Tag: Trumps

Executive Watch: Trump’s weaponization of civil lawsuits — First Amendment News 462
This is the latest installment of Professor Timothy Zick’s “Executive Watch,” which debuted with First Amendment News 457. This post focuses on civil suits by government figures, mainly by the sitting president. It comes at a time when the legitimacy of the New York Times v. Sullivan case is being challenged, and while efforts to establish a national anti-SLAPP law are being thwarted.

Several future posts are in the works, as well as a Resources Page, so stay tuned. – rklc

Professor Timothy Zick

Presidents and suppressive campaigns: Today’s unprecedented practices

Executive Watch is an effort to record and analyze the many First Amendment-related conflicts and concerns arising during the second administration of President Donald Trump. One of the challenges in assessing the administration’s approach to the press and critics is to identify and explain what is distinct or unique about it. After all, the policies and actions of every administration have raised First Amendment issues and concerns. John Adams had reporters jailed under the Sedition Act, Richard Nixon had his “enemies list,” President Obama’s Department of Justice was criticized for prosecuting reporters in national security cases, and President Biden’s administration was accused of pressuring social media platforms to censor disfavored speech.

However, as I explained in my introductory post for Executive Watch, what is distinct about the current president and administration is the depth and breadth of the campaign they are waging against critics, both inside and outside government.

Among other actions, the president and various government agencies have attacked the press and called for the firing of individual reporters; excluded media outlets from official events for failing to use preferred geographic language; retaliated against civil servants who investigated or prosecuted crimes Trump allegedly committed; punished private law firms for lawful advocacy; used the FCC and other agencies to investigate and sanction media outlets for negative coverage; scrubbed government websites of truthful information about racial health disparities and gender discrimination; threatened to prosecute critics of Elon Musk’s efforts to downsize the federal government; arrested a green card holder for participating in campus protests; and suppressed disfavored speech about diversity, equity and inclusion in workplaces and on university campuses.

That is just a partial list.

Notably, these efforts have been undertaken not just by Trump, but also through actions by a host of federal agencies including the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Department of State.

The current situation represents an unprecedented and coordinated effort to use courts, governmental agencies, and even private individuals to engage in retribution, intimidate media and non-media critics, impose official orthodoxies, and punish dissent.

Civil lawsuits as engines of leverage and intimidation

“I spent a couple of bucks on legal fees, and they spent a whole lot more. I did it to make his life miserable, which I’m happy about.” — Donald J. Trump

One aspect of the broader current agenda involves the filing of civil defamation, consumer fraud, and other lawsuits against the press and others who publish disfavored information or opinions critical of Trump or his administration.

Like any other citizen, a political candidate, president, or ex-president has the right to file lawsuits and seek redress for reputational or other harms. Indeed, prior to Trump, at least one ex-president did so. However, the extent to which Trump has relied, and continues to rely, on defamation and other civil lawsuits against media and non-media defendants is a unique aspect of a broader campaign against political critics. No other political candidate or president has wielded the civil lawsuit as a political sword quite as Trump has.

When it comes to civil litigation, Trump is in a league of his own. By one account, Trump has been involved in more than 4,000 civil lawsuits over the years, ranging from business disputes to defamation and other actions. Even for someone like Trump, who has been involved in a variety of complex business ventures, that is a remarkable number of civil actions.

One lesson Trump likely learned from his litigation experience is that lawsuits can be an effective form of leverage in business and other dealings. Indeed, even if a claim has no or little legal merit, it can be useful in terms of exhausting, intimidating, and silencing opponents.

For a long time, many of Trump’s civil lawsuits were business-related. However, since he became a political candidate, Trump’s filing of defamation actions has significantly spiked. As a political candidate and officeholder, he has pursued several defamation lawsuits against media and non-media defendants.

Trump has sued CNN, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, as well as local media outlets, for critical coverage of his campaign and first term as president. For example, he brought a $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN over the network’s use of the term “the Big Lie” to describe his false claims that he won the 2020 election. That claim was dismissed. More recently, Trump brought a $20 billion civil action against “60 Minutes” and CBS for allegedly editing an interview with Kamala Harris in ways that obscured or improved her answers to questions.

Trump also sued ABC News and George Stephanopoulos for stating that he had been found liable for “rape” in a civil case. Finally, Trump sued The Des Moines Register and its parent company, Gannett, for publishing a flawed poll showing Trump trailing Harris in the 2024 presidential election in Iowa. He also filed suit against the pollster herself, J. Ann Selzer. All of this despite Trump ultimately winning Iowa handily, raising questions about what damages he allegedly suffered.

Trump has also filed civil lawsuits against non-media defendants. For example, he has sued the Pulitzer Board for recognizing The New York Times for its reporting on the Russia investigation. (That suit has been allowed to proceed, at least for now.)

Trump and his lawyers have also been expanding their civil suit repertoire. He sued CBS and the defendants in the Iowa case for consumer fraud and election interference. His lawsuit against CBS also contains a claim under the Lanham Act, which provides civil damages for false advertising. These suspect allegations target core press functions and political speech.

Additionally, Trump has vowed to file many more civil lawsuits against those who publish unflattering opinions or disfavored information. He has claimed such legal action is necessary to “straighten out the press” and punish those he accuses of fraud and election interference.

Poor litigation track record

For all his litigation experience, Trump has a very poor track record in civil lawsuits, particularly those claiming defamation. In fact, he nearly always loses — sometimes very badly. Trump has even been ordered to pay media defendants substantial damages for filing harassing and frivolous defamation lawsuits. Some states have laws that impose liability on plaintiffs for bringing so-called SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) — essentially, defamation actions intended to silence or intimidate critics. Trump has been found liable for damages under such laws.

This is one context in which Trump may not mind being a loser or even paying damages. Weaponizing civil lawsuits and courts is not about restoring Trump’s damaged reputation, recovering damages, protecting consumers, ensuring the integrity of elections, or any other legitimate private or public interest. Rather, they are a means of punishing critics and chilling, through expensive and often frivolous litigation, the publication of unfavorable or unflattering information and opinion.

Civil lawsuits as political weapons

“Donald Trump is abusing the legal system to punish speech he dislikes. If you have to pay lawyers and spend time in court to defend your free speech, then you don’t have free speech.” — Adam Steinbaugh

Like many other aspects of the Trump administration’s agenda, civil lawsuits serve important political purposes. They are part of the campaign to suppress dissent, undermine the press, and entrench executive power.

