Opinion America, now the land of ‘unfreedom’

The reign of unfreedom and the logic of “nuance”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) justified Ozturk’s arrest, saying that she was “engaged in activities in support of Hamas.” For the US and most Western states, Hamas is a “terrorist,” not a resistance, organisation. According to Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, Ozturk’s activities would have threatened “US foreign policy interest.”

The real reason seems different. In a 2024 article co-authored with Fatima Rahman, Genesis Perez and Nicholas Ambeliotis and published in The Tufts Daily, Ozturk pleaded for justice for Palestinians. Recognising “the equal dignity and humanity of all people,” the article demanded that “the University acknowledge[d] the Palestinian genocide.” Two other demands were: a) TU divested from companies linked to Israel, and b) boycott of Sabra products in the cafeteria due to its co-owner’s (the Strauss Group) support of the Israeli military.

Rather than respecting the resolutions democratically passed after long deliberation by students, Sunil Kumar, TU’s president born and educated in India, dismissed them. Kumar felt “disappointed that a majority voted to pass… [the] resolutions.” Instead of facing students’ demands, Kumar resolved to “educate” them about “nuanced understanding.” In his paper F**k Nuance, sociologist Kieran Healey argues that when thinking demands that “we commit to some defeasible claim,” the (il)logic of “nuance” is fired. Kumar’s response amply illustrates this.

What future historians may describe as an insignia of intellect and robust moral activism, Ozturk’s co-authored article demanded that Kumar “apologise[d]” for his failure to “actualise the resolutions.” Rather than recognising the Israeli attack, Kumar wrote about enhancing “training on stopping antisemitism.” Kumar’s reaction to Ozturk’s arrest is itself arresting. In his opinion, her arrest “will be distressing [only] to some.”

Obviously, Ozturk is one among several targets of the current crackdown. And the targeted are not only from the Middle East. For example, Yunseo Chung, a Korean student at Columbia University was detained for participating in a pro-Palestine protest. Fearing her detention after her visa was revoked, Ranjani Srinivasan, another Columbia student and an Indian citizen, self-deported to Canada. They were charged with “advocating for violence and terrorism.” According to Srinivasan, however, they had lent “online support for Palestine”.

Need for fellowships to scholars threatened in West

The detention of Mahmoud Khalil, an Algerian citizen with roots in Palestine, is directly pertinent to my argument. A leading figure in the encampment movement at Columbia, ICE arrested him because his activism was akin “to antisemitic support for Hamas.” In a letter drafted during his detention, Khalil, who is married to a US citizen, asserted his Palestinian identity. He wrote: “My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine… With January’s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. … I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear.”

It is evident that his unjust detention is a direct result of his “right to free speech.” The “land of the free” is packed with cases of too many suppressions of free speech. In the summer of 1956, W E B Du Bois (1868–1963), a towering Black intellectual now recognised as a founder of American sociology, was banned from attending a conference in Paris. Du Bois remarked: “Any American Negro travelling abroad today must either not care about Negroes or say what the State Department wishes him to say.” Decades before the ban against Du Bois, displaying a crooked idea of free speech, in 1927 The Atlantic Monthly ran a debate titled: “Can a Catholic Be [America’s] President?”

The frightening cases of intellectuals languishing in detention simply because they either wrote or spoke in favour of justice impact not only young ones such as Ozturk and Khalil. They differently impact tenured professors too. Jason Stanley, a philosophy professor at Yale University and a scholar of fascism, decided to leave the US for Canada, as he predicted America’s turning into a “dictatorship.”

Though the current crackdown against free speech in favour of Palestinians –– rationalised under the bogey of antisemitism –– is fierce in the US, it didn’t begin there — nor is Donald Trump its initiator. This “honour,” writes Sindre Bangstad, a Norwegian anthropologist and a prominent voice of critical thought, goes to the British Minister, Gavin Williamson, “who threatened British universities with severe budget cuts” if they did not adopt the 2016 working definition of antisemitism by International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Notably, 43 countries have adopted its definition. Aimed at disarming and stigmatising scholars speaking for the Palestinian cause, Bangstad notes how the IHRA misleadingly equates antisemitism with pro-Palestinian activism. Critical Jewish scholars too have been targeted. For example, UK’s professor Rebecca Gould was charged with antisemitism.

The cases of scholars working in Euro-America and exercising their right to free speech being fired, deported, and detained will likely increase. In some ways, this phenomenon is new. Euro-America has schemes and fellowships for “threatened scholars” and “scholars at risk.” For example, the Washington-based Wilson Center has a programme for threatened scholars whose “research and actions have challenged their countries’ authoritarian regimes” or who are from conflict-ridden countries. In its report, “Free to Think,” which lists attacks on higher education communities in 65 countries between 2011 and 2015, nearly all documented by “Scholars at Risk” (based at New York University) are in the non-West. The New York-based “Scholar Rescue Fund” lists Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan and Yemen as “top countries” from where scholars received their 2025 fellowships.

In contrast, the cases of Ozturk, Khalil, Stanley, Gold and many more who are threatened as scholars in the West pose an enormous question: Has the non-West envisioned any programme of fellowships for scholars threatened in and by the West? Importantly, how can we actualise such programmes with a genuine commitment to democracy, free speech and critical thinking?

The writer is a political anthropologist and Professor of Sociology at Ibn Haldun University, Türkiye