06
Speaker 7: who has been abducted or detained by ICE. But this
42:10
Speaker 7: is I think as you heard on the previous segment,
42:13
Speaker 7: this is causing a lot of people to question, you know,
42:16
Speaker 7: student journalists, do I want to try to pursue a
42:18
Speaker 7: career in this field? Is it possible for me to
42:21
Speaker 7: pursue a career in this field and to continue reporting
42:24
Speaker 7: and writing about the things that I believe in? And
42:28
Speaker 7: we also see students trying to figure out how to
42:32
Speaker 7: take things into their own hands when they see their
42:35
Speaker 7: administrators or the leaders of their schools trying And backing
42:39
Speaker 7: down in the face of these incredible attacks against them
42:43
Speaker 7: and not, you know, sticking to the principles of academic freedom,
42:49
Speaker 7: you know, public discourse and the exchange of ideas, these
42:53
Speaker 7: things that our universities are supposedly built.
42:55
Speaker 10: On, students are saying, okay, well, you're saying that.
42:57
Speaker 7: And then you're calling the cops in to arrest my friends.
43:01
Speaker 7: You're telling me that I'm getting a disciplinary charge for
43:04
Speaker 7: an op-ed that I wrote two years ago because Congress
43:07
Speaker 7: is threatening to withhold money from our school now.
43:09
Speaker 10: And so I am trying to encourage.
43:11
Speaker 7: Students to keep their heads up as difficult as that
43:14
Speaker 7: can be. But the chilling effect is terrifying. And I
43:19
Speaker 7: don't think that we've really, despite the intense escalation that
43:22
Speaker 7: we've seen over the last four or five months, I
43:24
Speaker 7: don't think that we have sort of the capacity to
43:28
Speaker 7: understand the ramifications of this for the future.
43:31
Speaker 1: Kayla, is there like a moment or interaction you've had
43:33
Speaker 1: with a student in your reporting where it kind of
43:35
Speaker 1: hit you? What's happening? Is there one that you could
43:38
Speaker 1: share with us?
43:39
Speaker 7: Yeah, so talking to student protesters, you know, I've had
43:44
Speaker 7: iterations of this conversation multiple times, but we were covering
43:48
Speaker 7: sort of protests at Rust Belt colleges throughout the country
43:51
Speaker 7: where there had been a lot of attention on you know,
43:54
Speaker 7: the Northeast and Ivy League universities. And we wanted to
43:57
Speaker 7: show what working class students were going through and putting
44:01
Speaker 7: themselves on the line during this time. And one student
44:05
Speaker 7: at the end of our conversation said, you know, no
44:09
Speaker 7: matter what they do, it's only making us stronger. Like
44:13
Speaker 7: what schools are doing is actually having the opposite effect,
44:16
Speaker 7: a backfiring effect in strengthening the resolve that students have,
44:20
Speaker 7: whether they're protesting or organizing on their campuses that no
44:25
Speaker 7: matter what happens.
44:25
Speaker 10: And what they throw at them, like, there's no way
44:27
Speaker 10: that this is going to go away.
44:29
Speaker 7: And that, I've heard iterations of that over and over again,
44:32
Speaker 7: but that is what has stuck with me. And what
44:33
Speaker 7: I don't quite think my generation or older generations can
44:37
Speaker 7: necessarily grasp all the time when we're talking about this, that,
44:43
Speaker 7: you know, while people are afraid, it's actually making it
44:46
Speaker 7: harder for the administration to to keep this up going
44:50
Speaker 7: forward because there's going to be– they're only strengthening the
44:54
Speaker 7: backlash from people who no longer have faith in the
44:58
Speaker 7: government and no longer have faith in the university system.
45:01
Speaker 11: You published something recently, four days ago I think, about
45:04
Speaker 11: the Barnard administration called A Bomb Threat Targeted Student Protesters,
45:09
Speaker 11: So Why Did They Get Blamed For It? And this
45:11
Speaker 11: jumped out at me as a student because, you know,
45:14
Speaker 11: the administration is supposed to be something that the students
45:17
Speaker 11: can trust in these times. So I just want to know, like,
45:20
Speaker 11: can you talk us through what happened there?
45:22
Speaker 10: Yeah, so thank you for mentioning that story.
45:25
Speaker 7: A source reached out to me a few weeks ago
45:28
Speaker 7: about this incident that took place on Barnard's campus in
45:32
Speaker 7: New York last month, where student protesters held a sit-in
45:38
Speaker 7: protesting Israel's war on Gaza at a building on campus
45:41
Speaker 7: where the library was housed. And that day, the school
45:45
Speaker 7: also received a bomb threat by email. And basically, police
45:51
Speaker 7: were called to campus. Nine students were arrested for refusing
45:56
Speaker 7: evacuation orders. And the story that came out from the
45:59
Speaker 7: school and the next day in media coverage was that
46:03
Speaker 7: nine students had been arrested at this protest after there
46:06
Speaker 7: was a bomb threat. And the takeaway, if you're not
46:09
Speaker 7: paying attention, is an assumption that the students.
46:12
Speaker 10: Were responsible for the threat.
46:14
Speaker 7: Uh, the school president, Laura Ann Rosenberry, also later blamed
46:18
Speaker 7: the student protesters for putting the entire community at risk
46:22
Speaker 7: for not evacuating the campus because.
46:23
Speaker 10: Of the threat.
46:25
Speaker 7: Uh, what we found out was that the threat specifically
46:29
Speaker 7: targeted pro-Palestine protesters. The language, I won't repeat it because
46:32
Speaker 7: it's derogatory and, uh, inappropriate, but it was very clear
46:36
Speaker 7: who they were targeting. And the school never told the students,
46:41
Speaker 7: to my knowledge, the school has still not told the
46:43
Speaker 7: students that they were the target of this bomb threat.
