Skokie village in Illinois marked a remarkable chapter in American jurisprudence. Back in 1977, its residents were primarily Jewish Holocaust survivors. Frank Collins, leader of the American Nazi Party at the time, planned a rally in Skokie to uphold the ‘free speech of white people’, with Nazi uniforms, swastikas and banners on show. The villagers vehemently opposed such an outrageous effort and tried their best to suppress it. The Holocaust survivors tried to get a prior restraining order to stop such a contemptible act. Alas, the US courts upheld the Nazi Party’s freedom of speech.
The Skokie case of 1977 is one of the most controversial in the US. It remains a landmark that established how sacred free speech and the Constitution’s first amendment are in the US. But it was not an outlier case. The religious group Jehovah’s Witnesses had won a case on freedom of speech and religion to distribute religious materials criticising Catholics back in 1940. A priest’s freedom was upheld by the court by reversing the local government’s ‘breach of peace’ ordinance against him for an inflammatory speech criticising racial groups.
In the US, free speech is not conveniently upheld and suppressed at the whims and fancies of the people in power, and is not swayed by the popular demands of the day. It is protected objectively for every citizen despite its inherent follies.
Yet recently, Rumeysa Ozturk of Tufts University was detained to be deported for co-authoring an article in a student newspaper criticising Israel’s actions in Gaza. Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University organiser who is a permanent US resident, was arrested for his political activism on campus. Indian student Ranjani Srinivasan had to flee the country in fear of repercussions.
The fear-instilling strategy of the Trump administration to suppress campus protests at the risk of facing serious repercussions seems to be catching fire among students, especially the international students. There is widespread insecurity on campuses. Those with student visas are advised by their universities not to travel outside the country, which may risk their visa status and affect their return plans. Young minds are being conditioned to perceive that they have to think twice before following their conscience and academic freedom. Campuses have been the cradle of change-makers who make social progress through their ideas and thoughts. But the country that has fought for democracy across the world is caging our students to fear today.
Ironically, Trump had signed an executive order back in 2019 explicitly to protect freedom of speech on campus. It was based on Conservative anecdotes by student leaders who felt their voices were being suppressed by progressive liberals on religious beliefs and activism on abortion. In 2025, the same president issued an executive order to curtail the same freedom, tying it to federal grants given to universities.
When I reach out to my politically-conscious friends in academia, they whisper that they cannot express their opinions openly or be seen at any rally or protest. They are given explicit instructions to lie low on social media activism. While it is widely known that Columbia University’s $400 million in federal grants has been cancelled by the Trump government, the less known reality is that federal grants to many health research and academic projects in various small and medium institutions have also been revoked with immediate effect, impacting ongoing research and people’s daily lives.
Georgetown Law was threatened that their students would not be given internships, fellowships or full-time jobs in the US attorney’s office if they do not eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programmes. The Jesuit institution’s leadership stood their ground and categorically responded that the demand, which has no legal merit, would not be entertained by the school.
Trump’s idiosyncrasies and obliviousness about policy making are definitely causing aftermaths at home and around the world. Does this mean the US has transformed itself into a banana republic? No! While Trump is trying hard to suppress dissent and coronate himself as the unquestionable monarch, he is making activists out of ordinary American citizens who have never before taken interest in politics.
His audaciously outrageous and socially unconscionable acts are pricking the conscience of American citizens who are unable to sit tight and be complicit during these extraordinary times. The mass mobilisation is resulting in action. Within a few weeks of citizens’ activism, Tesla’s fortunes went down, causing billions of dollars of loss in the markets. An Amazon blackout sent Jeff Bezos a strong message. The corporations supporting Trump’s agenda, including removal of DEI programmes from their corporate policies, are facing the heat with ordinary people increasingly shunning their products and services.
At the same time, the courts are striking down the presidential executive orders held to be in disagreement with the American Constitution. In the US, where people are brought up to uphold their freedom of speech, an attempt to curtail it so brazenly would be a dystopian dream.
(Views are personal)