Decades of litigation have likely convinced Trump that the prospect of defending against frivolous and strategically harassing claims will either convince defendants to settle, trim their critical reporting, or both. In that sense, civil lawsuits are an effective means of intimidating, leveraging, and silencing opponents.

The civil lawsuits communicate political narratives about the press as an institution, hoping to further weaken its public standing. Many of Trump’s civil complaints present hyperbolic and unsupported claims concerning Trump, the press, or both. They also highlight longstanding grievances against the media and other critics. Regardless of their outcome, Trump will be applauded by political supporters for waging war against the press, which Trump continues to describe as “the enemy of the American people.”

In a broader sense, civil lawsuits are part of a campaign to entrench executive power by undermining or eliminating institutions — including the press, agencies, lawyers, and universities — that can check the administration’s political and other narratives. Destroying the credibility of media and non-media fact-checkers and harassing them in civil suits, often through exorbitant demands for damages, serves these larger goals.

Regardless of their merit, Trump’s lawsuits force defendants to consider whether it is worth publishing truthful information or opinions that reflect poorly on him or his administration. The ordinary demands and pressures of civil litigation are even more pronounced when the plaintiff is the president of the United States. Judges may be reluctant to dismiss frivolous claims as a result of Trump’s status, and juries in some jurisdictions may be inclined to side with the president against his critics.

Past as prelude: The Sullivan story and its current importance

Using civil lawsuits as a cudgel against the media and other critics is an abusive practice that threatens to chill communication of opinions and facts. Although unprecedented for a presidential candidate or president, weaponizing defamation and other civil lawsuits to suppress criticism and chill reporting is not a new tactic.

During the Civil Rights Era, local southern officials relied on pro-plaintiff standards to censor and intimidate both media outlets and civil rights activists. Through frequent lawsuits, local and state officials sought to control the narrative about racial segregation.

Recognizing the chilling effect of this litigation tactic, in its 1964 decision New York Times Co. v. Sullivan the Supreme Court adopted a demanding standard of proof applicable to public officials who sued for allegedly defamatory statements about the conduct of their official duties. Under that precedent, public officials must show the statements were made with “actual malice,” i.e., that the defendant knew they were false when published or published them with reckless disregard for their truth. The Court later extended the actual malice standard to suits brought by public figures, including those like Trump who have gained extensive public notoriety.

Sullivan was a direct response to early SLAPPs, which were filed to censor local and national reporting about the extent and effects of racial segregation. As the Court recognized, because no double jeopardy limit applied in the civil context, defamation lawsuits could be even more chilling to a free press than the threat of criminal prosecution.

Anthony Lewis

Indeed, as Anthony Lewis observed in his book about the Sullivan case, by 1964, southern officials had brought $300 million in libel claims against the press for truthfully reporting on civil rights abuses. Sullivan’s protective standard — which the president favors eliminating — has been an effective shield for defendants sued by Trump. Without it, media and non-media defendants may face sizable damage awards for publishing even truthful criticism of Trump or the administration.

To be sure, the press does not always act responsibly. Media outlets and reporters can be held liable for knowingly or recklessly publishing false statements about public officials or figures. At the same time, as anti-SLAPP legislation shows, expensive lawsuits and the threat of civil damages can undermine the ability of the press and others to share vitally important information with the public. Trump and his lawyers have upped the ante with consumer fraud and other claims, which must still be rebutted even if frivolous.

In the hands of political officials, including presidents, abusive civil lawsuits can significantly undermine efforts to check power and educate the public.

Troubling successes — and possible responses

Trump has had some recent success in his civil lawsuits. For example, ABC News settled a defamation lawsuit, agreeing to donate $15 million to Trump’s presidential library and issue an apology for George Stephanopolous’s comments about the civil sexual assault verdict (which the trial judge held was “substantially true” in another Trump defamation lawsuit). CBS and “60 Minutes” are reportedly also considering a settlement, even though legal experts agree the lawsuit is based on a frivolous theory that a news network can be held liable for how it edits interviews.

Meanwhile, Trump has already extracted (if that is the right word) hefty settlements from Meta and X, for seemingly defensible decisions they made to de-platform or restrict Trump based on violations of their terms of service. A judge had dismissed Trump’s action against Twitter (now X), which was based on the First Amendment.

Of course, as law students in my classes know, the First Amendment constrains state action, not the private actions of social media platforms.

WATCH VIDEO: Firing the Watchdogs | 60 Minutes Full Episodes

There are many reasons a defendant might want to settle a civil lawsuit. One reason being to avoid a protracted and costly court proceeding, to avoid discovery, or to avoid the risk of a jury verdict. However, settlement of SLAPPs raise concerns about press obeisance and lack of independence. Rather than defend core First Amendment press prerogatives and functions, large media corporations with regulatory or other business before the Trump administration may be making balance sheet decisions.

As some commentators have suggested, social and media legacy companies may be settling meritless cases to grease the regulatory skids for pending mergers and other potential benefits from the Trump administration. Some have even suggested that some of these settlements may constitute a novel form of political corruption. Thus, one commentator referred to settling frivolous civil lawsuits brought by Trump as “a novel pathway to engage in political bribery.” (Of course, even if the practice fits that description, the administration can simply refuse to enforce political corruption laws against settling defendants.)

There are several means of combatting the weaponization of civil lawsuits. The most direct and obvious is to defend against these lawsuits and offer a robust First Amendment defense. As history shows, weaponizing civil lawsuits has dangerous implications for the freedoms of the press and speech. Trump’s aggressive resort to defamation and other civil lawsuits also highlights the importance of retaining Sullivan’s press-protective standard. Defendants ought to put up substantial and sustained resistance to lawsuit weaponization.

Anti-SLAPP statutes can also provide a deterrent. A federal anti-SLAPP law would make this important protection more widely available. Thus far, Trump has not been much deterred by anti-SLAPP liability. However, making such protections available regardless of jurisdiction would provide all defendants an opportunity to dismiss harassing defamation claims.

There are also actions judges can take to punish and deter abusive civil lawsuits. Judges have the power to dismiss baseless or frivolous claims on their own, and to sanction lawyers who file them. Some commentators have urged judges to refuse to approve media settlements of frivolous claims brought by Trump, on the grounds that they are the product of duress or fraud, or are otherwise against public policy.

Like agency employees, private employers, lawyers, universities, and others who have been subject to executive actions meant to punish or chill expression, media and non-media defendants currently face a critical choice: capitulate or fight.

For the sake of the First Amendment, let us hope the targets of strategic civil lawsuits defend them vigorously.

