At Columbia, International Students Face “Chilling Effects” of Trump Admin

One year ago, Columbia University became ground zero for the student-led Gaza solidarity encampment movement that spread to campuses across the country and around the world. Now, Columbia has become ground zero for the Trump administration’s authoritarian assault on higher education, academic freedom, and the right to free speech and free assembly — all under the McCarthyist guise of rooting out ​“anti-semitism.” From Trump’s threats to cancel $400 million in federal grants and contracts with Columbia to the abduction of international students like Mahmoud Khalil by ICE agents, to the university’s firing and expulsion of Student Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers union president Grant Miner, ​“a tremendous chilling effect” has gripped Columbia’s campus community. In this urgent episode of Working People, we speak with: Caitlin Liss, a PhD candidate in history at Columbia University and a member of Student Workers of Columbia-UAW (SWC); and Allie Wong, a PhD student at the Columbia Journalism School and a SWC member who was arrested and beaten by police during the second raid on the Gaza solidarity protests at Columbia on April 30, 2024.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. 

MA: As student workers at Columbia, what is the mood on campus and in your life right now, especially in light of the latest ruling on Mahmoud Khalil case? 

Caitlin: The mood on campus has been pretty bad. We found out yesterday that Mahmoud Khalil is not going to be released from jail in Louisiana. I think a lot of us were hoping that this ruling that was coming up was going to be in his favor, and he would be released and be back home in time to be there for the birth of his baby. And it didn’t happen.

International students are afraid to leave the house. They’re afraid to speak up in class. I hear from people who are afraid to go to a union meeting, and even those of us who are citizens feel afraid as well. I wake up every day and I look at my phone to see if I’ve gotten a text message telling me that one of my friends has been abducted.

There’s the sense that also our careers, our industry are at risk. I and many other members of Student Workers of Columbia have spent many years dedicated to getting a PhD and being in academia, and it’s increasingly starting to feel like academia might not exist for that much longer. 

Allie: There is a tremendous chilling effect that sunk in across the campus. And on one hand, it’s not terribly surprising, considering that’s the strategy of the Trump administration. 

MA: Why aren’t there mass protests across higher ed in every state in the country right now?

Caitlin: The chilling effect of what’s been happening is making a really large percentage of our members and people in our community afraid to publicly take action. International student workers make up a really big percentage of our membership, and a lot of those people are afraid to even sign their name to a petition. 

Allie: It’s the fire hose strategy, which has proven to be effective, not just at Columbia, but across the nation, with the dismantling of the federal government, attack on institutions, the arts, the legal processes and legal entities. 

If we take divestment as an example, it was a pretty straightforward ask last year, but now it’s no longer about Palestine, Israel divestment. It’s about immigration reform and law enforcement. It’s about the American dream, class consciousness. It’s difficult to mobilize people around so many different issues when everyone already feels not only powerless, but cynical about the ability to change things, when, again, that momentum that we had last year has waned and the issues have broadened.

Caitlin: One of the things that has been most dispiriting about being at Columbia right now is that it’s essentially a test case for the Trump administration. The way that Columbia is reacting is setting the tone for what other universities and colleges can do across the country, and what Columbia is doing is folding. 

Tufts filed some legal documents in support of Rümeysa Öztürk, because she is a student there. Columbia has done no such thing for Ranjani, for Yunseo, for Mahmoud. 

Allie: I think what happened with Mahmoud is incredibly symbolic, if you look particularly at him and Ranjani, the first two that were targeted by the university, so much of their situations are almost comical in how they play into the ambiguity of policy and ​“antisemitism.” It’s almost funny that [Mahmoud] was the person who was targeted, because he’s an incredibly calm, gentle person. He provided a sense of peace during the chaos of last year. He’s unequivocally condemned Hamas, very publicly condemned terrorism, condemned antisemitism.

And the same thing for Ranjani, who literally wasn’t even in the country when October 7 happened, had never participated in the protests, at most had engaged with social media by liking things, but two really good examples of people who don’t actually quite fit the bill in terms of trying to root out ​“antisemitism.”