46:47
Speaker 7: It was leaked basically to a couple of faculty members
46:50
Speaker 7: who discussed it a few days later. And in conversations
46:56
Speaker 7: with attorneys who have been working with these students and
46:58
Speaker 7: faculty who have been supporting them, they thought it was
47:00
Speaker 7: outrageous that over a month later, there was still no
47:04
Speaker 7: indication from the school that its student body had been
47:07
Speaker 7: specifically targeted in what it said was a credible bomb
47:10
Speaker 7: threat that required them to call the NYPD to campus.
47:14
Speaker 7: Some other questions that were raised in the course of
47:16
Speaker 7: reporting this story was when and.
47:18
Speaker 10: Why the school actually called police to campus.
47:21
Speaker 7: There were competing reports where at first the NYPD told
47:26
Speaker 7: another group of intrepid student journalists at the Columbia Spectator
47:29
Speaker 7: that they came to the school because of a, quote,
47:31
Speaker 7: unscheduled demonstration and had no knowledge of a bomb threat.
47:36
Speaker 7: A couple days later, they changed their statement and said
47:38
Speaker 7: that they were called because of the bomb threat. The
47:40
Speaker 7: school maintained the whole time that they called the police
47:43
Speaker 7: because of the bomb threat.
47:44
Speaker 10: But we have.
47:45
Speaker 7: Multiple sources who said they saw the police, the SRG,
47:49
Speaker 7: the Strategic Response Group, which is responsible for policing protests,
47:53
Speaker 7: not the bomb squad, outside of this college campus building.
47:56
Speaker 10: 30 minutes before the bomb threat came in.
47:59
Speaker 7: So our story was about the two tendrils of this,
48:03
Speaker 7: which are Barnard, again, calling police to arrest its own
48:08
Speaker 7: students and hiding for over a month that its students
48:12
Speaker 7: were a specific target of a bomb threat on campus.
48:16
Speaker 7: This is also all happening while Barnard is being pressured
48:19
Speaker 7: to turn over information about its students to Congress, which
48:23
Speaker 7: says that it's conducting an investigation into anti-Semitism on campus.
48:27
Speaker 7: and where Republicans have repeatedly painted student protesters as terrorists.
48:32
Speaker 7: And faculty and students at Barnard are now concerned that,
48:36
Speaker 7: you know, their students are now being interrogated about this
48:39
Speaker 7: bomb threat in meetings that could eventually be turned over
48:43
Speaker 7: to Congress and result in either immigration or criminal charges
48:47
Speaker 7: against these students.
48:49
Speaker 11: So switching gears to Marty, I wanted to ask, what
48:54
Speaker 11: happened to Rumaisa really hit us at the Daily Post?
48:57
Speaker 10: Pretty hard.
48:57
Speaker 11: But admittedly, as college students, we haven't spent that much
49:01
Speaker 11: time in journalism. But you, on the other hand, have
49:03
Speaker 11: run two major newsrooms, been a professional journalist for decades.
49:07
Speaker 11: I want to know, did this jump out as something
49:09
Speaker 11: that's new.
49:09
Speaker 10: To you in your career?
49:11
Speaker 11: Can you think of a time where anything.
49:14
Speaker 9: Happened that was like this? Well, um, I haven't seen
49:18
Speaker 9: this on college campuses before, but I've certainly had something
49:22
Speaker 9: similar and I would say worse, uh, uh, in our,
49:25
Speaker 9: in my experience as an editor, um, at the Washington Post. So, uh,
49:30
Speaker 9: in July of 2014, our, uh, correspondent in Iran, uh,
49:35
Speaker 9: Jason Rezaian, uh, was arrested along with his wife, uh,
49:39
Speaker 9: She was held for 72 days. He was held for
49:43
Speaker 9: 544 days in prison, much of that time in solitary
49:47
Speaker 9: and in the worst prison in Iran, which is pretty bad.
49:51
Speaker 9: You know, it's interesting because in this particular case of Rumeysa,
49:58
Speaker 9: you know, the State Department is making all these allegations,
50:01
Speaker 9: Marco Rubio claiming that her activities could have potentially serious
50:06
Speaker 9: consequences for American foreign policy. all of that, a lot
50:09
Speaker 9: of exaggerated language and exaggerated conclusions about a simple op-ed
50:15
Speaker 9: that she co-authored. And in the case of Jason, an
50:18
Speaker 9: Iranian interrogator asked him after he had been arrested, do
50:21
Speaker 9: you know why you're here? And he said, no, he
50:23
Speaker 9: had no idea why he was there. And he said,
50:25
Speaker 9: you are the head of the CIA station in Tehran,
50:30
Speaker 9: of course, which was complete nonsense. And he was tried
50:33
Speaker 9: on that basis and tried for espionage, which he, of course,
50:36
Speaker 9: did not commit. He was convicted. in a sham trial,
50:39
Speaker 9: a kangaroo court. And we were very concerned about what
50:42
Speaker 9: might happen to him and how long he would be
50:43
Speaker 9: in prison there. Thankfully, he was ultimately released as part
50:46
Speaker 9: of a big deal. But, you know, those are the
50:49
Speaker 9: kinds of preposterous allegations that are made in a place
50:53
Speaker 9: like Iran. And then you hear these preposterous allegations made
50:56
Speaker 9: by the Secretary of State here in the United States.
51:00
Speaker 9: The second case that I would mention was the assassination
51:04
Speaker 9: in 2018 of Jamal Khashoggi, who was an opinion writer.
51:07
Speaker 9: a guest opinion writer for the Washington Post. He's a
51:11
Speaker 9: Saudi national, but he had permanent residency here in the
51:16
Speaker 9: United States. He was living in Turkey at the time.