2024-2025 SCOTUS term: Free expression and related cases

Cases decided
- Villarreal v. Alaniz (Petition granted. Judgment vacated and case remanded for further consideration in light of Gonzalez v. Trevino, 602 U. S. ___ (2024) (per curiam))
- Murphy v. Schmitt (“The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit for further consideration in light of Gonzalez v. Trevino, 602 U. S. ___ (2024) (per curiam).”)
- TikTok Inc. and ByteDance Ltd v. Garland (The challenged provisions of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights.)
Review granted

Pending petitions

Petitions denied

Last scheduled FAN

FAN 461: “Intimidating abridgments and political stunts”

This article is part of First Amendment News, an editorially independent publication edited by Ronald K. L. Collins and hosted by FIRE as part of our mission to educate the public about First Amendment issues. The opinions expressed are those of the article’s author(s) and may not reflect the opinions of FIRE or Mr. Collins.
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March 18, 2025
Johns Hopkins to lay off 2,200 workers as it reels from Trump’s USAID cuts
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Dive Brief:
- Johns Hopkins University is moving to cut over 2,200 jobs, the largest layoffs in its history, according to a university spokesperson.
- The layoffs are tied directly to the Trump administration’s unilateral cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which brought an $800 million funding hit to Johns Hopkins.
- The job cuts include 1,975 international positions across 44 countries as well as 247 in the U.S, the spokesperson said. Another 29 international and 78 domestic employees will be furloughed with a reduced schedule.
Dive Insight:

Earlier in March, Johns Hopkins President Ron Daniels revealed the depth of the funding gap wrought by the Trump administration’s suspension of foreign aid via executive order and efforts to gut USAID without congressional approval. Daniels said then that the university would have to wind down its projects funded by USAID grants.

Employees in USAID-funded positions at Johns Hopkins have worked to “care for mothers and infants, fight disease, provide clean drinking water, and advance countless other critical, life-saving efforts around the world,” a university spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

The affected jobs set for elimination are in its medical school; the Bloomberg School of Public Health, which includes the Center for Communication Programs; and Jhpiego, a nonprofit affiliate that provides medical care abroad.

The decimation of USAID has been challenged in court. On March 10, a federal judge issued a partial preliminary injunction in the case, saying the cuts likely violated the Constitution.

“The Executive not only claims his constitutional authority to determine how to spend appropriated funds, but usurps Congress’s exclusive authority to dictate whether the funds should be spent in the first place,” according to the decision from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Daniels previously told the campus community that federal funding cuts and the resulting chaos would likely bring reductions to the university’s personnel and budgets.

“Over the past six weeks, we have experienced a fast and far-reaching cascade of executive orders and agency actions affecting higher education and federally sponsored research,” Daniels said in early March. “What began as stop work orders or pauses in grant funding allocations has morphed into cancellations and terminations.”

In addition to the USAID fallout, Johns Hopkins faces many millions in shortfalls from the National Institutes of Health’s move to cap funding for institutions’ indirect research costs at 15%.

The university is among those suing NIH to block the cap, which plaintiffs say violates federal law, regulation and agency authority. In court papers, Laurent Heller, Johns Hopkins’ executive vice president for finance and administration, said the institution received over $1 billion in funding from NIH in fiscal 2024. Of that, $281.4 million covers indirect costs, one of the largest of which is physical space.

The funding helps support clinical trials for treatments related to cancer, pediatrics, heart, lungs, brain, liver and other areas, as well as other research and services.

“The proposal to cap indirect cost rates at 15% could end, seriously jeopardize, or require significant scaling back of the projects and infrastructure described above, as well as hundreds more projects of importance for life-saving medical discoveries, treatments, cares, and cures,” Heller said.

There again, a court has ruled that the administration likely overstepped its authority. A judge overseeing several cases against NIH issued an injunction in March compelling the agency to keep paying negotiated rates for indirect costs as the case continues.

The funding cuts represent a risk of “halting life-saving clinical trials, disrupting the development of innovative medical research and treatment, and shuttering of research facilities, without regard for current patient care,” the judge wrote.

Harvard University, Columbia University, Northwestern University and many other higher ed institutions have announced hiring freezes and cutbacks amid uncertainty over NIH and other federal funding sources.
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March 14, 2025
Trump’s Columbia Cuts Start Hitting Postdocs, Professors

When the Trump administration announced Friday it was cutting about $400 million in grants and contracts from Columbia University, it didn’t specify what exactly it was slashing. But news of the scope of the cuts has begun trickling out of the institution over the past couple of days.

So far, much of the information about the canceled grants has come via social media, as neither the Trump administration nor the university have provided a comprehensive accounting of what’s being cut. The National Institutes of Health did say earlier this week that it was pulling more than $250 million in grants from Columbia, though the agency wouldn’t share more details. And it’s hard to tell whether specific cuts are part of the $400 million or a continuation of the Trump administration’s general national reduction of federal funding to universities, such as axing grants it deems related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

On Tuesday, Joshua A. Gordon, chair of the university’s psychiatry department, emailed colleagues to tell them the National Institutes of Health had terminated nearly 30 percent of grants to Columbia’s medical school—including many within his own department.

“All of our training grants and many fellowships have been terminated,” Gordon wrote in the email, which a postdoctoral research fellow provided Inside Higher Ed.

Gordon wrote that he’s still working with university administrators “to find out the full extent of these terminations” and that “the institution is committed to identifying the resources that can be brought to bear to support the people and projects affected by the terminations.” He added, “We remain dedicated to ensuring that our trainees and early-career scientists have the support needed to continue their work and achieve their career goals.”

The Trump administration said this unprecedented $400 million cut was due to Columbia’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” More cuts at Columbia and other universities could follow as Trump follows through on his pledge to crack down on alleged antisemitism and punish elite universities. Columbia has more than $5 billion in federal grants and contracts.

Columbia postdocs and faculty have taken to social media to announce canceled grants, fellowships and funding for Ph.D. students, showing some of the individual impacts on people and research wrought by the Trump administration’s actions. They include nixed training for researchers of depression and schizophrenia and a grant that would’ve provided free mental health resources to K-12 students.

Sam Seidman, a postdoc and a steward for the Columbia Postdoctoral Workers union, told Inside Higher Ed that, “as a Jew,” it’s “particularly outrageous” to hear the Trump administration justifying the cuts by saying it’s fighting antisemitism.

Seidman said he found out Monday that his T32 grant, an NIH training fellowship for new scientists, had been canceled. “I certainly don’t feel protected,” he said.

