The Office of the President sent a declaration signed by University President Sunil Kumar in support of Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk, in an email to the Tufts community on April 2. Executed on April 1, Kumar’s declaration was filed as an affidavit in a motion for her release on April 1.
The declaration affirms Öztürk’s good standing within the university and confirms she did not violate any university policy for co-authoring an op-ed in the Daily, which is the only reason currently cited by the government for her arrest.
The declaration further confirmed the circumstances leading up to her arrest as well as the notice the university received of her visa being terminated after.
This affidavit and declaration, signed by Kumar, presents an effort by Tufts leadership to push back against the actions of President Donald Trump’s administration currently affecting international students and higher education at large.
Most recently, on Monday, Harvard University announced that it would not comply with the demands from the Trump administration ordering the university to dismantle diversity programs, limit student protests and submit to federal audits.
The Trump administration has responded with a funding freeze of $2.2 billion in federal grants and of a $60 million contract. The administration has further threatened to withdraw the university’s tax-exempt status.
Despite the Columbia University’s initial strategy of appeasement, less than 12 hours after Harvard became the first university to refuse to comply with the administration, on Tuesday, Columbia’s acting president, Claire Shipman, sent a message to students and faculty expressing the institution’s intentions to reject any federal demand that would compromise the “independence and autonomy” of the university.
As of now, Tufts has not received a list of demands from the Trump administration. Members of the Tufts community, however, are waiting to see how Tufts leadership might respond, including professors within the university.
“There’s a lot of movement among professors at other universities to encourage their leaders to act together, which is a better way to coordinate,” Deborah Schildkraut, professor of political science, said. “It was my hope also that the President Kumar statement would also serve as a catalyst for those types of discussions for collective action.”
Schildkraut expressed her support for the publishing of Kumar’s declaration to the Tufts community and her support for Öztürk’s case.
“I actually wrote a letter to President Kumar — I think it was the day after that [declaration] came out — thanking him for doing so and saying that I hoped he would serve as a model for other university leaders to stand up for their students, to stand up for academic freedom and to stand up for due process.”
Natasha Warikoo, professor of sociology and education, shared a similar sentiment in regards to the relationship between higher education and the Trump administration.
Warikoo described the situation as “uncharted territory” when anticipating the response of universities to the Trump administration’s actions. She also noted the potential implications of the administration on higher education for prospective international students.
“Frankly, I would be surprised if the same number of students from abroad choose to make a deposit to a United States university in the next few weeks, as they have in the past, because I’m sure this is a terrifying situation,” Warikoo said.
“International students are actually a big source of revenue … because they are much less likely to be on financial aid than domestic students. Even some colleges that are need-blind or not need-blind for international students — that will be economically, for universities around the country, problematic,” Warikoo said.
Warikoo points out that inaction brings its own set of risks. “It’s a risk to our integrity as a university,” she said. “It’s a risk to the feelings of safety and belonging of our international students [who may think] that if something horrendous like this happens, the university is just gonna not do anything.”
Schildkraut also acknowledged that given the unpredictability of the administration, there’s an inherent risk attached to Kumar’s decision to make the declaration.
As universities continue to respond to the Trump administration’s demands, what started as a strategy of appeasement has turned into greater pushback.
“It seems like there’s a risk no matter what you do, so you may as well do the thing that tries to defend and protect your students,” Schildkraut said.