51:19
Speaker 9: He went into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain
51:22
Speaker 9: some papers so that he could get married. He never
51:26
Speaker 9: came out. The Saudis claimed that he had left, but
51:30
Speaker 9: the Turkish government said that he had not left. It
51:32
Speaker 9: turned out that Of course, he had not left. He
51:35
Speaker 9: was assassinated there in the consulate. He was completely dismembered.
51:40
Speaker 9: We don't know where his body was ultimately disposed of
51:45
Speaker 9: or what exactly happened to him. He had simply written
51:48
Speaker 9: a number of columns critical of the Saudi government, one
51:51
Speaker 9: of the most recent ones being criticism of the Saudi
51:54
Speaker 9: war in Yemen, which at the time was called by
51:57
Speaker 9: the UN the greatest humanitarian disaster in the world. And
52:01
Speaker 9: of course, in that instance, Trump did absolutely nothing on
52:05
Speaker 9: his behalf. At various times, he expressed concern, but at
52:08
Speaker 9: other times, he expressed total credibility in what the Saudi
52:11
Speaker 9: crown prince was saying. The Saudi crown prince was later
52:14
Speaker 9: found by the CIA with great confidence, was found to
52:17
Speaker 9: have actually ordered an assassination squad to go to Turkey
52:21
Speaker 9: in order to either kidnap.
52:24
Speaker 1: Or murder our columnist.
52:26
Speaker 9: And Trump did nothing because he felt that there were
52:30
Speaker 9: more important matters than a journalist for the Washington Post,
52:33
Speaker 9: the more important matters being weapons sales to Saudi Arabia
52:37
Speaker 9: and various administration initiatives in the Middle East. And then
52:41
Speaker 9: subsequent to that, as it turns out, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner,
52:46
Speaker 9: after Trump left office, Jared Kushner was put in charge
52:50
Speaker 9: of managing $ 2 billion worth of Saudi assets, and he
52:53
Speaker 9: gets a fee right off the top. So Those are
52:56
Speaker 9: the circumstances that I confronted when I was the editor
53:00
Speaker 9: of The Washington Post.
53:02
Speaker 1: What parallels do you see to this situation or don't
53:04
Speaker 1: you see, Marty?
53:07
Speaker 9: Well, preposterous allegations being made by a government, you would
53:10
Speaker 9: hope that our government would be better than that, not
53:13
Speaker 9: make baseless allegations like it is in this instance, in
53:17
Speaker 9: the same way that the Iranian government makes baseless allegations.
53:22
Speaker 9: So that's the parallel with regard to Jason Rezaian. I
53:25
Speaker 9: would say the parallel with regard to Jamal Khashoggi is
53:29
Speaker 9: that you have a Trump administration who, frankly, doesn't give
53:32
Speaker 9: a damn about journalists or even someone who's not a journalist,
53:36
Speaker 9: but someone who just co-authored an opinion column for a
53:40
Speaker 9: newspaper on a college campus. He simply doesn't care about
53:44
Speaker 9: free expression. And, you know, in this instance, you know,
53:47
Speaker 9: they make accusations of support for terrorism and all that
53:51
Speaker 9: sort of stuff. even though there's absolutely no evidence of
53:54
Speaker 9: any support for terrorism or a terrorist group or anything
53:58
Speaker 9: like that. And the real terror here is emanating from
54:01
Speaker 9: the administration itself. They're seeking to terrorize immigrants. They're seeking
54:06
Speaker 9: to terrorize international students on college campuses. They're seeking to
54:10
Speaker 9: terrorize journalists and then ultimately to terrorize even American citizens.
54:17
Speaker 11: So after the murder of Khashoggi, did you perceive a
54:20
Speaker 11: chilling effect within the opinion section? And if you did,
54:23
Speaker 11: how did you navigate that? Because it's something that.
54:25
Speaker 10: We're facing right now.
54:28
Speaker 3: We didn't.
54:29
Speaker 9: I mean, there were various threats made by Saudi nationals
54:32
Speaker 9: against individuals, including our owner, Jeff Bezos. He actually had
54:37
Speaker 9: his company, Amazon, had plans to invest a billion dollars
54:39
Speaker 9: in Saudi Arabia, and that all came to a halt.
54:43
Speaker 9: He himself was threatened in various ways. And then there
54:46
Speaker 9: were people on the staff who received threats as well.
54:49
Speaker 9: But it did not have a chilling effect. We did
54:51
Speaker 9: our job in the news department. We covered the story independently, professionally.
54:55
Speaker 9: And in the opinion section, they waged a campaign on
54:58
Speaker 9: the opinion section, which I was not responsible for, because
55:02
Speaker 9: there's a wall between opinion and the news department at
55:05
Speaker 9: a place like the Washington Post. But they waged a
55:07
Speaker 9: campaign to, first, to find what happened to Jamal Khashoggi,
55:12
Speaker 9: because we didn't know where he was. And then when
55:14
Speaker 9: we learned that he had been, in fact, assassinated, he
55:17
Speaker 9: had been murdered, to to find out who was responsible
55:21
Speaker 9: for that and to bring about justice. And then there
55:25
Speaker 9: was a campaign on the part of the newspaper itself,
55:27
Speaker 9: our publisher, to try to pressure the administration to do
55:31
Speaker 9: something to penalize the Saudis, the crown prince and the
55:34
Speaker 9: entire Saudi government for having murdered a journalist, merely for
55:38
Speaker 9: publishing opinions that the Saudi government didn't like. And so
55:42
Speaker 9: that campaign lasted a long time. Ultimately, there really was
55:47
Speaker 9: no justice because the Trump administration didn't care. So there
55:51
Speaker 9: was no chilling effect within our newsroom or within the
55:54
Speaker 9: opinion department or within the paper overall.
