This piece originally appeared in The New York Review of Books.

We write as constitutional scholars—some liberal and some conservative—who seek to defend academic freedom and the First Amendment in the wake of the federal government’s recent treatment of Columbia University.

The First Amendment protects speech many of us find wrongheaded or deeply offensive, including anti-Israel advocacy and even antisemitic advocacy. The government may not threaten funding cuts as a tool to pressure recipients into suppressing such viewpoints. This is especially so for universities, which should be committed to respecting free speech.

At the same time, the First Amendment of course doesn’t protect antisemitic violence, true threats of violence, or certain kinds of speech that may properly be labeled “harassment.” Title VI rightly requires universities to protect their students and other community members from such behavior. But the lines between legally unprotected harassment on the one hand and protected speech on the other are notoriously difficult to draw and are often fact-specific. In part because of that, any sanctions imposed on universities for Title VI violations must follow that statute’s well-established procedural rules, which help make clear what speech is sanctionable and what speech is constitutionally protected.

Yet the administration’s March 7 cancellation of $400 million in federal funding to Columbia University did not adhere to such procedural safeguards. Neither did its March 13 ultimatum stipulating that Columbia make numerous changes to its academic policies—including the demand that, within one week, it “provide a full plan” to place an entire “department under academic receivership for a minimum of five years”—as “a precondition for formal negotiations regarding Columbia University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government.”

Under Title VI, the government may not cut off funds until it has conducted a

• program-by-program evaluation of the alleged violations;
• provided recipients with notice and “an opportunity for hearing”;
• limited any funding cutoff “to the particular program, or part thereof, in which… noncompliance has been…found”; and
• submitted a report explaining its actions to the relevant committees in Congress at least thirty days before any funds can be stopped.

These requirements aim to ensure that any withdrawal of funds is based on genuine misbehavior on the university’s part—on illegal toleration of discriminatory conduct, not just on allowance of First Amendment–protected expression. The requirements aim to make clear to recipients of federal funds just what behavior can form the basis for sanctions. And each of the requirements aims to make sure that the sanction fits the offense.

Yet here the sanction was imposed without any agency or court finding that Columbia violated Title VI in its response to antisemitic harassment or discrimination. Even to the extent that some protesters’ behavior amounted to illegal harassment of Jewish students, no agency and no court has concluded that Columbia illegally failed to reasonably respond to such discriminatory behavior—much less failed to act at a level justifying withdrawal of nearly half a billion dollars in funds. The government’s action therefore risks deterring and suppressing constitutionally protected speech—not just illegal discriminatory conduct.

And this danger extends beyond universities. The safeguards and limits that the administration has ignored are designed to protect all recipients of federal funding from unwarranted or excessive sanctions. They protect recipients of federal funding across the ideological spectrum, including K-12 schools, hospitals, nursing homes, and business and agricultural initiatives. The administration’s failure to honor the Title VI safeguards creates a dangerous precedent for every recipient of federal financial assistance.

The following individuals contributed to this letter:

Steven G. Calabresi
Clayton J. and Henry R. Barber Professor of Law, Northwestern Law School

Erwin Chemerinsky
Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law, Berkeley Law School

Richard Epstein
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, NYU School of Law

Owen Fiss
Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law, Yale Law School

Aziz Huq
Frank and Bernice J. Greenberg Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School

Pamela Karlan
Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law, Stanford Law School

Randall Kennedy
Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Genevieve Lakier
Professor of Law, Herbert and Marjorie Fried Teaching Scholar, University of Chicago Law School

Michael McConnell
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law, Stanford Law School

Michael Paulsen
Distinguished University Chair and Professor, St. Thomas Law School

Robert Post
Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School

David Rabban
Dahr Jamail, Randall Hage Jamail, and Robert Lee Jamail Regents Chair in Law, University of Texas Law School

Geoffrey R. Stone
Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School

Nadine Strossen
John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law School

Keith Whittington
David Boies Professor of Law, Yale Law School

Earlier this month, recent graduate, activist, soon-to-be father, and legal permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil, was arrested and detained in direct retaliation for his advocacy for Palestinian rights at Columbia University. Later, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) transferred him to a Louisiana detention facility 1,400 miles away from his home and his family.

Following his illegal arrest, a team of lawyers, including Amy Greer from Dratel & Lewis, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and CLEAR secured a court order to block his deportation. Since then, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and Alina Das, co-director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at New York University (NYU) School of Law have joined his legal team. His lawyers are arguing that his detention violates his constitutional rights, including free speech and due process, and goes beyond the government’s legal authority.

