A Ruckus for America

(This is the opinion of Diane Greenwald)
I hope you share my horror and outrage about Rumeysa Ozturk, a Ph.D. candidate at Tufts University, a Muslim woman from Turkey with a valid student visa, who was abducted Tuesday night off the street by hoodie-clad, masked agents of ICE. I am shaking in terror (as is the point.) Please watch this footage:

Chilling. This is not my America.

According to several accounts and this video, Ms. Ozturk was touched, cuffed, sent to Louisiana against a court order, stripped of her status without notice and before ever talking to her lawyer. She is apparently getting deported. Why and why this way? She did not resist. Would she not have just come into an immigration office, if called? Who are these many (inefficient) swarming sinister agents on the street? They looked like criminals. How is that safe?

I have heard some assume Ms. Ozturk incited violence, supported terrorists in campus protests over the Hamas/Israel war. There are no criminal charges though. And if this government had evidence that this Tufts graduate student posed an imminent threat to public safety, wouldn’t they have 1) told Tufts (they did not;) 2) proudly and loudly report their work to all of us? (they did not.) Instead, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated, “we revoked her visa… once you’ve lost your visa, you’re no longer legally in the United States… if you come into the US as a visitor and create a ruckus for us, we don’t want it. We don’t want it in our country. Go back and do it in your country.”

A ruckus? This is not a 1980s John Hughes movie, this is a woman’s life, a student, now traumatized and upended. When has a ruckus – a din, a fuss, a hullabaloo – risen to the level of sudden incarceration? When have we forsaken due process, even for dangerous actors? Is she dangerous?

What we know is she co-wrote an op-ed for her student paper with 3 other grad students on behalf of several others involved in institution-sanctioned student government. I hope you read it for yourselves. Letter here.

As I read it, I thought about campus life since October 7, 2023. I disagree with the authors’ assumptions, goals, and conclusions about Israel. It would not be an op ed if we all agreed. The letter is one-sided, expressing sympathy for Palestinian loss, a sentiment I share, in a way that I do not, and without mention of Israeli losses or hostages, thus to me, undermining any humanitarian high ground. It is otherwise written within the standards of community dialogue, and no mention of support for Hamas terrorists. The graduate students express frustration that the student resolution to divest from Israeli interests had been summarily (and repeatedly) rejected by the Tufts administration. These students seek reconsideration, without threats.

I have read many of these arguments and while I again disagree, I have never been harmed by reading. If this letter is the sum total of the government’s reason for grabbing a visa-holding student from the street, this is truly terrifying. It would be arbitrary, a stunning overreach, and an unhinged assault on free speech. This sure seems like fascism. Fascism makes nobody safer.

I appreciate any Jewish organization that supports “civil liberties and democratic norms,” consistently and for all. Amy Spitalnick, CEO of Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) and a Tufts alum, says over and over, “Selectively applying due process based on someone's identity or views makes Jews – and everyone – less safe… and [this administration] is exploiting our community’s real concerns to undermine our democracy.” Link here. I am a Jew, and this cannot happen in my name.

Campus Antisemitism

Last year, when my son was a senior at Tufts, a school he loves, I was critical of Tufts response to aspects of campus protests over the Hamas/Israel war. I wanted the school to respect first amendment rights, allow peaceful exchange of ideas (like in an op ed), and provide due process. But the student responses were often disruptive, uninformed, or out of proportion — and at the worst, they were overtly antisemitic. I felt Tufts had ignored its own neutral campus safety policies and was insensitive to hateful language. Tufts honestly tried, but also seemed ill-equipped for rapid educational responses. I was looking for commitment to building critical thinkers, armed against social media-fueled radicalization and misinformation. These highly educated students are meant to be our future and global leaders, and they need skills for tackling complex problems, not screaming irrational slogans absent nuance or solutions.

I thought I knew a lot about my son’s campus, but I didn’t. On social media, with video clips at the ready, parents were experiencing campuses in ways that had never before been available, and while there were real issues for many students, what we saw was often absent scale or context. I would see some incident on social media that looked like a massive uprising, and I would call my son. He would dismiss my fears quickly – it was small, it was over, it was nothing, or what are you talking about? Each kid’s experience is their own, but my son never directly experienced antisemitism, only faced ignorance (still a sad commentary for a place of higher learning.) When the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) gave his campus an “F” grade for Jewish life, he felt dismissed and alienated, saying, “I have not had a failing Jewish experience here.” I felt manipulated and fear mongered. I have learned from many friends with kids on lots of campuses, they had similar feelings.

To assume Ms. Ozturk unlawfully disrupted campus because she co-wrote an op ed would be a leap – evidence of her even being at a protest last year has yet to emerge (and there was a lot of film.) In fact, this year, campuses improved and quieted across the country, including Tufts, that made visible strides, though not publicized much. Focus on social media has been in a few places, like Columbia, but many other campuses across the nation heard Jewish voices and allies and responded with iterative changes to improve programming, ensure the compassionate enforcement of neutral regulations, and to de-escalate campus conflict. I am sure more work can be done, but I am grateful for these and other ongoing efforts, for all students to feel safe and seen. I sometimes hear the drum beat complaint from Jewish friends, “oh this or that Jewish issue would never happen if it were about a ‘fill in the blank for another minority’ student.” I see no value in victim competitions, and I do not imagine many minorities on college campuses feel protected right now.

Antisemitism, like any targeted hate, is real and must be tracked and fought, but Jews are not powerless or ignored. When we use a monolithic notion of “rising campus antisemitism” without nuance or even accuracy, it can be divisive, harms our credibility about real threats, and leads to dangerous assumptions – like Jews imagining without evidence that we are being protected when a Muslim woman is deported without due process. Again, not in my name.

American Democracy

Everyone is vulnerable in an authoritarian regime, especially when divided. We must all come together around our shared values rooted in democracy. I love my country. I feel privileged, and grateful, and ready to serve others far more vulnerable than myself. Ms. Ozturk deserves American due process and the protection of the First Amendment. Everyone does, even folks with whom I disagree. That’s what I think is great.

I am a patriot. This is the country that let all four of my grandparents escape hatred and achieve the American dream. I want our nation to remain a welcoming place of opportunity, a melting pot of ideas, innovation and debate, where the golden rule defines us, and the rule of law guides us. As a mom, when I see the video of Ms. Ozturk grabbed off the street, I shiver in fear. I also want to give Ms. Ozturk (and her mother) a hug and an apology. But if she (and her mother) now hates America, who could blame her?

Want something to do? Here are some suggestions from my niece, an immigration attorney.

Give to and support:

- Florence Project (AZ): https://firrp.org
- AMICA Center (DC): https://amicacenter.org
- NYLAG (NY): https://nylag.org/immigration/
HIAS (love HIAS), https://hias.org/
Catholic Charities, https://www.crs.org/
Make the Road, https://maketheroadny.org/
CUNY Citizenship https://www.cuny.edu/about/administration/offices/communications-marketing/citizenship-now/
Mutual aid groups can be really interesting as well -https://mutualaid.nyc/

For volunteer opps (or to explore other orgs), can use this link to do a search for groups in your area: https://www.immigrationadvocates.org/nonp.../legaldirectory/
Volunteer opps can be anything from escorting people to ICE appointments, giving know your rights presentations, helping people fill out a citizenship application (with attorney supervision), delivering food even, etc.