He said it’s clear the Trump administration doesn’t have an issue with antisemitism or even with Columbia specifically. Its issue, Seidman said, is with “public funding of science and it’s with public funding, period,” adding that “Columbia makes a convenient scapegoat.”

In an emailed statement, a Columbia Irving Medical Center spokesperson said, “Columbia is in the process of reviewing notices and cannot confirm how many grant cancellations have been received from federal agencies” since Friday.

The spokesperson said, “We remain dedicated to our mission to advance lifesaving research and pledge to work with the federal government to restore Columbia’s federal funding.”

In a separate statement Wednesday, interim president Katrina Armstrong, herself a medical doctor, didn’t mention the cuts and instead said she stands by broad principles such as “intellectual freedom” and “personal responsibility.”

“I have no doubt that the days and weeks ahead are going to be extremely difficult,” Armstrong said. “The best I can promise is that I will never stray from these principles and that I will work tirelessly to defend our remarkable, singular institution.”

Marcel Agüeros, secretary of Columbia’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said, “It’s already looking very grim.”

Agüeros said it’s a slow process to try to understand how the cuts are affecting such a large and decentralized university. But he said he has learned “it’s not just the kind of classic lab-based biomedical research that’s being impacted.”

Like Seidman, he said the cuts don’t seem to be about the grants themselves or Columbia. Instead, Agüeros said, it’s “an assault on universities in general” and the concept of peer review that the grants went through.

“It’s coming for you; it doesn’t really matter where you are or what you research,” Agüeros said

Cut Off at the Knees

In its Wednesday statement, the university medical center said that “from pioneering cancer treatments to innovative heart disease interventions and cutting-edge gene and cell therapies, research conducted by Columbia faculty has helped countless people live healthier, longer and more productive lives.”

Seidman said his NIH grant was for research on family and biological risk factors that predispose kids to develop eating disorders, depression and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. He thinks university higher-ups are trying to find alternative funding but “haven’t been any more specific than ‘we’re looking.’”

“It’s tragic, I mean these are lifesaving, potentially, interventions,” Seidman said. Yet the researchers developing them have been “cut off at the knees,” he said.

Gordon Petty, a postdoc in Columbia’s psychiatry department, said his T32 training grant, which has also been canceled, was to study schizophrenia. He said he heard that the department is still dedicated to supporting him, “but it’s unclear where that money’s coming from.”

Trump’s cuts appear to have also hit Teachers College of Columbia University, which is a separate higher education institution from Columbia with its own board. But it’s unclear if that’s part of the $400 million cut for allegedly not properly addressing antisemitism or part of nationwide cuts to grants perceived as being related to diversity, equity and inclusion. A Teachers College spokesperson said, “We are still sorting through the full impact on the college and will be in touch when we have more to say.”

Prerna Arora, an associate professor of psychology and education at Teachers College, said she got an email Friday from a deputy assistant U.S. education secretary announcing the cancellation of a five-year Education Department grant. Arora said most of the funds went directly to graduate students training to become K-12 school psychologists serving children in New York City.

The email, according to Arora, alleged that the grant funded “programs that promote or take part in initiatives that unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin or another protected characteristic” or that “violate either the letter or purpose of federal civil rights law” or “conflict with the department’s policy of prioritizing merit, fairness and excellence in education.”

“We already have students that are funded under this, and they are at the university and we are in the middle of our admissions cycle for next year,” Arora said. She said, “I’ve spoken to very scared and tearful students” who are afraid of what this means for their training and “for their future.”

And, beyond the impact on college students, Arora lamented the loss of the grant’s free help to K-12 students and families. “We could’ve helped many children who need this,” she said.

It’s unclear whether the Trump administration will restore the grants. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said after the announcement Friday that she had a “productive” meeting with Armstrong. Meanwhile, Columbia said in a statement that it’s “committed to working with the federal government to address their legitimate concerns.”

Agüeros, with the AAUP, said Columbia has already “gone overboard in an attempt to silence any kind of dissent.” Its previous president called in the New York Police Department to remove a pro-Palestinian protest encampment last spring and publicly criticized and revealed investigations into her own faculty in front of Congress.

“There’s this assumption that if we just go along with things we’ll escape somehow unscathed,” Agüeros said. But he noted the cuts still arrived.

“What did all of that get us—all of the sort of compliance that was put in place? It got us nothing.”

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March 13, 2025
Trump’s upheavals worry job-hunting postdoctoral researchers

Julia Barnes, a National Science Foundation postdoctoral research fellow, was watching President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress last week when she heard him refer to her work as an “appalling waste” that needs to end.

In a list of expenses he called “scams,” Trump mentioned a $60 million project for Indigenous peoples in Latin America.

“Empowering Afro-Indigenous populations in Colombia, South America, is exactly what I do,” Barnes said. “My project is explicitly DEI, and it is DEI-focused in a foreign country.” The Trump administration has targeted both foreign aid and diversity, equity and inclusion.

Even before the speech, she knew her work helping such communities, which have faced atrocities, was under threat. Barnes said officials at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, where she’s based, last month asked her not to travel to Colombia for a planned research trip. She’s taken further precautions herself out of fear that she’ll be forced to repay any NSF grant money she uses, she said.

She’s not using the money at all—even to pay herself, she said. “I’m drawing on my savings right now to pay rent and pay for groceries,” Barnes said. She’s also teaching at another university and freelancing for a nonprofit. (An NSF spokesperson pointed Inside Higher Ed to an agency webpage that says activities such as travel “are permitted to proceed in accordance with the terms and conditions of existing awards.”)

“It’s pretty devastating,” she said. “This is the highest position I’ve ever gotten in my career. This is my dream job to do this research; it’s a cause that I care about very deeply.” She said, “It really breaks my heart to see this shift in values away from what I had initially hoped would become a tenure-track professorship and something—something greater.”

Postdocs like Barnes are worried about their careers amid the tumult of the Trump administration, which has frozen federal funding; canceled grant review meetings; slashed National Institutes of Health payments for indirect research costs; targeted diversity, equity and inclusion activities without clearly defining DEI; and laid off swaths of federal research agency employees.

Many of those actions have been in flux as judges block and unblock the administration’s orders amid courtroom fights, and as federal officials walk back terminations and other cuts. But university officials nonetheless appear unnerved, with some restricting Ph.D. program admissions and pausing hiring.

“There’s a very complicated feeling in spending close to a decade of time and energy pursuing this type of career,” said Kevin Bird, who’s on the job hunt. He’s nearing the expiration of his stint as an NSF biology postdoc research fellow at the University of California, Davis, and said he’s always tried to work at public universities because he values their mission.

