Over the last few months, MESA has been building out the Academic Freedom Initiative (AFI), a project funded by the Mellon Foundation to identify and track trends regarding academic freedom and repression on campuses across North America. Since starting the initiative in February, our research priorities have been to document recent mass immigration enforcement and incidents of employment retaliation on campuses, with upcoming projects focused on tracking litigation among other efforts.
Tracking Higher Education Immigration Enforcement
We have built a database to track the Trump administration’s recent campaign to revoke the visas and terminate the immigration records of thousands of students and scholars across the U.S. Although the Department of Justice announced its intention to reverse these moves on April 25, these measures, along with the numerous cases of individuals currently detained or deported, have created a lasting sense of fear across campuses in recent weeks. It is not yet clear that the government has indeed changed course, or that there have been reversals in all cases where visas were already revoked. Moreover, universities’ inability to properly protect or inform their communities has exacerbated this panic.
We have therefore continued to track all visa revocations and immigration record terminations, entry denials, deportations, and detentions of university students, faculty, and staff to comprehensively record and analyze such changes on campuses. Sourcing from open-access data such as court filings and media reports, we have also collaborated with individuals at allied organizations to corroborate our data for accuracy and completion. To date, we have identified 1,708 total cases.
More than half of the affected individuals were current students (975 out of 1,708), while 250 were recent alumni on temporary employment status.
In 478 cases, we have been able to identify affected individuals by name, citizenship, or immigration status.
From this data, we have identified multiple patterns.
Out of more than 200 universities and colleges with reported cases, over 65 percent of cases were reported from public institutions.
We have also identified a demonstrated national origin pattern across the dataset. Out of the cases where citizenship is known, the affected individuals held citizenship from more than 25 countries. Yet, less than 2 percent of these cases involved European citizenship. The overwhelming majority—over 98 percent of cases for which country of citizenship is known—are nationals of countries in the Global South.
We also have reason to believe the reversals are a prelude to further targeting of vulnerable individuals.
Academic Freedom and Employment Retaliation Database
In addition to higher education immigration, we have created a database that tracks all adverse employment outcomes for university employees who have advocated for Palestine since October 2023.
Thus far, we have identified the following incidents of employment retaliation:
Incidents of Retaliation | |
Suspensions | 27 |
Terminations | 13 |
Forced resignations | 3 |
Rescinded offers | 2 |
Removals from service positions | 2 |
Miscellaneous | 14 |
Total # of incidents of retaliation | 61 |
Individual Data | |
Tenured faculty | 24 |
Tenure-track faculty | 9 |
Non-tenure track faculty | 22 |
Staff | 4 |
Total # of individuals affected | 59 |
Institutional Data | |
Public universities | 16 |
Private universities | 21 |
Total # of universities | 37 |
Future Research Directions
As new policies continue to emerge, our next area of research will focus on legal actions and lawsuits brought under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to track major cases of lawfare concerning Palestinian advocacy within academia. We will build out a new database to capture Title VI litigation since October 2023, to be launched over the summer.
Across the country, universities and colleges remain under attack. Threats to immigration status, funding opportunities and employment, and to First Amendment protections including academic freedom continue to grow.
MESA will continue to develop our research initiative to address these concerns. Our research will be centralized on a publicly accessible website to be launched before the end of the year. In doing so, we will ensure our data is available to our membership and to the public. In addition to our findings, the new standalone website will house resources that are currently located in the MESA Advocacy Resource Center.
As we face continual threats of censorship, and repression, MESA is committed to defending academic freedom and free speech tenaciously, to document the range of experiences affecting our membership and our field, to encourage campuses to protect their communities, and to provide anticipatory support to all affected.