 |
|
|
|||||
In the wake of immigration enforcement showing up on college campuses, and in some cases detaining students and revoking student visas, universities are responding. But the reaction has been strikingly different from school to school across the U.S.Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio clarified the Trump administrations right to rescind student visas and deport international students who are critical of Israels U.S.-backed takeover of Palestine. At a press conference he said that at least 300 student visas have already been revoked. The statements, along with the ongoing uptick in immigration raids, further stoked fear in international students. Declarations of support Amid the worries, some universities are standing firmly by their international students. Tufts University made a bold show of support for Rumeysa Ozturk, the international graduate student who was taken into custody by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on March 25. Ozturk was cornered by agents while off-campus after she, along with three other students, wrote an op-ed urging divestment from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel. Ozturk was accused of supporting Hamas, while the article made no mention of the group.On April 2, Tufts University President Sunil Kumar issued a declaration in support of a motion filed by Ozturk’s legal team. The statement made clear that Tufts supports Ozturk and believes there are absolutely no legal grounds for her detainment. “The University has no information to support the allegations that she was engaged in activities at Tufts that warrant her arrest and detention.” The statement called for the students immediate release so that she can continue her education at the university. Updated guidance for the international school community Other schools are responding to the possibility of deportations and detainments, too, simply by updating guidance on school platforms or sending school-wide emails. In February, Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in Baltimore sent a memo to its student body, advising bystanders not to intervene with immigration agents. “Obstructing or otherwise interfering with certain government activity can be a crime,” the memo states. “Do not attempt to notify any person who may be subject to federal immigration enforcement that federal law enforcement officers are present, or engage in any behavior in an effort to enable them to leave the premises or hide.”A representative from JHU told Fast Company in an emailed statement that the university shares the “concerns arising from recent detentions of international students and scholars across the country” and pointed to the importance of “due-process.” The statement continued, explaining that the school “does not provide information about the immigration status of members of our community unless required by law, and Johns Hopkins safety, security, and police officers do not request information regarding citizenship,” but said if immigration agents presented a warrant or court order, the university would comply. The representative pointed to JHU’s personalized immigration-related service and support for international students through its Office of International Services.The representative did not respond to a question about whether the university would consider issuing a declaration of support, similar to Tufts’, if a student were to be taken into custody by DHS.Temple University in Philadelphia released a statement regarding immigration enforcements recent arrests and detainment of students on other campuses, too. In it, President John Fry wrote, Please know that if a similar situation were to arise here at Temple University, we are committed to doing all we lawfully can to assist our students in these circumstances. When pressed, as to whether the school would offer legal statements of support to students if detained, a representative deferred Fast Company to another representative who, ultimately, did not reply by the time of publication. Shortly after Fry’s statement, the university announced that one student had their visa revoked and self-deported.Harvards Dean of Students, Thomas G. Dunne, similarly addressed concerns over possible deportations or detainments in a school-wide email. The email did not advise students on what to do in the presence of ICE, but rather, directed students to the Harvard University Police Department and Harvard Office of the General Counsel. Yale went further, publishing a page on the school website dedicated to answering student questions on what their rights are when it comes to dealing with immigration agents. It advised students that agents must present a warrant to enter nonpublic areas of campus, and gave specific and thorough advice for both students and staff on what to do when encountering immigration enforcement. Penalizing students for exercising first amendment rights Stunningly, other schools have gone in another direction entirely, seeming to turn away from supporting international students and graduates. At Columbia University, outraged students chained themselves to the gate outside the school this week to protest the detainment of Mahmoud Khalil, the graduate student who was taken by ICE agents after organizing pro-Palestinians demonstrations. And some staff have come out fiercely against the arrest. But the university hasn’t released statements pressing for Khalils release.Instead, Columbia itself has even disciplined students for participating in pro-Palestine demonstrations. In a campus-wide email, the school’s judicial board announced they had expelled, suspended, and even revoked degrees from some students who occupied Hamilton Hall last spring to protest the ongoing genocide. The announcement said the board determined findings and issued sanctions to students ranging from multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions related to the occupation of Hamilton Hall last spring. In response to questions on whether the school would consider releasing a