Palestine Legal

In Landmark Ruling, Federal Court Says Trump Administration Violated First Amendment By Arresting, Attempting to Deport Foreign Citizens for Pro-Palestinian Advocacy

Read more about the landmark opinion here:

What it means for campus protests: It strengthens the argument that speech-based retaliation, tied to immigration status, is subject to constitutional limits. It’s not final yet (the govt may appeal), but a significant barrier to using deportation threats to suppress speech.

What the court found: Senior officials (including in the State and Homeland Security Departments) acted in a way that improperly chilled speech by linking protest activity to visa revocations.

VICTORY: A federal court ruled yesterday that the Trump administration’s policy of targeting noncitizen students and faculty for deportation based on their political speech in support of Palestinian rights—particularly protest activity—violates constitutional protections.

Rather than taking a stand as the birthplace of the free speech movement, this act of cowardice has endangered many in the Berkeley community. Palestine Legal is providing support to those affected, and to the community organizing against this harmful decision.

Prof. Butler rightly calls out this capitulation to the federal government, using antisemitism as pretense to try and crush dissent on campuses.

Opinion | When Universities Become Informants A practice from the McCarthy era makes an ugly return.

UC Berkeley has capitulated to to the "bullying and extortion" of the Trump administration by sharing the names of about 160 students, faculty members, and staff members who have a “potential connection to reports of alleged antisemitism.”

Stop AB 715 | AROC Action Take action against AB 715 by sending an email to your state senator in opposition to this Trump-style censorship attempt.

This is key to lawfare repression: even when a complaint has zero merit, the legal process itself is the punishment. Take action with @arocaction.bsky.social by sending an email to your California State Senator and assembly member in opposition to AB715 now.

The routine filing of baseless complaints means that the teachers who dare to engage their students in lessons about current events are interrogated, falsely accused, their lessons publicly examined under a microscope.

Despite the bill being shelved in July because of overwhelming public opposition, and a growing global consensus that Israel is in fact committing genocide, the bill's authors are pushing a last-ditch effort to skip all proper legislative procedures and pass the bill anyway.

TOP AB 715! AB 715 is an extremely dangerous bill designed to censor criticism of Israel and any education about Palestinian histories, struggles against colonization, and erasure.

Get Help — Palestine Legal Request free legal support

If you are a student facing repression for speaking out for Palestine on your university campus, Palestine Legal is here to support you. Get in touch with us at palestinelegal.org/intake.

These attacks on the right to protest harm not only the movement for Palestinian freedom, but also all movements for justice.

Universities need to fulfill their mission — not turn their students, faculty, and staff into prime targets for fascist government repression.

Palestine Legal continues to work on these cases. UCLA community members have also filed a civil rights lawsuit in response to anti-Palestinian repression.
peoplevucla.com

As of August 2025, UCLA is still pursuing disciplinary action against students accused of involvement in the 2024 encampment. Although protesters were the ones attacked by a pro-Israel mob, UCLA has suspended 5 students, censured 7 lecturers and librarians, and fired a lecturer.

VCU releases pro-Palestinian campus activist’s degree after over 2 months Sereen Haddad won her appeal against a ruling that she broke university rules.

Sereen had her degree restored after an appeal, a successful pressure campaign, and representation from Palestine Legal.
www.vpm.org/news/2025-07...

In May 2025, Sereen Haddad, a Palestinian student at Virginia Commonwealth University, was denied her degree for attending a memorial commemorating violent arrests at VCU’s 2024 encampment.
This punishment came after VCU introduced a new policy banning protests on its lawn.

Teachers' union NEA members endorse cutting ties with ADL Measure now goes to NEA executive committee

Meanwhile, the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, voted to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League due to its abuse of the term “antisemitism” to punish critics of Israel’s human rights violations.
www.axios.com/2025/07/08/g...

Antisemitism training designed by pro-Israel groups is becoming compulsory at US colleges. What’s in it? Training asks students to attribute the statement ‘every time I read Hitler, I fall in love’ to an ‘anti-Israel activist’

Starting this school year, a wave of universities implemented mandatory “antisemitism” trainings designed by Israel lobby groups. Rather than focus on true bias, these trainings falsely equate criticism of Israel or Zionism with anti-Jewish discrimination.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

I spent decades at Columbia. I’m withdrawing my fall course due to its deal with Trump | Rashid Khalidi The university’s draconian policies and new definition of antisemitism make much teaching impossible

Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor emeritus of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, withdrew his fall course from the university in protest of the university's deal with Trump.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Columbia adopts new definition of antisemitism, partners with ADL for antisemitism training <i>Updated on July 17 at 9:32 p.m.</i>

In July 2025, Columbia University announced it would adopt the distorted International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) definition of antisemitism — after months of negotiations with the Trump administration to restore $400 million in cut funding.
www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/07...

University of Michigan ends undercover surveillance contracts after Guardian revelations Outcry after report that private investigators had been trailing and recording pro-Palestinian protesters for months

After an exposé by The Guardian and public outcry, the University of Michigan cancelled the undercover surveillance contracts.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

University of Michigan using undercover investigators to surveil student Gaza protesters Revealed: security trailing students on and off campus as video shows investigator faking disability when confronted

In June 2025, the University of Michigan paid over $800,000 to a private security company to surveil pro-Palestine campus groups.

The undercover agents trailed students on and off campus, harassed them, and even staged confrontations.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

FIU students, faculty protest school's partnership with ICE as university elects new president Florida International University students and faculty gathered Monday to protest the partnership between campus police and ICE.

Students and faculty have protested Florida public universities' ICE agreements, and multiple Florida faculty senates have voted to cancel the partnerships.
www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/f...

At Least 15 Florida Institutions Have ICE Agreements At least 15 campus police departments in Florida are seeking immigration enforcement powers. ICE has already approved eight institutions as active partners.

In April 2025, at least 15 Florida public universities had signed agreements with ICE, giving campus police the power to question and detain undocumented immigrant students. These agreements were unprecedented.
www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

Back to School? Top 3 Ways Trump & Universities are Bulldozing Your Right to Protest. — Palestine Legal As students return to school this fall, here are the top three ways we are seeing universities intensify their crackdowns on campus activism, and ways they’re being challenged.

Read our full back to school statement on this year's trends in repression, informed by our client stories, intake data, and news analysis: palestinelegal.org/news/2025/9/...

Trump and universities are trying to crush resistance to the genocide in Gaza through:
🚔 law enforcement and ICE partnerships
🚫 the Israel lobby definition of "antisemitism"
🤐 new anti-free speech policies

Examples of these attacks and how students & faculty have fought back:

In our brief, we argued the Court should restore federal funding to Harvard — without affirming that the university adhered to federal civil rights law by censoring Palestinians and criticism of Israel's polices on campus.

Yesterday's decision is a step in the right direction.

Harvard Must Not Be Pressured To Violate Civil Rights of Palestinian Students to Get Back Billions from Trump — Palestine Legal Today Palestine Legal announced the filing of a "friend of the court" brief on behalf of the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) in Harvard University's lawsuit against the Trum...

In June, Palestine Legal filed a "friend of the court" brief on behalf of Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee.

Our brief contested both the Trump admin's unlawful demands of Harvard as well as Harvard’s discrimination against Palestinian students:
palestinelegal.org/news/2025/6/...

This echoes what we and others have said for years, that anti-Palestinian groups falsely and disingenuously leverage antisemitism as a smear to suppress political expression supporting Palestinian rights and liberation.