“The whole process of striving for this for so long and making the sacrifices—to think it’s worth it—and then kind of having the entire system be attacked and sort of collapse in uncertainty has really been an unpleasant thing to experience,” Bird said.

The White House didn’t provide an interview or statement last week.

Looking Overseas

Counting her undergraduate days, Amanda Shaver said she’s spent 19 years building a science career. Now an NIH postdoc fellow at Johns Hopkins University, she said she feels “so close to the finish line of trying to do everything right for so many years to get a faculty position”—only for it to now “feel unattainable.”

Shaver said meetings to consider the career transition NIH award she applied for have been postponed, and she wonders whether Trump officials actually axed the program because they considered it a DEI initiative. The NIH didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment last week about the program’s status.

Looking at the overall future of research and higher education in the U.S., Shaver said, “Things are not good.” She’s applying to positions in other countries.

In the meantime, she awaits word on what’s happening with her NIH Pathway to Independence Award application. This award—also known as K99/R00—provides recipients money to finish work during their postdoc stints and then start labs at new institutions, Shaver said. “It really sort of elevates you in the candidate pool” for faculty jobs, she said.

But Shaver—who describes herself as from a low-income family and a disadvantaged school district—said she applied for a version of the award known as MOSAIC, which is meant to keep talented people from underrepresented groups in the biomedical sciences field. That makes it a potential target of Trump’s anti-DEI crusade.

Shaver said the MOSAIC website disappeared temporarily, “and people thought that they just weren’t in existence anymore, and people were told to not submit those.” But she had already applied; a study section of faculty was supposed to meet in February to consider the application, she said. That was postponed once, and last week she received an email saying it’s been postponed again until May, she said.

“I don’t know if they will actually meet or not,” Shaver said. She might apply for the regular version of the award in the future but will then have lost an application cycle and can only keep applying until the fourth year of her postdoc stint, she said.

“The NIH is the worldwide leader in biomedical research,” she said. “And canceling different types of grants or delaying funding and firing people that are really qualified at the NIH, cutting the indirect costs at universities—all these things collectively are really harming the research industry.”

She added, “It doesn’t make any sense—I think to any voter—to want to dismantle biomedical research … it’s like a degradation of an entire system that is built on facts and knowledge.”

Amid the upheaval, it can be hard to tell whether university job cuts stem from Trump’s actions or other factors. Bird, the NSF postdoc at UC Davis, said searches for two tenure-track faculty positions he applied for have been canceled since Trump took office. One of the institutions he mentioned, North Carolina State University, told Inside Higher Ed the search is now progressing, and the other, Clemson University, said its search was canceled to “attract a broader and more qualified candidate pool” and the position will be reposted soon.

Whatever the reasons for those cuts, “many people I’ve talked to now at institutions are feeling the crunch or feeling the concern about what the next few years might hold if the NIH cuts go through, if any aspect of the indirect rate shifts happen,” Bird said. “It’s kind of forcing a lot of universities to really plan for the worst, I think.” So far, a federal district court judge has blocked the NIH from implementing such cuts.

He lamented the attacks on efforts to recruit into science more first-generation students and students from historically excluded groups. These attacks change “what the job I could even have would be like—if part of the job isn’t taking that mindset of broadening participation and bringing people into the career path like I was,” said Bird, who comes from a small town and a low-income family.

All this turmoil is pushing him to start “broadening my horizons,” including looking at positions in Europe or other parts of the world that hopefully “will have more stable science institutions and stable higher education,” he said.

Job cuts at federal research agencies and universities may increase competition-—and uncertainty—among those trying to take the next step in their careers. Julia Van Etten said, “I have a lot of friends who’ve lost their jobs” as early-career researchers in federal agencies.

Van Etten, an NSF postdoc research fellow at Rutgers University at New Brunswick, said she’s looking for faculty jobs. But “it’s uncertain how many of those jobs will exist going forward.”

“There’s a lot more people on the job market here,” Van Etten said. “There’s a lot of uncertainty on the job market here. There seems to be a general feeling that the overseas job markets—if they’re not already—are going to become saturated.”

“It just feels like the job market is kind of bleak,” she said.

Van Etten said the government—through funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Energy and other agencies—has already invested much in her education and work. And she’s invested time that might have been wasted.

“I spent my entire 20s in grad school and working to get my Ph.D.,” she said. “And no one gets a doctorate just for the pay, right? I really love what I do, and I think my work in basic research is really important. And, for the first time in my entire life, I’ve had to start thinking about what I would do if I wasn’t a scientist anymore.”

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March 10, 2025
Trump’s border czar is wrong about AOC

One of the most Orwellian stories in American history — where telling people about their rights and urging them to speak out became a thoughtcrime — was that of the socialist Eugene Debs.

Debs was sentenced to 10 years in prison for criticizing U.S. involvement in World War I and for telling Americans about their constitutional right to protest the draft. The Supreme Court infamously ruled his speech posed a “clear and present danger.” Today, that ruling is widely regarded as a grave violation of free speech and a stain on the history of American justice.

Last week, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote a letter asking Attorney General Pam Bondi if she is now under investigation for telling people their constitutional rights when interacting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

She asked because President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said he recently asked the Department of Justice whether Ocasio-Cortez is “impeding our law enforcement efforts” by putting out a webinar and a flyer in which she reminded anyone interacting with ICE that they need not open the door, speak, or sign anything, among other basic rights.

Informing people about their constitutional rights is plainly lawful and any effort to punish Ocasio-Cortez for doing so would unquestionably violate the First Amendment.

This isn’t a hard case or a close call. As my colleague Aaron Terr has pointed out, “This intimidation tactic is likely to discourage others from simply educating people about their fundamental rights.”

But what is the line between protected speech and obstruction? The answer is that the Constitution protects a significant amount of expression, including abstract advocacy of unlawful acts, providing information about the presence of law enforcement officers, and promoting civil disobedience.

Free speech protects discussing illegal behavior

The Supreme Court has repeatedly explained that “the mere tendency of speech to encourage unlawful acts is not a sufficient reason for banning it.” It has long distinguished between “the mere abstract teaching … of the moral propriety or even moral necessity” of violating the law and the actual incitement of lawless action. Only the latter is unprotected by the First Amendment. This is a high bar that requires speech to be “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”

This is true even for speech advocating unquestionably unlawful behavior. For instance, in United States v. Williams, the Court held that “abstract advocacy” related to child pornography, such as the phrase “I encourage you to obtain child pornography,” was protected speech. And in Hess v. Indiana, the Court found that an anti-war protester urging his comrades to “take the fucking street again” was not sufficiently imminent to fall into the incitement exception.