statement in support of Khalil, a representative pointed Fast Company to a March 13 statement, which said, Columbia continues to make every effort to ensure that our campus, students, faculty, and staff are safe. Columbia is committed to upholding the law, and we expect city, state, and federal agencies to do the same. The representative did not say if the school would provide legal statements to help expedite Khalil’s release. Some say, it’s not enough As universities are being tested, some students and staff feel that the response from their schools have been utterly inadequate. A graduate student worker with the Johns Hopkins University Union, who only wanted to be referred to as April M. for safety reasons, told Fast Company that JHU has “refused” to meet the needs of students and workers. “International students and workers make up a significant percentage of Hopkins’ population, and Hopkins Justice Collective has been making a clear call for a sanctuary campus and denunciation of current university practices, which the university has not only ignored, but papered over with essentially an affirmation of our feelings.”They added, “Acknowledgment means nothing when student visas can be revoked without notice.” The graduate student also said that students at JHU are actively wiping their phones, cancelling flights to their home countries, and staying inside out of fear, all while the university ramps up its private police force, “growing the punitive muscle of the university that costs millions.”The feeling that universities aren’t doing enough to stand up to the new anti-first-amendment push is shared by some professors, too. Jason Stanley, an American professor of philosophy at Yale who wrote the books How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them and Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future, is taking his lessons, and at least two other professors, to Canada. Suddenly if youre not a citizen of the United States, you cant comment on politics if youre a professor? Stanley told CNN on his decision to move out of the country. Thats crazy, said Stanley. Thats not a free society.While the professor blames the Trump administration, he feels now is the time for colleges to stand up to the president. Instead, he isn’t seeing the reaction from universities that he would’ve hoped for, saying, “Theyre humiliating the universities and I dont see the universities standing up to it.”
Category:
E-Commerce
Nintendo is pushing back preorders for its upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 while it figures out the implications of President Donald Trump’s aggressive global tariffs. It’s unclear when preorders will actually begin. They were supposed to start Wednesday, ahead of a June 5 launch date. “Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S. will not start April 9, 2025 in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions,” a spokesperson for the Japan-based company tells Fast Company. “Nintendo will update timing at a later date. The launch date of June 5, 2025 is unchanged.” The BBC reported that the announcement will only apply to the U.S. market. Nintendo revealed its highly anticipated Switch 2 on Wednesday with a price tag of $449.99. But the announcement coincided with Trump’s most sweeping tariffs to date. Many economists expect the move to cause a spike in inflation, with some warning of an impeding recession. Nintendo hasn’t announced where its Switch 2 will be produced, but the original console was made in China and Vietnam, which now have new, steep tariffs in place. Companies either must swallow those costs or pass them onto consumers. It’s unclear whether Nintendo will raise that price tag or not.
Category:
E-Commerce
I teach history in Connecticut, but I grew up in Oklahoma and Kansas, where my interest in the subject was sparked by visits to local museums. I fondly remember trips to the Fellow-Reeves Museum in Wichita, Kansas, and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. A 1908 photograph of my great-grandparents picking cotton has been used as a poster by the Oklahoma Historical Society. This love of learning history continued into my years as a graduate student of history, when I would spend hours at the Smithsonian Institutions National Air and Space Museum learning about the history of human flight and ballooning. As a professor, Ive integrated the institutions exhibits into my history courses. The Trump administration, however, is not happy with the way the Smithsonian Institution and other U.S. museums are portraying history. On March 27, 2025, the president issued an executive order, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, which asserted, Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nations history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth. Under this historical revision, our Nations unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed. Trump singled out a few museums, including the Smithsonian, dedicating a whole section of the order on saving the institution from divisive, race-centered ideology. Of course, history is contested. There will always be a variety of views about what should be included and excluded from Americas story. For example, in my own research, I found that Prohibition-era school boards in the 1920s argued over whether it was appropriate for history textbooks to include pictures of soldiers drinking to illustrate the 1791 Whiskey Rebellion. But most recent debates center on how much attention should be given to the history of the nations accomplishments over its darker chapters. The Smithsonian, as a national institution that receives most of its funds from the federal government, has sometimes found itself in the crosshairs. Americas historical repository The Smithsonian Institution was founded in 1846 thanks to its namesake, British chemist James Smithson. Smithson willed his estate to his nephew and stated that if his nephew died without an heir, the moneyroughly US$15 million in todays dollarswould be donated to the