Dozens of UT Austin students rallied Wednesday against crackdowns on free speech at college campuses.
The demonstration, organized by the Students for a Democratic Society, was in response to the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student, and an "ongoing crackdown" on protests against Israel's war in Gaza.
Ava Hosseini, an Iranian-American honors student, said the Trump administration's decision to arrest Khalil is part of a troubling pattern of chilling speech on campuses. She said her mother pleaded with her to watch what she said Wednesday for "fear of the same consequence"
"This is a message to every student-activist, and it is calling for compliance," she told the crowd of roughly two dozen demonstrators. "Donald Trump does not want you to feel like you belong in this country, but this is not the America I know – and it is not the America you should accept."
Austin Community College professor Bryan Register, who studied at UT Austin, said students speaking out shouldn't have to feel like they're "personally afraid of being the last domino to fall," and called on them to demand a response from the university.
"The right to speak is not a right that anyone has because of any government, or because of any citizenship," he said. "It is a right that Mahmoud Khalil has for the same reason that I do: It is because he is a man, a human being."
UT did not respond to KUT’s request for comment on the demonstration.
The rally comes nearly a year after students and faculty gathered en masse during a string of pro-Palestinian demonstrations. The largely peaceful protests on the university's south lawn led to more than 130 arrests.
The majority of charges were dropped, though many students were put on probation by UT and one was suspended.
Defending Khalil's arrest this week, the White House said it will use the might of the federal government to arrest more activists at campuses if they're critical of the Israeli offensive in Gaza or support Hamas.
After a recent executive order, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Department of Homeland Security is "actively " tracking down campus activists.
"Since the President signed that executive order, and since Secretary [Kristi] Noem has taken the oath at DHS, they have been using intelligence to identify individuals on our nation's colleges and universities, on our college campuses, who have engaged in such behavior and activity, and especially illegal activity," she said.