Below, read a letter Khalil dictated over the phone from Immigrations and Customs (ICE) detention in Louisiana – his first public statement since his arrest.

Letter from a Palestinian Political Prisoner in Louisiana March 18, 2025

My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.

Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.

Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities.

On March 8, I was taken by DHS agents who refused to provide a warrant, and accosted my wife and me as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s safety. I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours — I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation. At 26 Federal Plaza, I slept on the cold floor. In the early morning hours, agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request.

My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night. With January’s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.

I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family which has been displaced from their land since the 1948 Nakba. I spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention — imprisonment without trial or charge — to strip Palestinians of their rights. I think of our friend Omar Khatib, who was incarcerated without charge or trial by Israel as he returned home from travel. I think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December 27 and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace.

I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear. My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the U.S. has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention. For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand U.S. laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted.

While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University. Presidents Shafik, Armstrong, and Dean Yarhi-Milo laid the groundwork for the U.S. government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing campaigns — based on racism and disinformation — to go unchecked.

Columbia targeted me for my activism, creating a new authoritarian disciplinary office to bypass due process and silence students criticizing Israel. Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration's latest threats. My arrest, the expulsion or suspension of at least 22 Columbia students — some stripped of their B.A. degrees just weeks before graduation — and the expulsion of SWC President Grant Miner on the eve of contract negotiations, are clear examples.

If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation. Students have long been at the forefront of change — leading the charge against the Vietnam War, standing on the frontlines of the civil rights movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Today, too, even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who steer us toward truth and justice.

The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.

Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.

This week, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) released a statement saying it would cut nearly 50 percent of the department's workforce. These new layoffs occur at a moment when President Donald Trump has vowed to eliminate the ED and withhold funding from any other entity that incorporates diversity, equity and inclusion in educational practices and environments pursuant to civil rights laws. This move is part of the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the ED and repeal the federal government’s core responsibility of ensuring equal educational opportunity for all.

This reckless action strips students of vital resources and tears down statutorily-mandated functions that are essential to addressing racial and economic inequality in education. It also threatens decades of bipartisan progress toward educational fairness and reverses the commitment of previous administrations — Republican and Democrat alike — to ensure equal access to education. As the Supreme Court unanimously recognized in Brown v. Board of Education, public education “is the very foundation of good citizenship.”

The ED reportedly terminated all staff in seven of the Office of Civil Rights’ (OCR) 12 regional offices. Gutting the OCR severely weakens federal civil rights enforcement, leaving millions of students without crucial protections against discrimination based on race, color, national origin, ancestry sex, gender, disability, and age. It also suppresses students’ ability to seek justice when their rights are violated and allows discriminatory practices, including uneven and unfair targeting of students of color for school discipline, inequitable access to advanced coursework, the refusal to provide accommodations to students with disabilities, and discrimination against students with limited English proficiency or English learner status to persist unchecked.

By stripping ED of staff and resources, key federal grant programs are also at risk, including Title I funding, which provides critical support to schools serving low-income communities, and other federal student loan programs. Abandoning the long-standing federal commitment to ensuring that schools with the greatest needs receive additional resources will disproportionately harm students of color and exacerbate racial inequities in education.

Trump’s plans also threaten protections and funding provided under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which guarantees that children with disabilities have access to a free and appropriate public education. Without these protections, millions of students who rely on IDEA for necessary accommodations, such as specialized instruction and assistive technology, are at risk of losing access to the education they are legally entitled to receive.

Without the ED, the federal government’s capacity to collect data is eviscerated, which is an essential resource for identifying and addressing disparities in education. Without this oversight, school districts won’t be held accountable for unjustified racial and disability disparities in discipline, academic performance, and access to resources. Policies based on data, which have helped reduce discriminatory discipline practices and promote equity for marginalized students, are now at risk.

The ED is also statutorily-mandated to enforce national student privacy laws and to provide students and parents an avenue to challenge abuses of their privacy. Without those protections, information about students’ grades, discipline, medical history and families’ income may be used for purposes they never agreed to — and even being weaponized in President Trump’s deportation machine.

For more than a century, the ACLU has been at the forefront of the fight for educational equity, including arguing in Brown v. Board that “segregation and equality cannot coexist. That which is unequal in fact cannot be equal in law.” Today, the educational landscape still denies marginalized students access to quality learning environments, undermining the very principles that Brown sought to establish.

Attacks on the ED are an attack on the progress we have made to advance educational equity. The ACLU is calling on Congress to act immediately to restore the federal government’s role in enforcing civil rights, maintaining transparency through data collection, and ensuring that students in low-income communities are not left behind.