55:57
Speaker 1: Marty, with the Jason Rezaian case, I see some kind
56:02
Speaker 1: of parallel between you having to lead the news organization
56:06
Speaker 1: in covering what was happening to one of your journalists
56:10
Speaker 1: while one of your journalists was in this very vulnerable
56:12
Speaker 1: position and And what Argi is going through where someone
56:16
Speaker 1: who's written for their pages, you know, is in a
56:18
Speaker 1: vulnerable position being held and they're having to cover this
56:20
Speaker 1: story as well. And I'm curious just if you could
56:23
Speaker 1: take us inside that experience as a leader of the
56:25
Speaker 1: paper at that time. Like, did you face pressure internally
56:29
Speaker 1: from Jason's family, from the administration to alter your coverage
56:34
Speaker 1: in any way to not piss off the Iranians, for instance,
56:37
Speaker 1: and possibly put him in danger or further danger?
56:40
Speaker 9: Well, you know, we just tried to cover it in
56:43
Speaker 9: many ways, pretty much the way we would cover any
56:44
Speaker 9: other story is try to find out what happened, trying
56:47
Speaker 9: to describe what was in fact occurring, what his case
56:50
Speaker 9: was supposedly all about, which of course the Iranians wouldn't explain,
56:54
Speaker 9: and to see what the administration was trying to do
56:56
Speaker 9: in order to obtain his release. And so that's what
57:01
Speaker 9: we did. It's obviously very emotional for anybody who's having
57:05
Speaker 9: to cover this. But as a news department, you know,
57:08
Speaker 9: you have to maintain some level of, I don't know,
57:12
Speaker 9: just being distancing yourself a little bit from it in
57:16
Speaker 9: order to cover it. And in the same way that,
57:19
Speaker 9: you know, if you're the police department, if you have
57:22
Speaker 9: to investigate a murder, you can't become emotional about it.
57:25
Speaker 9: And so, you know, you have to ultimately control your
57:29
Speaker 9: emotions and cover the story in a thorough way. And
57:34
Speaker 9: that's what we did. We never got pressure at all
57:36
Speaker 9: from the family. We worked with the family. We had
57:39
Speaker 9: constant contact. Our foreign editor was in constant contact with
57:43
Speaker 9: Jason's brother and with his mother. And so they were
57:48
Speaker 9: not opposed in any way to our coverage. And the
57:50
Speaker 9: feeling was the more attention we brought to his case,
57:54
Speaker 9: the more likely he was to be released.
57:57
Speaker 11: So we at The Daily are getting a ton of
57:59
Speaker 11: takedown requests for articles. So I'm wondering, do you have
58:02
Speaker 11: any advice for newsrooms like ours and newsrooms across the
58:06
Speaker 11: country who are receiving these requests and now have to
58:09
Speaker 11: figure out what to do when writers are afraid to
58:12
Speaker 11: have their work published?
58:15
Speaker 1: Or want to have it taken down after it is published, right? Yeah.
58:19
Speaker 9: Well, look, I mean, it's a very difficult decision. It's
58:22
Speaker 9: hard to give advice in these circumstances. Obviously, there's a
58:25
Speaker 9: lot at stake for the people who make these takedown requests.
58:29
Speaker 9: The only point that I would make is that probably
58:31
Speaker 9: all of this is still available in the Internet Archive.
58:35
Speaker 9: It's probably already been archived by the administration and by
58:40
Speaker 9: outfits like Canary Mission, which have been identifying people they
58:45
Speaker 9: feel should be targeted for removal from the country for
58:49
Speaker 9: purported anti-Semitic behavior or anti-Israel behavior or whatever it might be.
58:53
Speaker 9: So taking it down is probably not going to mean
58:56
Speaker 9: that it's been removed from detection. So I think that's
59:01
Speaker 9: something to consider, you know, but it's very personal and
59:04
Speaker 9: I don't really have individual advice It would be worth
59:10
Speaker 9: listening to each individual person about what the circumstances were.
59:13
Speaker 9: I do feel that that is a bit of, given
59:16
Speaker 9: the administration, what it wants. It says we don't want
59:18
Speaker 9: these things published. And then the people who publish them,
59:21
Speaker 9: the people who wrote them, in fact, they don't publish
59:24
Speaker 9: anymore and they take down what they've already published. And
59:27
Speaker 9: in a way, that's a victory for the administration. And
59:29
Speaker 9: I do think that all of us who value free
59:31
Speaker 9: expression need to stand up against that. That said, as
59:36
Speaker 9: I indicated, it's a very personal matter, and I'm not
59:41
Speaker 9: sure I have fantastic advice.
59:43
Speaker 1: I was surprised to learn in talking to the attorney,
59:46
Speaker 1: Mike Heastand, from the Student Press Legal Center that they
59:51
Speaker 1: actually have revised their, kind of like Rob was talking about,
59:54
Speaker 1: their standard advice, whereas before they would be like, hell no,
59:57
Speaker 1: it stays up, we don't you know, revise history in
1:00:00
Speaker 1: this way. They're not saying take it down. But when
1:00:04
Speaker 1: they issued actually kind of a preemptive statement after getting
1:00:07
Speaker 1: so many calls to say, like, it makes sense for
1:00:11
Speaker 1: student newsrooms to revisit these policies and have a bit
1:00:13
Speaker 1: more of an open mind than we've had in the past,
1:00:16
Speaker 1: which I found surprising. But I'm curious, yeah, Kayla, like
1:00:19
Speaker 1: what you're hearing in your reporting, what are the different
1:00:21
Speaker 1: types of approaches you've heard of? And which ones strike
1:00:24
Speaker 1: you as maybe the most compelling or You know, just
1:00:28
Speaker 1: something we could think about right now.