But the most directly relevant example is the 2023 case United States v. Hansen, when the Court decided a law that criminalized encouraging illegal immigration was not unconstitutionally overbroad. FIRE and the Rutherford Institute wrote an amicus brief warning that the law, if interpreted broadly, could penalize speech urging civil disobedience.

In upholding the law, the Court interpreted its scope extremely narrowly to apply only to “the intentional solicitation or facilitation of … unlawful acts” — not to “abstract advocacy or general encouragement” — and it left the door open for further First Amendment challenges if the law was applied to constitutionally protected advocacy.

In other words, the Supreme Court recognized that advocacy like Ocasio-Cortez’s is clearly protected. Indeed, even more pointed advice on how to avoid arrest by ICE would also be protected. Only speech that intentionally directs an individual to engage in a specific illegal act crosses the line.

Warning people about the presence of law enforcement is also protected

The First Amendment also generally protects telling people that ICE is in a certain area, even if that allows people to evade ICE or other law enforcement. For example, in Friend v. Gasparino, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the First Amendment protected a man standing on a sidewalk with a “Cops Ahead” sign. As the Supreme Court has said, someone “might constitutionally be punished under a tailored statute that prohibited individuals from physically obstructing an officer’s investigation,” but “he or she may not be punished under a broad statute aimed at speech.”

This isn’t to say speech can never constitute obstruction of law enforcement. In limited circumstances, such as when speech is integral to the underlying crime like a robber demanding “your money or your life,” or someone in a criminal conspiracy warning his co-conspirators how to evade arrest, speech can lose First Amendment protection. Also, if someone is physically obstructing officers or refuses to leave when lawfully instructed to do so, that person’s actions won’t become protected even if those actions include otherwise protected speech.

But in general, warning people about law enforcement is constitutionally protected.

Advocating civil disobedience is a historically important form of free speech

Homan’s remarks and actions are particularly disturbing because they could chill speech encouraging civil disobedience, which has played a vital and noble role in American history — from the Boston Tea Party and the abolition of slavery to women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement and beyond.

It could even be said that there is nothing so quintessentially American as advocating for civil disobedience — and nothing more un-American than efforts to censor it.

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March 7, 2025
Trump’s federal funding crackdown includes troubling attacks on free speech

With his second term underway, President Trump has moved aggressively to reshape federal spending. Organizations that promote “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) or “gender ideology,” for example, are at risk of losing government grants and contracts. Although the government has discretion in spending taxpayer dollars, some of the administration’s attempts to yank funding from groups based on their speech run headlong into the First Amendment.

New funding restrictions target everything from DEI to ‘Gulf of Mexico’

On Jan. 21, Trump issued an executive order that purports to require funding recipients to abandon “illegal DEI” programs but does not define “DEI” or explain which programs the administration deems unlawful. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) reportedly cited the order in moving to cancel contracts with eight U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) contractors over DEI language on the contractors’ own websites and LinkedIn profiles, even though it was unrelated to their contractual obligations. Late last month, a federal court blocked key parts of the executive order on First Amendment grounds.

One thing is clear: The government cannot constitutionally use funding as a cudgel to control speech outside the funded activity.

DEI isn’t the administration’s only target. Another executive order bans the use of federal funds to “promote gender ideology.” Meanwhile, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reportedly told The Nature Conservancy it would lose funding unless it adopted the term “Gulf of America” (echoing the White House’s ultimatum to the Associated Press to use the term or lose access to certain press events). And last week, Trump threatened to pull federal funding from any college that “allows illegal protests.”

Although these examples are different in important ways, they all raise First Amendment questions.

What does the Supreme Court have to say?

Several of Trump’s moves clash with decades of Supreme Court precedent. One thing is clear: The government cannot constitutionally use funding as a cudgel to control speech outside the funded activity. The funding is supposed to support a specific program or purchase, not give the state control over everything an institution does. The government can, however, decide whether to pay a group or person to speak on its behalf.

For instance, the Supreme Court held the government violated the First Amendment by forcing groups to denounce prostitution or lose funding for fighting HIV/AIDS. It also invalidated a ban on federal funding for public broadcasters who engaged in any editorializing, even with their own money.

Conversely, in Rust v. Sullivan, the Court upheld federal restrictions on abortion counseling in government-funded family planning programs — because Congress was subsidizing and controlling its own message about family planning.

One caveat: The government’s power to regulate speech within a funded activity is not absolute. The Court struck down a restriction on legal aid attorneys using federal grants to challenge welfare laws. Why? Unlike in Rust, the government wasn’t transmitting its own message — it was subsidizing legal aid attorneys’ advocacy on behalf of their indigent clients. Similarly, the University of Virginia — a public institution — violated the First Amendment when it denied a student magazine access to funding because of its religious viewpoint. The fund was for helping students express their own messages, not the university’s.

These same principles apply in other contexts where the government offers a financial benefit. Most Americans would rightly balk at the idea of a public school refusing to hire any Republicans, or a state government offering a tax exemption for Democrats only. Those policies would be plainly unconstitutional.

Trump’s funding restrictions: legal or overreach?

So how do Trump’s actual and proposed funding restrictions fit into this legal framework?

In partially blocking enforcement of Trump’s DEI executive order, a federal court emphasized that it unlawfully limited speech “outside the scope of the federal funding.” That means DOGE’s alleged targeting of HUD contractors for their DEI activities likely violates the First Amendment if those activities have nothing to do with their government work.

As for the “Gulf of America” mandate, the administration may be able to require The Nature Conservancy to use the term in official reports produced for NOAA. But if the mandate goes beyond that, it could also run into First Amendment problems.

And what about the executive order prohibiting use of federal funds to “promote gender ideology”? The only way this passes muster is if it controls the government’s own messaging or concerns non-speech activities, and not, for instance, if the government pulls a university’s funding because it believes a professor is somehow promoting such views. Congress funds universities to support the creation and spread of knowledge, not for faculty to act as government mouthpieces.

Pulling federal funding from colleges based solely on the views of student protests would also violate the First Amendment — and the administration cannot do so unilaterally. It’s one thing for the government to regulate its own speech, but quite another to punish colleges for how students express themselves on their own time. Trump’s statement referred to “illegal” protests, but his past remarks suggest his idea of “illegal” encompasses not just protest activity involving unlawful conduct but protected speech as well, such as whatever he deems “antisemitic propaganda.” This dovetails with how, during his first term, Trump directed civil rights agencies to use a definition of anti-Semitism that includes protected expression.

