The evening of March 25, federal immigration officials detained Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk — a move widely suggested to have been a response to an op-ed she co-wrote for the student paper, The Tufts Daily.
Last week, Tufts University made clear it “has no information to support the allegations that she was engaged in activities at Tufts that warrant her arrest and detention.”
Tufts further clarified that Öztürk’s op-ed drew no complaints and was protected under the school’s free expression commitments. In fact, Tufts points out that “a search of The Tufts Daily will reveal op-eds on multiple sides of the issue with opinions that were shared just as strongly as the op-ed Ms. Öztürk co-authored.”
In that op-ed, Öztürk and her co-authors criticized the university for rejecting resolutions by the Tufts Community Union Senate to label the war in Gaza a “genocide” and divest from companies tied to Israel. They claimed that by their rejection, the school was “disregarding its students who practice the very ideals of critical thinking, intellectual exchange and civic engagement that Tufts claims to represent” and called on the university to honor “its own declared commitments to free speech, assembly and democratic expression.”
Yet that democratic expression has become a pretext for federal detention, and Öztürk’s arrest has chilled speech at Tufts and likely beyond. Tufts notes that faculty and students are already forgoing opportunities to attend and speak at international conferences out of fear. This is unacceptable. International students who see Öztürk apparently targeted for an op-ed have reason to fear deportation simply for speaking their minds on the same terms as their American peers.
But international students are not the only ones who should be concerned. If the price of voicing your political opinions is that you or someone you know might end up in handcuffs, then freedoms of speech and press are under threat for everyone in America.
To protect the dialogue and debate that make our nation’s campuses the envy of the world, universities must stand up for their students when they’re targeted for their speech. Tufts deserves credit for correcting the record and demanding due process for Öztürk.
Good work, Tufts. Others must follow your lead.
Connor Murnane is the Campus Advocacy Chief of Staff at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