1:00:29
Speaker 7: So I can share, you know, without giving identifying information,
1:00:33
Speaker 7: but we have been going through this to some extent
1:00:35
Speaker 7: at The Intercept. You know, we work with journalists in
1:00:40
Speaker 7: Palestine and of Palestinian descent. And there was one case
1:00:43
Speaker 7: where a contributing writer who we work with had gotten
1:00:48
Speaker 7: this Palestinian writer to write a piece several, I think
1:00:51
Speaker 7: several years ago, but around, you know, post-October 7th attacks
1:00:55
Speaker 7: and the war on Gaza. And they reached out, you know,
1:00:58
Speaker 7: in the early months. I think it was sometime around
1:01:00
Speaker 7: the election, actually, before all of this stuff had started happening,
1:01:03
Speaker 7: asking because their family was in proceedings to get a
1:01:08
Speaker 7: green card, something related to that. And they were concerned
1:01:12
Speaker 7: about having their byline up on Facebook.
1:01:14
Speaker 10: On our website. And there was this big back and forth,
1:01:16
Speaker 10: like our editor, I'm not an editor.
1:01:17
Speaker 7: So I, I luckily don't have this decision on my shoulders,
1:01:21
Speaker 7: but the editors originally were very adamant that they didn't
1:01:24
Speaker 7: want to take this down to, because of your point
1:01:26
Speaker 7: that we don't, we don't rewrite history.
1:01:28
Speaker 10: We don't erase stuff, you know, when.
1:01:29
Speaker 7: It gets inconvenient, but the reporter who had connected this,
1:01:33
Speaker 7: this freelancer with us was distraught because it was the
1:01:37
Speaker 7: first time that this question had really been raised.
1:01:39
Speaker 10: Like, do we put our journalistic principles.
1:01:42
Speaker 7: Ahead of someone's immediate safety when they're telling us, I'm
1:01:45
Speaker 7: going to be persecuted by the government if you don't
1:01:47
Speaker 7: do this.
1:01:48
Speaker 1: And it is also a journalistic principle to minimize harm.
1:01:50
Speaker 8: Exactly.
1:01:50
Speaker 1: That is one of our journalistic principles among many others.
1:01:53
Speaker 10: Thank you.
1:01:54
Speaker 7: Yes. And so in that case, I think, and so,
1:01:58
Speaker 7: I mean, I'm not actually sure what ended up happening
1:02:00
Speaker 7: with that case, but this is coming up again and again.
1:02:02
Speaker 7: I mean, I think to Marty's point, it really is
1:02:05
Speaker 7: an individual, like a case by case situation, which is
1:02:08
Speaker 7: not a helpful answer for somebody who's dealing with this
1:02:11
Speaker 7: every day. But I think you have to weigh the
1:02:14
Speaker 7: risks and the benefits to your paper of, I think,
1:02:17
Speaker 7: you know, the point that this stuff is already out there.
1:02:19
Speaker 7: It's like the op-ed is not going to be, you know,
1:02:22
Speaker 7: in Ramesa's case, it was the reason, you know, the
1:02:24
Speaker 7: ostensible reason that they detained her. But if they're coming
1:02:27
Speaker 7: after you, they're going to find something to take you for. Like,
1:02:31
Speaker 7: it's not, if you take down the op-ed, you might
1:02:33
Speaker 7: feel like you're protecting yourself more. And I don't want
1:02:35
Speaker 7: to sound so cynical and depressing, but that is the
1:02:38
Speaker 7: reality of where we are right now. So, you know,
1:02:40
Speaker 7: it might feel like you're exerting some form of control,
1:02:43
Speaker 7: but at the end of the day, we have no control,
1:02:46
Speaker 7: which is terrifying.
1:02:47
Speaker 1: Okay. Can I ask you a question? Something I've noticed
1:02:50
Speaker 1: just like talking to you and your fellow colleagues on
1:02:53
Speaker 1: the paper, like when I've asked about, so what are
1:02:56
Speaker 1: you doing? Like, what is your policy? And now that
1:02:58
Speaker 1: you're being faced with these takedown requests, you guys have
1:03:00
Speaker 1: been a little like reluctant to talk about what it is,
1:03:03
Speaker 1: has been my sense. And when I talked to the
1:03:07
Speaker 1: exiting opinions editor at the Yale Daily News, the audio
1:03:11
Speaker 1: I played at the beginning, he told this whole story,
1:03:14
Speaker 1: as you heard, about how he's gotten four or five
1:03:15
Speaker 1: requests to take down previously published pieces. And when I said, okay,
1:03:19
Speaker 1: so what's the end of the story? Did you take
1:03:20
Speaker 1: them down? He said he didn't want to comment on it,
1:03:23
Speaker 1: and he wouldn't comment on the Yale Daily News retraction policies.
1:03:28
Speaker 1: I'm not asking you to comment on Tufts, but that
1:03:30
Speaker 1: was interesting to me. My impulse, just from where I sit,
1:03:33
Speaker 1: is If you're going to be taking stuff down and
1:03:36
Speaker 1: erasing history, at least be transparent about the policy in
1:03:39
Speaker 1: some way. That's kind of like my gut reaction. But
1:03:42
Speaker 1: how are you guys thinking about it? There must be
1:03:44
Speaker 1: considerations that I'm not appreciating that make you guys want
1:03:48
Speaker 1: to not be transparent about your thinking.
1:03:51
Speaker 8: Sure.
1:03:51
Speaker 11: Well, yeah, I mean, we get a lot of advice.
