Discipline and Punish

The Trump administration recently moved to reinstate visas for thousands of international students in the United States. The reprieve, however, is temporary, and many of the visas were revoked without clear justification. Many international students therefore continue to worry about their legal statuses and feel the need to self-censor to avoid detention or deportation. Because of this, they no longer enjoy the freedom of expression and critical thinking that underlies all academic endeavors.

The reasons for the visa revocations in the U.S. are ideological as well as race-based, with the administration targeting non-white students, in particular those from Muslim-majority countries. A recent high-profile example is the detention of Turkish doctoral student and former Fulbright scholar Rümeysa Öztürk, who was detained by ICE on March 25 and is being held in Louisiana. Last year, Öztürk co-authored an op-ed for the student-run newspaper, the Tufts Daily, in which she called on Tufts to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide … and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.” Although the article did not mention Hamas, a spokesperson for Homeland Security claimed — without evidence — that Öztürk supported the group. 

In their op-ed, Öztürk and her co-authors argue that a core principle of education is to promote independent thought. They cite the following passage from James Baldwin’s 1963 lecture, “A Talk to Teachers”: “The paradox of education is precisely this: that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which [they are] being educated.” In this famous lecture, Baldwin argued that when one segment of a population is fed misinformation or silenced, the entire society suffers.

If you are compelled to lie about one aspect of anybody’s history, you must lie about it all. If you have to lie about my real role here, if you have to pretend that I hoed all that cotton just because I loved you, then you have done something to yourself. You are mad.

I am a U.S. citizen who completed part of a graduate degree in Brazil, where I spent a year conducting research with the support of a Fulbright grant. In Brazil, I was granted intellectual freedom that international students in the U.S. are now being denied. I recognize that as a white, English-speaking U.S. citizen, I was in an immensely privileged position in São Paulo to observe the society closely and critically. That privilege and freedom were key to my education there.

I lived in Brazil in 2014, the year the country last hosted the World Cup. In the run-up to the start of the games, hundreds of demonstrators were arrested for protesting the government’s heavy investment in infrastructure to support FIFA rather than spending that money on schools, housing, or public services. While in São Paulo, I wrote and published an op-ed that was explicitly critical of the Brazilian government. At no point did I fear the Brazilian government would revoke my visa nor that I would lose my grant funding. 

I was awarded a Fulbright grant to read archival material and write about literature. I was not there to get involved in politics. My learning, however, was not limited to classrooms and reading rooms. In my op-ed, I reflected on protests and on the social inequality that the Brazilian government “would rather hide.” That is, I was directly critical of the country that was hosting me and partly funding my doctoral research.

Criticism requires both curiosity and research. It builds on these pillars of learning, and it is only possible when students do not fear censorship. To draft my 2014 op-ed, I looked up data on teacher salaries, crime, average commuting times and the condition of hospitals in Brazil. I interviewed Brazilians to better understand their perspectives. That research gave me a broader understanding of Brazil, an understanding that was only possible because I did not fear retaliation from the Brazilian government or from the University of São Paulo, the public university where I was conducting research.

Similarly, Öztürk’s op-ed reflects an understanding of her host country. To write the article, she and her co-authors had to study the organizational structure of Tufts University and gain a familiarity with U.S. history and culture. That understanding is evidenced by their article, which points, for example, to historical examples such as protests that led to Tuft’s eventual divestment from apartheid South Africa.

The decision to detain students like Öztürk stifles not just expression but also the critical thinking and engagement that makes that expression possible. Days after Öztürk’s detention, Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued that the U.S. can revoke student visas at any time because international students are “here to study. They’re here to go to class. They’re not here to lead activist movements that are disruptive and undermine the — our universities. I think it’s lunacy to continue to allow that.”

In the eyes of the Trump administration, international students should be passive observers. Learning, however, is an active undertaking; it is a process that takes place when we observe critically. Rubio’s argument that international students attend class but avoid activism strips these students of the intellectual autonomy that makes holistic learning possible. 

The research I conducted in São Paulo — in and out of the classroom — gave me a solid foundation on which I have continued to build. I still follow news from Brazil, speak Portuguese and am working on a special issue of the journal where I am an editor that will be devoted to a canonical Brazilian writer. That engagement is one of the goals of the Fulbright program, which now faces an uncertain future. 

It is doubtful that Öztürk will wish to remain tied to a country where a group of plainclothes ICE agents surrounded her as she screamed, and the detention of more students for ideological reasons will certainly have a chilling effect. By stripping international students of the freedom to criticize, the Trump administration prevents them from substantial engagement with U.S. culture, history and core values.

The decisions to revoke student visas have occurred within the context of other attacks on education such as cuts to agencies such the National Institutes of Health and National Endowment for the Humanities, the policing of language in research, the dismantling of the Department of Education and major cuts to federal funding for universities. My employer, Johns Hopkins University, is seeking ways to address the financial fallout after over 100 of its federal grants were cancelled.

Given this context, it is clear that the detention of international students is part of a larger movement to hamper learning and restrict the space for reflection. Rubio maintains that international scholars are here to study, that it is “lunacy” to allow them to be activists. It seems more likely, however, that the goal is to stifle independent thought.

In his 1963 lecture, Baldwin wrote that “the purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. … But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society.”  

A government that demands obedience fears an educated populace; for society to flourish we must educate citizens in a way that encourages critical, independent thinking.

Many U.S. colleges and universities rely heavily on tuition paid by international students, which often subsidizes the education of U.S. citizens. Discouraging new international students from coming to the U.S. will have a devastating financial impact. But beyond the economic effects, the censorship of international students undermines the core principles of education. When we silence one group, we all get further from the pursuit of truth. We must therefore protect the true function of education, and encourage all students to be curious, critical and engaged.

As Baldwin argued 62 years ago, a civilization that stifles freedom of thought and expression is a society that will collapse. This is the danger we face when we censor students. Silencing our brightest and most engaged students is lunacy.