Efforts to deny federal funding to groups and institutions whose views the current administration dislikes seriously threaten Americans’ First Amendment rights. The government must tread carefully to avoid crossing the line into unconstitutional speech policing, otherwise the courts — and history — are unlikely to be on their side.

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March 7, 2025
Will Trump’s “anti-wokeism” change DEI in Australian universities?
United States President Donald Trump’s first six weeks of his second term has been defined by 76 executive orders, the disestablishment of the national education department and establishment of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

One of the most controversial executive orders, which is a written directive signed by a president that orders immediate governmental action, was titled “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing,” signed on President Trump’s first day back in office on January 20, 2025.

He directed all federal DEI staff be placed on paid leave and, eventually, laid off. He has also signed another Executive Order, titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.”

DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion, and refers to programs and committees that help people from underrepresented backgrounds (women, Indigenous, Black, for instance) get into, and stay in, jobs or courses those people wouldn’t traditionally participate in. It is largely similar to the strategy of the Australian Universities Accord.

President Trump has also cut funding to schools and universities that do not cancel DEI programs. He labelled the programs “radical,” “wasteful” and said they demonstrate “immense public waste and shameful discrimination.”

The full effects of these Executive Orders and DEI changes are yet to be seen because decisions regarding DEI will ultimately be made by the court.

However, private companies in the US have walked away from internal DEI programs, including Meta (which has worked closely with Trump as of late), Google (which provides some services to the US government), Pepsi, Disney and multiple prominent banks.

There has been no significant walk away from DEI in Australian private companies, and many universities continue to discuss how to bolster and “future-proof” internal DEI programs.

Australia’s ambassador to the US from 2020 to 2023, Arthur Sinodinos, told the Universities Australia Solutions Summit last week that institutions are best off making decisions “based off their objectives,” but should enact genuine change, not just tick diversity boxes.

Arthur Sinodinos said DEI should be about achieving true diversity rather than ticking boxes. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“My view on DEI is that [universities should] start from a posture that they want to make the best use of all the talent and resources available to them,” he said.

“If you’re also interested in trying to expand the reach of higher education to groups that might otherwise be disadvantaged, you have to find ways to do that, but in a way that also addresses the genuine issue.

“I think access to higher education is still important for a country like Australia, which has to make – given its population – the best use of the resources it’s got.

“The argument that you can just leave it to the market, the meritocracy will still be there [is wrong]. Frankly, in the market, some people start with a head start with with inbuilt advantages.”

President Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who was also on the panel at the UA summit, said he thinks DEI programs in the US have gone “too far to one side.”

Former Trump White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said he thinks DEI has gone “too far” in the US. Picture: UA

“One of the reasons you’re seeing the pushback against it in my country is that it went too far to one side. I don’t know where it is in this country, but at some point it may go too far, and the pushback will come.”

He also explained why this Trump term is already more action-packed than his first was at this time: the President expected to win in November, 2024, but not in 2016.

“Not only did [Trump] expect to win, [his team has] been working for four years on what they would do when they won,” he said.

“What are we gonna do the first day? The first week, the first month, the first 100 days? Which is why we’re seeing all these executive orders. It’s actually four years worth of planning coming forward.”

Mr Mulvaney said he thinks DEI could survive if its reasoning for existing is communicated in a tailored way.

He said Trump’s administration is receptive to initiatives that improve efficiency, productivity and merit.

“You could have a program that is good on on the climate, [for example,] but that’s not your selling pitch. That doesn’t register with the person you’re talking to,” he explained.

Related stories: “Unis are not Centrelink offices”: Coalition’s pitch to university leaders | Q&A: Bill Shorten talks VC pay cuts and politics in HE | Report card: Accord recommendations 12 months on

“You have to learn how to speak the language of the person you’re talking to. Don’t change what you’re doing, perhaps just simply change how you explain it.”

UA chief executive Luke Sheehy was asked after his National Press Club address last Wednesday whether he thinks an “anti-woke” sentiment will affect how universities function.

Luke Sheehy’s membership body discussed the impact of “Trump 2.0” at last week’s conference. Picture: UA

“Obviously there’s a major disruption that’s happened in America with Trump 2.0 … One of the things we’ve learned is, once articulated in a certain way, positive sentiment skyrockets for universities,” he responded.

“If you offer a simple proposition: we have 4,000 fewer teachers than we need today ,and universities are the only way to get those skilled workers into the workforce to support young people; we need 132,000 more nurses, etc.

“Then remove yourself from what happens on the front pages of newspapers and what occupies political pundits, and think about what the real Australian people need and want from the university sector.

“My hope is that the more we talk about the important role of universities and our core mission in education and research, the more Australians, irrespective of whether or not they went to university or not, they see the value for us as part of our future.”

The university sector’s declining “social license” has been a major topic of discussion of late for university leaders.

There is a growing sentiment that universities, and the knowledge economy, needs to “show” society why they’re worth the funding and enrolments.

“We always have more work to do. In an era where there is declining trust in institutions, I think it’s really important that universities invest in themselves in terms of how they engage with their communities,” Mr Sheehy continued.
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March 5, 2025
Statement on President Trump’s Truth Social post threatening funding cuts for ‘illegal protests’

President Trump posted a message on Truth Social this morning that put social media and college campuses on high alert. He wrote:

Colleges can and should respond to unlawful conduct, but the president does not have unilateral authority to revoke federal funds, even for colleges that allow “illegal” protests.

If a college runs afoul of anti-discrimination laws like Title VI or Title IX, the government may ultimately deny the institution federal funding by taking it to federal court, or via notice to Congress and an administrative hearing. It is not simply a discretionary decision that the president can make.

President Trump also lacks the authority to expel individual students, who are entitled to due process on public college campuses and, almost universally, on private campuses as well.

Today’s message will cast an impermissible chill on student protests about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Paired with President Trump’s 2019 executive order adopting an unconstitutional definition of anti-Semitism, and his January order threatening to deport international students for engaging in protected expression, students will rationally fear punishment for wholly protected political speech.

As FIRE knows too well from our work defending student and faculty rights under the Obama and Biden administrations, threatening schools with the loss of federal funding will result in a crackdown on lawful speech. Schools will censor first and ask questions later.