1:03:54
Speaker 11: And I think conversations like this really do help. But
1:03:59
Speaker 11: we are trying to follow a policy, but also we
1:04:02
Speaker 11: take things on a case-by-case basis. And our policies are
1:04:05
Speaker 11: up on our website, but we're looking to minimize real financial, emotional,
1:04:11
Speaker 11: or physical harm. And something that we talked about was
1:04:15
Speaker 11: the idea that physical harm can be actual physical harm
1:04:18
Speaker 11: or political harm, someone getting detained or deported. So in
1:04:24
Speaker 11: each of these takedown requests, we're looking at these details.
1:04:27
Speaker 1: Can you give a sense of how many takedown requests
1:04:29
Speaker 1: you've gotten?
1:04:32
Speaker 11: Maybe less than 10.
1:04:33
Speaker 10: Okay.
1:04:34
Speaker 8: Yeah.
1:04:34
Speaker 1: But in the last month?
1:04:36
Speaker 11: I mean, it's been a huge increase since this happened.
1:04:38
Speaker 11: So this is certainly due to the detainment of Rumeza.
1:04:43
Speaker 1: And do you have a special, have you formed like
1:04:44
Speaker 1: a special committee or something to deal with these? Do
1:04:47
Speaker 1: you have a process that you've come up with internally?
1:04:49
Speaker 1: Is there an editor who's in charge of assessing them?
1:04:52
Speaker 11: We at the Tufts Daily Leadership, we look at these
1:04:55
Speaker 11: cases and we also get advice from others.
1:05:00
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you have it figured out? Like,
1:05:02
Speaker 1: do you feel good about the process or you're like,
1:05:04
Speaker 1: I don't know, like this feels like just grasping in
1:05:06
Speaker 1: the dark.
1:05:07
Speaker 11: I mean, I think the situation just is changing with
1:05:10
Speaker 11: every day. Um, so I would say that we are,
1:05:13
Speaker 11: we're slowly figuring it out. It's, um, it's definitely a
1:05:16
Speaker 11: process that we're still working on, but we feel good
1:05:19
Speaker 11: about the policies that we've created.
1:05:21
Speaker 10: Yeah.
1:05:22
Speaker 4: All right.
1:05:22
Speaker 1: I'll let you guys, I'll leave you alone now. I'll
1:05:24
Speaker 1: let you ask your questions of these guys, but I've just,
1:05:26
Speaker 1: it's just been, yeah, I've been curious about the kind of, um,
1:05:29
Speaker 1: hush-hushness about these policies on campuses, student newspapers.
1:05:33
Speaker 6: Definitely.
1:05:34
Speaker 11: I guess one thing that I wanted to ask for
1:05:37
Speaker 11: both of you, this audience is full of tough students.
1:05:41
Speaker 11: What advice do you have for someone here, like a
1:05:44
Speaker 11: writer here, who has something to say but is now
1:05:47
Speaker 11: afraid to say it?
1:05:48
Speaker 9: Well, if you don't say it, you're giving in to
1:05:55
Speaker 9: the pressure from this administration. The right to free expression
1:06:00
Speaker 9: means absolutely nothing if it's not exercised. And so merely
1:06:06
Speaker 9: to hold back because you're scared, I understand the pressures,
1:06:11
Speaker 9: but that's something that people should think about is that
1:06:13
Speaker 9: if you don't exercise your right to free expression out
1:06:16
Speaker 9: of fear, then in practical terms, you have no right
1:06:19
Speaker 9: to free expression. You have censored yourself. And that's exactly
1:06:23
Speaker 9: what this administration wants to have happen. So I'm very
1:06:27
Speaker 9: reluctant to give them the kind of victories that they
1:06:29
Speaker 9: hope to have that suggests that we are not entitled
1:06:32
Speaker 9: to the rights that are written into the Constitution of
1:06:35
Speaker 9: the United States. And I am concerned when law firms
1:06:39
Speaker 9: yield to pressure from Donald Trump. I'm concerned when universities
1:06:42
Speaker 9: yield to pressure from Donald Trump. I've been concerned when
1:06:46
Speaker 9: some media organizations have yielded to pressure from Donald Trump
1:06:49
Speaker 9: because that merely is an invitation to apply more pressure
1:06:54
Speaker 9: because they know that pressure will work. And the greater
1:06:57
Speaker 9: the pressure, the greater the fear, the more likely that
1:06:59
Speaker 9: people will simply not express themselves or will not engage
1:07:02
Speaker 9: in political activity generally that they feel will make themselves
1:07:06
Speaker 9: a target of this administration. That's a victory for the
1:07:10
Speaker 9: Trump administration. And I am reluctant, to say the least,
1:07:15
Speaker 9: to give the administration the kind of victories that it's
1:07:17
Speaker 9: looking for on this front.
1:07:20
Speaker 5: Okay.
1:07:25
Speaker 1: I'm curious just as a follow-up, Marty, and this is
1:07:27
Speaker 1: for you, to Akayla, and I'm thinking of it myself, like,
1:07:31
Speaker 1: have either of you ever felt kind of the personal
1:07:34
Speaker 1: danger that could be tied to publishing something that certain
1:07:39
Speaker 1: international students might be feeling right now? The personal jeopardy?
1:07:44
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, I'm a U.S.
1:07:46
Speaker 7: Citizen, but I'm also a black woman, and I cover... police,
1:07:53
Speaker 7: I cover police brutality. I cover the pro-Israel lobby in Congress.
1:07:56
Speaker 7: I've had, um, plenty of stuff thrown at me. I'm
1:07:59
Speaker 7: not concerned about being deported, obviously, because I'm a U.S. citizen,
1:08:02
Speaker 7: but I am concerned about traveling, um, I'm concerned about,
1:08:05
Speaker 7: you know, my mom is like today, she was like,
1:08:08
Speaker 7: be safe.
