Trump’s Three-Pronged Assault on Free Expression

Leading into last year’s election, the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago surveyed the importance of certain political issues in voting preference for a thousand Americans. 68% of the group marked inflation as “very important,” the most of any issue. The issue that received the second most marks in that “very important” label, however, was free speech, at 63%. More respondents considered free speech to be crucial to their 2024 decision more so than healthcare, abortion, guns, immigration, climate change, or racial inequality.

There’s no doubt it was a central issue in this election, especially for Trump voters. The National Speech Index, a poll conducted by the Dartmouth Polarization Research Lab, found that those who self-identified as “conservative” went from being the most pessimistic to the most optimistic about the future of free expression after Trump was inaugurated.

Free expression has become a pillar of Trump and his political movement; however, his administration has gone to substantial lengths to put this country in one of the darkest periods for free expression in its history. Through attacks on the press, on college students’ campus free speech, and on academic institutions, Trump has developed a three-pronged assault on this freedom which is so ingrained in America’s culture and history.

While their relationship has since rapidly collapsed, the president aligned himself with Elon Musk during his campaign, proclaimed by conservative analyst Megyn Kelly as the “greatest free speech warrior in the modern world.” Musk has been championed for his acquisition of Twitter/X by other right-wing thought leaders such as Charlie Kirk, who described the takeover as “liberating” and one of the “greatest free speech victories in the history of western civilization.”

Musk and his followers seem to view online expression as the most important front of the fight for free speech. The tech billionaire believes that free speech is “the bedrock for democracy” and views X as a “digital town square” of sorts. There’s much to be said for Musk’s hypocrisy on the issue in his management of the platform. He has catered to various foreign governments and silenced their critics during elections, suspended journalists, shadow-banned critics from all corners of the political spectrum, explicitly and preferentially amplified right-wing causes over left-wing ones, and the list goes on. X is but one piece of the first prong, which involves stifling criticism in the media.

The war on the press is the least developed of the three prongs, but the damaging steps Trump has taken against the ability of the press to accurately report on his White House ought to cause concern. In particular, the administration has engaged in a fight with news agencies like the Associated Press to limit their access to him and his press team. After AP referenced the Gulf of Mexico, thus contradicting Executive Order 14172’s designation of the Gulf of America, the administration acted quickly to ban them from press briefings. Once a court ruled that Trump must lift the ban, the White House directly challenged the ruling by pressing onward with further restrictions, this time targeting all wire services, a group that includes Reuters and Bloomberg. They have continued to restrict access for these agencies in spite of the ruling for months.

In addition to reducing access for certain new agencies, the Trump press team has shown preferential treatment toward media who express support for the president. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has held exclusive “influencer briefings” for right-wing and Trump-supporting content creators. Between these two sides to their treatment of the media, this administration has made it clear that criticism results in punishment, while loyalty will be rewarded.

Limiting access for the media organizations that don’t bend the knee enables Trump to control the flow of information from inside the Oval Office. This is extremely useful for him and his administration, as it kills two birds with one stone. It allows him to suppress the access and damage the credibility of any news agencies he views as opposition. At the same time, it amplifies his influencer supporters, who now can call themselves White House insiders, and adds to their credibility. The end result of this and the right-wing domination of X is a confused public who is largely misinformed and/or unaware of the administration’s actions.

The war on higher education contains both the second and third prongs. Colleges and universities have long found themselves in the crosshairs of the conservative movement, but Trump’s attacks have adopted a unique approach. His administration’s first targets on this front have not been limited to institutions of higher education, but also individuals. Both undergraduate and graduate students alike, particularly international students, have faced severe consequences for expressing themselves when it comes to Israel and Palestine.

Another central issue of Trump’s focus in his campaign and administration, in addition to free speech, was immigration. During his campaign, he promised mass deportations. From increased funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and unprecedented mass arrests, his administration has made that goal a priority. Immigration has also become intertwined with free expression, as Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have now turned to using ICE to arrest without a charge, hold, and deport international students who organize or engage in pro-Palestine protests or literature. This is the second prong.