Even the most controversial political speech is protected by the First Amendment. As the Supreme Court reminds us, in America, we don’t use the law to punish those with whom we disagree. Instead, “[a]s a Nation we have chosen a different course—to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.”

Misconduct or criminality — like true threats, vandalism, or discriminatory harassment, properly defined — is not protected by the First Amendment. In fact, discouraging and punishing such behavior is often vital to ensuring that others are able to peacefully make their voices heard.

However, students who engage in misconduct must still receive due process — whether through a campus or criminal tribunal. This requires fair, consistent application of existing law or policy, in a manner that respects students’ rights.

President Trump needs to stand by his past promise to be a champion for free expression. That means doing so for all views — including those his administration dislikes.

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March 4, 2025
‘Inaccurate and misleading’: Democrat AGs push back against Trump’s DEI executive order
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Dive Brief:
- Diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility best practices are not illegal, said Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell and Illinois AG Kwame Raoul, in a multi-state DEIA at work guidance.
- In the Feb. 13 letter, the AGs said the federal government lacks the power to issue executive orders that prohibit “otherwise lawful activities in the private sector or mandates the wholesale removal of these policies and practices within private organizations, including those that receive federal contracts and grants.”
- The AGs of Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont joined in issuing the guidance.
Dive Insight:

The letter came as a response to constituent concerns about the continued viability of DEIA, the AGs said, mainly in light of President Donald Trump’s executive orders.

The primary EO in question, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” includes a directive that “order[s] all agencies to enforce our longstanding civil-rights laws and to combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.”

The executive order alleges that colleges, along with other organizations, have “adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called … ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.’”

Campbell and Raoul said the order “conflates unlawful preferences in hiring and promotion with sound and lawful best practices for promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the workforce.”

It’s “inaccurate and misleading,” they said. On Feb. 21, a federal judge for the U.S. District Court of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction, partially blocking Trump’s executive order targeting the public and private sectors.

While the judge did not prevent the U.S. Department of Justice from proceeding with its investigation of private-sector DEI programs, Judge Adam Abelson held that the plaintiffs would likely succeed with their First and Fifth amendment claims, as well as claims alleging violations of the separation of powers clause.

Prior to the most recent guidance, Democrat attorney generals have made it their priority to speak up about DEI: Last summer, the AGs defended the American Bar Association’s diversity requirements for law schools.

More recently, the Democrat AGs said that the U.S. is “on the brink of dictatorship” due to Trump’s executive orders challenging the scope of the Constitution.

A key takeaway for HR? “Properly developed and implemented initiatives aimed at ensuring that diverse perspectives are included in the workplace help prevent unlawful discrimination,” the AGs said.
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February 27, 2025
Trump’s idea of peace in Gaza? Hotels and yacht clubs.

U.S. President Donald Trump views Israel’s war on Gaza through the eyes of the real estate developer he was before he entered politics.

“We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal,” he said at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 4 February. “And I don’t want to be cute. I don’t want to be a wise guy. But the Riviera of the Middle East.”

He was talking about the possibility of forcing 2.2 million Palestinians from Gaza to make place for “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

Elaborating the idea in social media posts and interviews, the U.S. president left no doubt that he saw one of the world’s most complex problems — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — as a real estate deal.

Trump explained that the United States could take over Gaza, a place where tens of thousands of people have been killed by Israeli air strikes and ground troops over the past 16 months.

Taking ownership of the conflict

Israel has pummelled Gaza ever since 7 October 2024 when gunmen from the militant Hamas group stormed across the border, killed 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250 people hostage.

“I do see a long-term ownership position and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East and maybe the entire Middle East,” Trump said. “We’re going to take over that piece and we’re going to develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs. And it will be something that the entire Middle East can be very proud of.”

To make that possible, the people now living in the future Riviera must leave, possibly to neighbouring Jordan or Egypt, he said.

Leaders of both countries have rejected that idea, as has the Arab League, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres and a host of human rights groups.

Conspicuously absent from statements by Trump and officials of his administration was the matter of international law.

The thorny issue of international law

The forced deportation of civilians is prohibited by an array of provisions of the Geneva Conventions which the United States has ratified.

Forced deportation has been considered a war crime ever since the Nuremberg Trial of Nazi officials.

The International Criminal Court lists the kind of forcible population transfer visualized by Trump’s Riviera of the Middle East plan as both a war crime and a crime against humanity. (The United States is not a member of the court because it never ratified the Rome Statute on the court’s establishment).

The legal and geo-political arguments triggered by Trump’s controversial proposal often leave out the collective trauma that shapes the Palestinians’ national identity and political aspirations.

That trauma dates back to the violence preceding the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, more than 50 years after an Austrian Jew, Theodor Herzl, published a book (Der Judenstaat) that inspired the Zionist movement.

A history of forced expulsion

An estimated 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from what is now Israel during the war between Zionist paramilitary fighters of the Haganah, the forerunners of today’s Israeli Defence Force, and regular soldiers of six Arab countries.

Palestinians call that forced exodus the Naqba (the catastrophe). At the time, many expected to return to their homes once the fighting was over.

A resolution by the U.N. General Assembly seven months after the formal establishment of Israel provided for a right of return for those who fled. A General Assembly resolution in 1974 declared the right to return an “inalienable right.”

Like all General Assembly resolutions, the 1948 vote was not binding, but it was explicit: “Refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest possible date and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return…”

Neither happened but the concept that those who left had a right to return has lived on for four generations, with hopes fading gradually but not entirely. There are still families who keep as heirlooms keys to the houses they fled in the turmoil of the Naqba.

How history plays out today

This history helps explain why today’s Palestinians in Gaza take seriously Trump’s proposal to resettle them all and their fear that any resettlement would result in permanent exile.

Trump’s “Riviera” proposal came as a surprise, apparently even to Netanyahu who stood next to him at the press conference. But it appears to have been a subject of discussion inside the Trump family for some time.

At an event at Harvard university in February 2024, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, mused about the untapped value of the Gaza strip and its beautiful beaches. “Gaza’s waterfront property, it could be very valuable, if people would focus on building up livelihoods,” Kushner said.

He did not specify which people would do the building but his father-in-law appears to be determined that it would not be the people now living there.

Who, then? It’s one of many questions yet to be answered in the era of Trump 2.0.

Questions to consider:

• What is one problem Trump will have if he wants the United States to take over Gaza?

• Why do many Palestinians take Trump’s threat of relocation seriously?

• What makes the idea that people have the right to return to homes their ancestors were force out of complicated?

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February 24, 2025