1:08:09
Speaker 10: I'm like, I'm in Boston.
1:08:10
Speaker 7: Like, you know, like, but these are, there's concerns. And
1:08:14
Speaker 7: particularly because the intersection of the things that I cover
1:08:16
Speaker 7: have been sort of the flashpoints of the biggest social
1:08:20
Speaker 7: movements that we've seen over the last five years in
1:08:22
Speaker 7: this country.
1:08:23
Speaker 10: I certainly am concerned about it, but I.
1:08:24
Speaker 7: Also am really grateful that I work at a place
1:08:28
Speaker 7: like The Intercept where, you know, our tagline is, fearless
1:08:32
Speaker 7: adversarial journalism. But what's really behind that is knowing that
1:08:37
Speaker 7: I have support from every person on my editorial team
1:08:40
Speaker 7: to approach my reporting from the position that everyone deserves
1:08:44
Speaker 7: human rights and human dignity, and that there are political
1:08:49
Speaker 7: forces in this world that are diametrically opposed to that.
1:08:51
Speaker 7: And so covering those forces as if they operate in
1:08:55
Speaker 7: a vacuum or are neutral is not objectivity. And so
1:08:59
Speaker 7: I come to every story with that approach and I
1:09:02
Speaker 7: take pride in that. So I want to tell you,
1:09:04
Speaker 7: just do the right thing and you'll be fine. But
1:09:07
Speaker 7: we are all coming to this from different positionalities and
1:09:10
Speaker 7: with different levels of support. And so I think it
1:09:12
Speaker 7: really does, you know, to your initial question, like what's
1:09:16
Speaker 7: your advice for journalists or students who want to be
1:09:18
Speaker 7: writing about this stuff? I'd agree with Marty. I think
1:09:21
Speaker 7: do it because doing the opposite is caving in. But
1:09:24
Speaker 7: you also do need to be smart. And like if
1:09:27
Speaker 7: you know that you are more vulnerable than your friend
1:09:30
Speaker 7: who might be a U.S. citizen who is encouraging you
1:09:33
Speaker 7: to write about this, like reach out to the resources
1:09:36
Speaker 7: that you have on campus to help. the Student Press
1:09:38
Speaker 7: Law Center or to the ACLU or make sure that
1:09:41
Speaker 7: you have people.
1:09:41
Speaker 1: I know, but that's what I'm thinking about. I'm like,
1:09:43
Speaker 1: I'm an international student. I reach out to Rob to
1:09:45
Speaker 1: get some advice.
1:09:46
Speaker 10: And he says, don't write your op-ed.
1:09:47
Speaker 1: And he says, actually, as your lawyer, I can't in
1:09:49
Speaker 1: good faith say that this is the greatest idea. And
1:09:53
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to put myself in that position as someone,
1:09:56
Speaker 1: I'm not an international student.
1:09:57
Speaker 7: I think the depressing part of that point is that
1:10:00
Speaker 7: there are going to, like sometimes the answer will be
1:10:02
Speaker 7: don't do the right thing. And like maybe there's another
1:10:05
Speaker 7: way for you to to do your activism or do
1:10:08
Speaker 7: your speaking out about this, but you have to be
1:10:11
Speaker 7: realistic about the country that we're living in right now.
1:10:15
Speaker 7: And I don't think that we as journalists or as
1:10:17
Speaker 7: lawyers can be going around and pretending like everything's fine
1:10:20
Speaker 7: and that democracy will prevail.
1:10:21
Speaker 10: Because it's not.
1:10:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, Marty, how do you think about that, the kind
1:10:24
Speaker 1: of balancing the high-minded or like the principled approach with
1:10:28
Speaker 1: the potential personal peril, I guess, that people might be weighing?
1:10:33
Speaker 9: I think anybody who's in journalism is going to face
1:10:35
Speaker 9: threats if they deal with sensitive subjects. I certainly have,
1:10:40
Speaker 9: particularly after the election of 2020. Many of the Trump
1:10:44
Speaker 9: supporters threatened me, threatened my colleagues. They received even worse
1:10:48
Speaker 9: than I did. Our security team regularly checked out those threats,
1:10:52
Speaker 9: whether they came by phone or whether they came via
1:10:57
Speaker 9: social media or emails or whatever it might be. Some
1:11:00
Speaker 9: threats were delivered to people's individual doors at their homes.
1:11:03
Speaker 9: And some of those people who issued those threats had
1:11:07
Speaker 9: criminal backgrounds, by the way, for violent crimes. So that
1:11:12
Speaker 9: was deeply concerning. And then after January 6th of 2021,
1:11:17
Speaker 9: some of the people who participated in that or organized
1:11:20
Speaker 9: that disseminated advice that said that we don't have to
1:11:24
Speaker 9: act as a group. We can act autonomously. We know
1:11:27
Speaker 9: where people live. Take action on your own. So that
1:11:31
Speaker 9: was a concerning thing as well. And I received a
1:11:34
Speaker 9: lot of threats at that point as well. Look, I
1:11:37
Speaker 9: had to keep doing my job. I can't say, well,
1:11:39
Speaker 9: I'm going to stop doing my job because these threats
1:11:41
Speaker 9: are being issued. On the other hand, you watch who's
1:11:46
Speaker 9: around you, what the movements are. You monitor things. You
1:11:49
Speaker 9: alert your security team to potential threats. But I can't
1:11:54
Speaker 9: say I'm going to. I think I'll just check out
1:11:56
Speaker 9: of journalism while this passes. That's not possible. because we
1:12:01
Speaker 9: had a job to do and a very important job
1:12:03
Speaker 9: to do. And I think what everybody's learning at Tufts,
1:12:06
Speaker 9: I hope, is just how important journalism is. It's important that,
1:12:10
Speaker 9: and great, that Tufts Daily is covering this story so
1:12:14
Speaker 9: energetically and so professionally. We need that. We need the facts.