It’s really strategic, because it communicates that nobody is safe. Whether you’ve participated in a protest or not, you’re not safe. Whether you’ve condemned antisemitism or not, you’re not safe. 

It’s frankly embarrassing to be a part of an institution that brags about its long history of protests, its long history of social change through student movements. When you look at 1968 and Columbia called the NYPD on students, arrested 700 students, and yet it enshrines that moment in history as a place of pride. I see that happening right now as well, where 20, 30, 50, years from now, we’ll be looking at this moment, and Columbia would be proud of it, when really they’re the perpetrators of violence and hatred and bigotry and kind of turning the gun on their own students. 

MA: What does that even look like, teaching and researching under these terrifying circumstances? 

Allie: For me, it has been incredibly scary. Many of my friends and colleagues are now either being targeted because of their involvement or living in the fear of being targeted, because there is an opacity around what those policies are and how they’re being enforced and implemented. It really does feel quite McCarthyist in the sense that you don’t really know what the dangers are, but you know that they’re there. You’re kind of looking over your shoulder all the time. 

Cailtin: I hear from my students who are scared, so part of my job has become having to help my students through that. I have heard lots of people who are trying to move their classes off campus because students don’t want to be on campus right now. ICE is crawling all over campus. The NYPD is all over the place. 

The students are scared. My colleagues are scared. I’ve even heard from a lot of professors who are feeling like they have to watch their words in the classroom because they don’t want to end up on Canary Mission for having said something. Teaching in this environment is very difficult, and I think that the students are having a really hard time.

MA: It’s not just the university administration that you’re contending with. You’re contending with a lot of different forces here that are converging on you and your rights at this very moment. 

Cailtin: We’re hearing a lot of fear from people who aren’t citizens about to what extent participating in the union is safe for them right now. On the one hand, you want to say participating in a union is a protected activity. There’s nothing illegal about it. You can’t get in trouble. In fact, it’s illegal to retaliate against you for being in a union. 

The main tool we have in this moment is just our solidarity with one another and labor power as a union, because the federal government does not seem that interested in protecting our rights. 

MA: The first ones that are threatened by the administration with punitive measures, including, potentially the revocation of their visas, are international students. They have always been the most vulnerable members of grad student unions, that administrations have actually used as leverage to compel unions to bend to their demands.

Allie: The fact that Grant was expelled and fired the day before we had a collective bargaining meeting, right before we’re about to talk about protections for international students, just communicates that the university is not operating in good faith. They’re not interested in the well being of their students, or doing anything within their power, which is quite a tremendous power to say to the Trump administration, ​“Our students come first. Our students are an entity of us, and we’re going to do whatever we can in our power to block you from demonizing and targeting international students.”

MA: Can you frame these attacks on higher ed and the people who live, learn and work there, through a labor and working workers rights perspective?

Caitlin: Our contract is expiring in June and so for us, obviously, these kinds of issues are top of mind when we’re thinking about what we can get in the contract. We’re fighting for Columbia to restore the funding cuts. We’re fighting for them to instate a sanctuary campus and to reinstate Grant Miner, our president, who was expelled, and Ranjani Srinivasan, who was de-enrolled, and everyone else who has been expelled or experienced sanctions because of their protest for Palestine. 

I think what we’ve been seeing happening at Columbia is the result of the Board of Trustees, not caving, but welcoming the things that Trump is demanding. I think that they are complicit in this. But, the Board of Trustees is like 21 people. There’s not very many of them. There’s thousands of us at Columbia who actually are the people who make the university work. The students, the faculty, the staff, thousands of people in unions, thousands of non unionized students and workers on campus as well. And we outnumber the trustees by such a huge amount, and I think that the thinking about the power we have when we all come together as the thousands of people who do the actual work of the university, as opposed to these 21 people who are making decisions for us without consulting us. We have to think about reclaiming the university. I think we have to try and take back the power as workers, as students, as faculty, from the Board of Trustees, and start thinking about how we can make decisions that are in our interests.