Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, is remembered most often for all the wrong reasons. Historians and scribes recollect the final days of the Presidency when a drunk man wandered down the hallways of the White House talking to portraits or even down onto his knees begging a top aide not to spread the word that he was crying.
Yet through the heady days of the Vietnam War protests, including after four students were shot dead by the Ohio National Guard at the Kent State University, there is no recollection of any orders issued to hunt down any foreign student who may have been involved in protests across campuses with a view to cancelling their visas.
Fifty-five years later, the focus is on three students at Columbia University at New York which was the scene of some brisk anti-Israel protests in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis by the Hamas and the destruction of the Gaza that ensued. Two of them are Palestinian and the third from India who has since “self-deported” herself. The first temptation would be that of the administration trying to instil fear in the foreign student community of taking part in any demonstration that would be perceived against American national interests. The Trump administration in the recent past has been cranking up against those institutions seen as “anti-Semitic”.
But many seem to believe that cracking the whip on foreign students has little to do with sympathising with the Jewish faith or trying to humour Benjamin Netanyahu. Many within Israel and outside are simply appalled at the goings on in the Gaza.
The agenda is larger and in an effort to make these Ivy League institutions especially in the East and the West Coasts fall in line. Mahmoud Khalil may have been on an F1 visa or a green card holder married to an American citizen but his arrest has sparked one more debate on freedom of speech.
The enemy list
In discussing the Vietnam War in December 1972, President Nixon told his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, “Never forget, the press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy. Professors are the enemy. Write that on a blackboard 100 times and never forget it.” Characterised as a paranoid person who was deeply sceptical of anything and everyone, including trusted aides, Nixon saw academics as a cabal of elites challenging conservative values by planting generous doses of liberalism. No wonder few were surprised when the current Vice President, JD Vance, repeated Nixon’s “Professors are the enemy” line in 2021 to a conservative audience.
The Trump dispensation is trying to come to terms with immigration and education, separately and together. On the one hand the 47th President has put the squeeze on universities like Columbia demanding explanations on a raft of issues including how it dealt with anti-Semitism.
That apart, Trump has said in a social media post, “ All Federal Funding will STOP for any college, school or university that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned/ or permanently sent back to the country from which they came.” Just how the administration defines “illegal protests” is unclear.
Some see in all this rant about universities and professors as a part of a “de-woke-ification” campaign that falls within the ambit of the Make America Great Again movement. But the bottomline cannot be missed: foreign students and even those with permanent resident status run the risk of taking part in any “illegal” activity. And those in line outside consulates or embassies hopeful of entry into the US for whatever reason would undoubtedly be doubly screened for any un-American activities, not just the folks from the list of 43 Red, Orange, Yellow nations to be listed soon.
The writer is a senior journalist who has reported from Washington DC on North America and United Nations