1:12:18
Speaker 9: And I think it's a reminder, by the way, that
1:12:21
Speaker 9: the attacks on journalists is just a precursor to attacks
1:12:25
Speaker 9: on free expression by everybody. We are the first target
1:12:29
Speaker 9: because we're We have institutions. We have some sort of organization.
1:12:33
Speaker 9: And so if an administration can crush us first, then
1:12:37
Speaker 9: they can go after every individual out there. And that
1:12:39
Speaker 9: is the path that has been followed by dictators throughout
1:12:43
Speaker 9: the world and over the course of history. First, they
1:12:46
Speaker 9: go after the press. Then they proceed to try to
1:12:48
Speaker 9: extinguish the rights of all citizens, particularly the free expression
1:12:53
Speaker 9: rights of all citizens. And we can't allow that. We
1:12:56
Speaker 9: can't allow that to happen. So yes, it is a
1:12:59
Speaker 9: matter of principle, but people do need to be careful.
1:13:02
Speaker 9: And every person should come to his or her own
1:13:05
Speaker 9: individual decision about that. I think when you are writing
1:13:08
Speaker 9: a piece, for example, let's say if you're writing an
1:13:10
Speaker 9: opinion piece like Ramesa wrote, look, I mean, one of
1:13:14
Speaker 9: the things that works in her favor is that she
1:13:16
Speaker 9: did not advocate violence against other people. She did not
1:13:20
Speaker 9: support a terrorist group. So those are the kinds of
1:13:23
Speaker 9: things that our lawyers can now point out in court
1:13:27
Speaker 9: that says that Merely, she was just arguing for a
1:13:30
Speaker 9: policy on the part of Tufts, the university, on the
1:13:33
Speaker 9: part of the U.S.
1:13:33
Speaker 4: Government.
1:13:34
Speaker 9: And whether you agree or disagree with that policy, she
1:13:37
Speaker 9: was not actually arguing for violence against other people. And
1:13:41
Speaker 9: she was not being hateful. She was not being anti-Semitic.
1:13:44
Speaker 9: So I think, you know, those are the kinds of
1:13:45
Speaker 9: things to be aware of is how do you write it?
1:13:48
Speaker 9: What do you write? What do you really think, by
1:13:50
Speaker 9: the way? And so you do need to exercise some
1:13:55
Speaker 9: care in how you go about your job. on how
1:13:57
Speaker 9: you go about your work and how you go about
1:13:59
Speaker 9: expressing your opinions. But that doesn't mean that you should
1:14:02
Speaker 9: withdraw completely and not express opinions and not weigh in
1:14:05
Speaker 9: on matters of public concern.
1:14:08
Speaker 1: All right. Thank you. On that note, we want to
1:14:10
Speaker 1: draw this to a close just by reading some words
1:14:12
Speaker 1: from Rumeysa Ozturk. These, I believe, were dictated from her
1:14:17
Speaker 1: to one of her attorneys while she has been and
1:14:21
Speaker 1: is currently still in detention. She said, I believe the
1:14:25
Speaker 1: world is a more beautiful and peaceful place when we
1:14:27
Speaker 1: listen to each other and allow different perspectives to be
1:14:30
Speaker 1: in the room. Writing is one of the most peaceful
1:14:33
Speaker 1: ways of addressing systemic inequality. Efforts to target me because
1:14:37
Speaker 1: of my op-ed in the Tufts Daily, calling for the
1:14:40
Speaker 1: equal dignity and humanity of all people, will not deter
1:14:43
Speaker 1: me from my commitment to advocate for the rights of
1:14:45
Speaker 1: youth and children. That's from Rubeysa O's turn. And detention.
1:14:56
Speaker 1: If everyone can just stick around, I'm going to read
1:14:57
Speaker 1: the credits really quickly. This event has been a co-production
1:15:01
Speaker 1: of Question Everything and the Tufts Daily. It was produced
1:15:03
Speaker 1: by our executive producer, Robin Simeon, along with staff from
1:15:06
Speaker 1: the Tufts Daily, including Argya Talapragada, Elora Onion Day, Julia Carpe,
1:15:11
Speaker 1: and Claire Wood. A huge, huge thank you to the
1:15:13
Speaker 1: Tufts Daily. Thank you, everybody, for hosting us here today
1:15:15
Speaker 1: on campus for such an important conversation. Please read their
1:15:20
Speaker 1: paper for their excellent coverage of what's happening to students
1:15:23
Speaker 1: at universities. and at Tufts at tuftsdaily.com. Additional production for
1:15:28
Speaker 1: Question Everything by our producers Sophie Casis and Zach St. Louis.
1:15:32
Speaker 1: Our team also includes associate producer Emily Malterre and contributing
1:15:35
Speaker 1: editors Neil Drumming and Jen Kinney. This episode will be
1:15:38
Speaker 1: fact-checked by Annika Robbins and sound design by Brendan Baker.
1:15:41
Speaker 1: Our music is by Matt McGinley. Audio engineering of our
1:15:44
Speaker 1: live event was by the team at ECATS Productions. Additional
1:15:47
Speaker 1: event production by Alexis Roney. Mara Davis helped with the bookings.
1:15:51
Speaker 1: Our partners at KCRW include Arnie Seipel, Gina Delvac, Tejalaj Amera,
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Speaker 1: Natalie Hill, and Jennifer Farrow. Thanks for listening. Thanks, everybody,
1:15:58
Speaker 1: for being here. More next time.