U.S. to found an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge. An 1816 portrait of British chemist James Smithson by Henri-Joseph Johns. [Image: Wiki Commons] The idea of a national institution dedicated to history, science and learning was contentious from the start. In her book The Stranger and the Statesman, historian Nina Burleigh shows how Smithsons bequest was nearly lost due to battles between competing interests. Southern plantation owners and western frontiersmen, including President Andrew Jackson, saw the establishment of a national museum as an unnecessary assertion of federal power. They also challenged the very idea of accepting a gift from a non-American and thought that it was beneath the dignity of the government to confer immortality on someone simply because of a large donation. In the end, a group led by congressman and former president John Quincy Adams ensured Smithsons vision was realized. Adams felt that the country was failing to live up to its early promise. He thought a national museum was an important way to burnish the ideals of the young republic and educate the public. Today, the Smithsonian runs 14 education and research centers, the National Zoo and 21 museums, including the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which was created with bipartisan support during President George W. Bushs administration. In the introduction to his book Smithsonians History of America in 101 Objects, cultural anthropologist Richard Kurin talks about how the institution has also supported hundreds of small and large institutions outside of the nations capital. In 2024, the Smithsonian sent over 2 million artifacts on loan to museums in 52 U.S. states and territories and 33 foreign countries. It also partners with over 200 affiliate museums. YouGov has periodically tracked Americans approval of the Smithsonian, which has held steady at roughly 68% approval and 2% disapproval since 2020. Smithsonian in the crosshairs Precursors to the Trump administrations efforts to reshape the Smithsonian took place in the 1990s. In 1991, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which was then known as the National Museum of American Art, created an exhibition titled The West as America, Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier, 1820-1920. Conservatives complained that th museum portrayed western expansion as a tale of conquest and destruction, rather than one of progress and nation-building. The Wall Street Journal editorialized that the exhibit represented an entirely hostile ideological assault on the nations founding and history. The exhibition proved popular: Attendance to the National Museum of American Art was 60% higher than it had been during the same period the year prior. But the debate raised questions about whether public museums were able to express ideas that are critical of the U.S. without risk of censorship. In 1994, controversy again erupted, this time at the National Air and Space Museum over a forthcoming exhibition centered on the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima 50 years prior. Should the exhibition explore the loss of Japanese lives? Or emphasize the U.S. war victory? Veterans groups insisted that the atomic bomb ended the war and saved 1 million American lives, and demanded the removal of photographs of the destruction and a melted Japanese school lunch box from the exhibit. Meanwhile, other activists protested the exhibition by arguing that a symbol of human destruction shouldnt be commemorated at an institution thats supposed to celebrate human achievement. Republicans won the House in 1994 and threatened cuts to the Smithsonians budget over the Enola Gay exhibition, compelling curators to walk a tightrope. In the end, the fuselage of the Enola Gay was displayed in the Smithsonians National Air and Space Museum. But the exhibit would not tell the full story of the planes role in the war from a myriad of perspectives. Trump enters the fray In 2019, The New York Times launched the 1619 project, which aimed to reframe the countrys history by placing slavery and its consequences at its very center. The first Trump administration quickly responded by forming its 1776 commission. In January 2021, it produced a report critiquing the 1619 project, claiming that an emphasis on the countrys history of racism and slavery was counterproductive to promoting patriotic education. That same year, Trump pledged to build a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live, with 250 statues to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. President Joe Biden rescinded the order in 2021. Trump reissued it after retaking the White House, and pointed to figures hed like to see included, such as Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Betsy Ross, Sitting Bull, Bob Hope, Thurgood Marshall and Whitney Houston. I dont think there is anything wrong with honoring Americans, though I think a focus on celebrities and major figures clouds the fascinating histories of ordinary Americans. I also find it troubling that there seems to be such a concerted effort to so forcefully shape the teaching and understanding of history via threats and bullying. Yale historian Jason Stanley has written about how aspiring authoritarian governments seek to control historical narratives and discourage an exploration of the complexities of the past. Historical scholarship requires an openness to debate and a willingness to embrace new findings and perspectives. It also involves the humility to accept that no oneleast of all the governmenthas a monopoly on the truth. In his executive order, Trump noted that Museums in our Nations capital should be places where individuals go to learn. I share that view. Doing so, however, means not dismantling history, but instead complicating the storyin all its messy glory. The Conversation U.S. receives funding from the Smithsonian Institution. Jennifer Tucker is a professor of history at Wesleyan University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||