It is necessary to make clear that somebody’s opinion of Israel-Palestine or these pro-Palestinian groups ought to have little bearing on how they think about free expression. Now, this is not to advocate for complete free expression without consequences everywhere. There are instances of expression that present substantial and immediate peril for citizens of this country. Groups of college students protesting or writing op-eds are not among them. In a country where white supremacist groups are the top domestic terrorist threat, where the Ku Klux Klan still is alive and well, it seems odd that international college students are the group Trump seems to be going after.

The report, which contained that top domestic threat finding, was issued by the Department of Homeland Security under the first Trump administration in October 2020. Funnily enough, the second Trump administration has taken steps to minimize or ignore the perceived threat of these groups, including decreased funding for the FBI’s domestic terrorism offices and reallocation of those resources towards immigration enforcement.

Pro-Palestinian protests simply do not result in enough violence to merit the response by the Trump administration. Attending these protests, by itself, is not and should not be a crime. Despite what many have claimed, noncitizens, such as international students on visas, are subject to many of the protections outlined in the Bill of Rights. This includes a right to freedom of speech sourced from the First Amendment, as well as the right to due process from the federal government, sourced from the Fifth, and state governments, sourced from the Fourteenth.

Trump’s attacks on higher education have manifested in the third prong of his assault on free expression, showing up in policies targeting academic institutions. His administration has displayed particular ire for Harvard University, cancelling all federal grants and, even more importantly, banning the school from enrolling any international students. Nearly a third of their student body hails from outside this country, and with the order in question bringing current international students’ visas into doubt, this represents a huge blow. Columbia University is similarly in trouble, with the administration threatening to rid the school of its accreditation.

While institutions like Harvard and Columbia can weather the storm, many international students cannot. Students who may have gone to American universities for study are now looking elsewhere, in fear for their safety. Between January and May of 2025, observers from Oxford University noted a 50% decline in “volume of search for study in the U.S.” Enrollment from outside the country is bound to substantially decrease over the coming years. America is the land of opportunity no longer.

If Trump’s endangerment of international students’ security and fights with higher education escalate, it will not only represent perhaps the darkest period for free expression in American history; it will damage our economy. International students contribute around $43 billion annually to the United States economy. Harvard is the fifth-largest employer in the state of Massachusetts. Columbia pays $1.2 billion in wages for New Yorkers. Higher education is one of the top exports America has, generating $50 billion in value per year, a figure comparable to motor vehicle exports. Although Trump seems to love money like no other president before him, he does not seem impeded by the potential economic consequences of his actions.

President Trump and his administration are currently engaged in various unconstitutional, unjust, and morally reprehensible exercises of executive power. He knows this, and his inner circle knows this. It is our duty as Americans to make sure the world knows this too.

Cases like that of Mahmoud Kalil, a Columbia student protestor who was stripped of his green card, arrested, and held in ICE detention without a charge of a crime, set a concerning precedent for the future of free expression and due process in this country. Rubio claims that the Immigration and Nationality Act gives the federal government the power to do this should Kalil’s presence “have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States,” but this administration has taken zero steps to prove this baseless claim. Rubio has claimed he “proudly” goes after students like Kalil over their activism and is seeking to use the foreign policy consequences justification for further action.

This administration wants to silence dissent and control the narrative by any means necessary. For those of us who are citizens, it is our duty to be aware of both our rights and those of our noncitizen neighbors. It is our duty to exercise our freedom of speech to speak up for those who would face dire consequences for doing the same. The worst possible response to encroachments on our freedoms is failing to exercise them when we have both the chance and the motivation to do so. Being silent on this issue and taking our right to free expression for granted is a mistake we, as a country, will come to regret in time.

DomesticBen McNiffComment