A Harvard professor who is in the U.S. on a green card testified in court this week that the Trump administration’s efforts to arrest and deport an international student pushed him to stop speaking out in support of Palestine because he fears reprisals. “I actually just decided on a blanket policy that I would keep my head down completely,” professor of philosophy Bernhard Nickel, a German citizen, testified on Monday in a federal trial over the government’s deportation efforts.
In the trial, which began on July 7 at the federal district court in Boston, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) accuses the Trump administration of violating the First Amendment through a policy of “ideological deportation” that targets faculty and students engaged in pro-Palestinian advocacy.
The lawsuit, filed in March on behalf of the AAUP, three of its campus chapters, and the Middle East Studies Association, argues that the Trump administration is creating a climate of repression and fear through its policy of “arresting, detaining, and deporting foreign students and faculty on the basis of their pro-Palestinian advocacy.” The suit seeks a court order declaring the policy unlawful and barring the government from enforcing it.
The Trump administration argues that no such policy exists and claims that the government has not taken any immigration enforcement action in retaliation for constitutionally protected speech.
Since March, multiple individuals have been arrested in connection with their pro-Palestinian activism, including Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, a protest leader, and Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, who coauthored an op-ed criticizing Tufts leadership for failing to condemn Israeli actions she characterized as violations of international law. These arrests, and subsequent attempted deportations, fuel self-censorship in the academic community, the AAUP argues.
Harvard’s AAUP chapter, one of three university chapters serving as plaintiffs in the suit, was established in June 2024 to advocate for “the academic freedom to research, write, and teach without fear” and “the right of students to learn, associate, and demonstrate freely” at a time when Harvard’s campus was roiled by protests and counter-protests responding to the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.
In her opening statement, AAUP’s attorney Ramya Krishnan said that the Trump administration’s actions against foreign students and academics is “at war with the First Amendment.” Victoria Santora, opening for the government, denied the existence of the ideological deportation policy, saying the case “is grounded in speculation and supposition, it’s a theory, it’s an idea, it’s conjecture.”
“You will see that plaintiffs’ witnesses are academics,” she said. “They work in the realm of ideas, concepts, theories, and hypotheses. But you’ll see, too, that their case is theoretical and hypothetical. Indeed, it is about what they fear might happen.” “The law,” she added, “requires that their case be grounded in reality. It’s not.”
This case tackles a broader question about free speech in the United States, says Jameel Jaffer, J.D. ’99, who is also part of the AAUP’s legal team: “Do noncitizens in the United States have the right under the First Amendment not to be deported on the basis of political viewpoint? We feel very strongly that the answer to that question is yes.”
“These attacks on foreign students are one aspect of a larger assault on higher education in the United States,” says Jaffer, who leads the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, a nonprofit that defends the freedoms of speech and press.
“If the secretary of state came to Harvard or Columbia and said, ‘We’re going to take these controversial books off your shelves for foreign policy reasons,’ Harvard and Columbia would immediately see that as an outrageous assault on their autonomy,” Jaffer explained. “Now we have the secretary of state coming to these universities and saying, ’We're going to remove these students from your community on foreign policy grounds.” But when it comes to attacks on foreign students, he added, U.S. universities “have been disappointingly muted in their response.”
Harvard sued the federal government when it moved to freeze research funding and bar the University from hosting international students by revoking their student visas, but to date no American university has pursued legal action over the arrests and detentions of foreign students.
Outside the courthouse on Monday, a group of about 100 AAUP affiliates rallied to show support for the organization and to rebuff the Trump administration. Participants carried signs with slogans including “we won’t be silenced,” “Jews for free speech,” “Trump fears dissent,” and “it’s always OK to talk about genocide!”
Caroline Light, a member of Harvard’s AAUP chapter and a senior lecturer in women, gender, and sexuality studies, spoke at the rally. Citing her background as a descendant of Jewish refugees to the United States, she said, “To the spurious claim that ideological deportation protects Jewish people, I’ll say it today, and I’ll say it until I have no voice left: not in my name.”
Light wore a keffiyeh and said that “in the context of this chilling of freedom of expression and criminalization of pro-Palestinian solidarity, this mere act” is often characterized as “subversion and antisemitism.”
In the courtroom, four professors were called to testify on July 7 and 8 about fearing deportation for their pro-Palestinian views. They described how their behavior changed after learning about the arrests of Khalil and Öztürk: from ceasing to attend protests and sign public letters in support of Palestine to canceling research projects and international travel.
Among them was Nickel, the Harvard professor of philosophy and a member of the University’s AAUP chapter, who said that Öztürk’s arrest in Somerville was “the turning point” that prompted him to cease speaking out publicly in support of Palestine. Nickel, who has lived in the U.S. for 30 years, discussed his previous political activities, including attending Black Lives Matter protests, signing a 2021 statement in support of Palestinian liberation, and visiting the pro-Palestinian encampment in the Yard. Following Öztürk’s arrest in March, Nickel began to avoid protests and canceled a trip to Europe to visit a terminally ill relative for fear of being detained at the U.S. border upon his return.
“I actually love this country,” Nickel told the court on Tuesday. “That love never changed. And as my fear of political reprisal grew, I just don’t feel that way about the country.” He added, “That’s depressing and it’s destabilizing.”
Following the professors’ testimony, a senior Department of Homeland Security official told the court on July 9 about a specialized federal task force created earlier this year to investigate student protesters. This so-called “Tiger Team” assembled more than 100 reports on potential criminal conduct by students across the country, relying in part on a list of 5,000 names compiled by Canary Mission, a pro-Israel group accused of doxxing individuals engaged in pro-Palestinian activism.
The trial will continue until July 18, with additional university faculty expected to testify next week. A ruling in the case is anticipated as early as August.
