The assault on freedom of expression being waged by the Trump White House is so wide-ranging that it’s hard to know where to begin. From threats against universities to bogus lawsuits targeting news organizations, it is clear that President Trump and his thuggish allies want to silence criticism and force civil society to cower in fear.
But there is one action in particular that stands out for its cruelty as well as its blatant disregard for the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech and of the press. And that’s the arrest and detention of Rümeysa Öztürk, who, at long last, was freed over the weekend. It also happens to have played out in New England, from her Soviet-style snatch-and-grab by black-clad ICE goons on the Tufts campus, where she’s a Ph.D. student, to her release at the hands of a federal judge in Vermont.
The anti-First Amendment intent of the government’s actions was underscored by U.S. District Judge William Sessions III in Burlington, Vermont, who said that he could find no reason for detaining Öztürk other than her co-authoring an op-ed piece in The Tufts Daily that was critical of Israel and sympathetic to the pro-Palestinian cause.
“That literally is the case. There is no evidence here … absent consideration of the op-ed,” Sessions said, according to an account by Liz Crampton and Kyle Cheney in Politico. “Her continued detention cannot stand.”
Which is why this whole sordid affair is worthy of a New England Muzzle Award. In fact, it may be the most worthy Muzzle since I started handing them out at The Boston Phoenix 27 years ago.
But who should be the winner? My choice is Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and the dark lord of Trump’s anti-immigration policies. Over the years, Miller has made his hatred for non-white immigrants clear, and though he generally directs his rhetoric at those who are undocumented, his overall contempt for people who don’t look like him permeates the Trump gang, starting at the very orange-hued top.
For example, here’s something that Miller wrote about Muslims for his high-school newspaper, according to a profile by William D. Cohan for Vanity Fair:
Blaming America for the problems of countries whose citizens would rather spend time sewing blankets to cover women’s faces than improving the quality of life is utterly ludicrous.
And in a speech to his high-school classmates, Miller once said: “I will say and I will do things that no one else in their right mind would do.”
Now, is it fair to cite things that Miller wrote and said in high school to build a case against him today? In his case, the answer is yes, because he devolved into exactly the sort of adult that he said he would nearly a quarter of a century ago. I mean, if you want something recent, he called for the suspension of habeas corpus — a basic protection against false imprisonment guaranteed not just by the Constitution but by Magna Carta — on Friday, as Steve Vladeck writes in his newsletter, One First.
As for Öztürk, her ordeal is not over yet. A Turkish citizen, she was attending Tufts legally on a student visa. That visa was revoked by the State Department on the grounds that her activism could create a “hostile environment for Jewish students” and that she might support “a designated terrorist organization,” according to an account by Rodrique Ngowi and Claire Rush in The Associated Press. But the State Department’s own case cites nothing except the op-ed, which merely argues that the university administration should uphold resolutions passed by the faculty senate.
In other words, Öztürk could still be deported for nothing more than expressing her views, which the First Amendment protects for anyone in the United States, regardless of immigration status. That would be an outrage, and if the Trump administration can find a judge who’s willing to go along, a second Muzzle Award might be looming on the horizon.
But at least Öztürk is free to defend herself, no longer locked up in a Louisiana detention facility, where she reportedly experienced multiple asthma attacks without access to her medication.
Sadly for all of us, it’s Miller Time. We can only hope that his day of reckoning is coming soon.