Media Round-Up: Palestine Legal on the incoming Trump admin's potential crackdown on Palestine activism

With reports that the incoming Trump administration is plotting a crackdown on pro-Palestine protests, ranging from federal prosecution of campus demonstrators to deporting international student protesters, several media outlets have reached out to Palestine Legal for comment.

Our view is that Trump is in fact poised to escalate repression of the movement and undermine our constitutional rights to speak out and organize — with many of the same tools that he will inherit from the Biden administration and its unwavering support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

In the last 14 months of ongoing genocide, these tools of repression have included surveillance, arrests, criminal charges, lawsuits, false definitions of antisemitism that prevent criticism of Israel, McCarthyite congressional hearings, and weaponizing civil rights laws in an attempt to threaten university funding.

The Trump administration may further weaponize and abuse counterterrorism, hate speech, immigration, and anti-mafia/organized crime laws to get around our First Amendment rights to express political views, associate with each other, and criticize the U.S. government.

However, what may be most concerning is how Trump’s presidency will harm the people in Gaza on whose behalf we protest in the first place. “How aggressively Israel is engaging in genocide also impacts the climate here for activists, who are increasingly desperate to try to save people’s lives,” our staff attorney Zoha Khalili said.

In the coming months and years, there will be “so many fires on so many fronts, and it will create situations where people and movements might be willing to let go of one thing in order to save another,” said our founder and executive director Dima Khalidi. In this environment of constant attacks, we will need to resist “efforts to divide us, not just within movements, but across movements.”

Below is a media roundup of the top 7 stories about the potential Trump crackdown on the Palestine movement featuring Palestine Legal from outlets including AJ+, Drop Site News, The Guardian, The Hill, Jewish Currents, Mother Jones, and Middle East Eye.

Drop Site News

Project 2025 Creators Have a Plan to 'Dismantle' Pro-Palestine Movement | Oct 29

“The architects of Project 2025 at the conservative Heritage Foundation have drafted a plan to break the pro-Palestinian movement in the U.S., in anticipation of a victory by Donald Trump victory in next week’s presidential election.

…‘People have the right under the First Amendment to express political views, associate with each other, and criticize the U.S. government,’ [Dylan Saba, a staff attorney at the legal advocacy organization Palestine Legal] added. ‘If you find that politically threatening and dislike it, you need to come up with a way to do an end-run around the First Amendment. The end -run that they have crafted for themselves are counterterrorism and material support laws.’”

Mother Jones

The Plan to Silence Dissent | Nov 15

“Much attention has been paid to the president-elect’s planned crusades for his next term against immigrants and transgender people. But less discussed has been another group on the list: protesters. Building off the bipartisan crackdown on anti-war student dissent last year, Trump has made clear he hopes to discipline, and potentially prosecute, civil disobedience with increased force.

Attorney Zoha Khalili at Palestine Legal, an organization that has spent the past decade providing legal advice and support to Palestinian-rights activists, said Trump’s election gives universities a chance to change their role.

‘[Now] it’s one of those situations where, you know, universities who have been repressing student activism might also now find themselves in this position where they have to care a bit more about their students,’ Khalili said. ‘Because of the values that they claim to uphold—wanting diversity, not wanting to have their students deported for political purposes.’

‘How aggressively Israel is engaging in genocide also impacts the climate here for activists, who are increasingly desperate to try to save people’s lives,’ Khalili said.”

Jewish Currents

The Civil Rights Law Shutting Down Pro-Palestine Speech | Nov 15

“Kenneth Marcus, the former head of OCR under Trump, predicted the new Trump administration would ‘take much more seriously the prospect of denying federal funds to colleges and universities that violate the rights of Jewish and other college students’—a policy that could effectively make federal educational funding contingent on repression of pro-Palestine protests.

Under a Republican trifecta, [Palestine Legal senior staff attorney Radhika Sainath] said, this consensus stands to become formalized in the realm of education, and ‘Title VI could become the Trojan Horse to codify the notion that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.’”

The Hill

Student protesters face potential Trump crackdown | Nov 17

“Those on campus have already seen stricter rules around demonstrations this academic year, but President-elect Trump, as a candidate, threatened protesters with everything from military action to deportation.  

‘In his last administration, he did appoint Kenneth Marcus, who pioneered the strategy of misusing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to try to censor speech critical of Israel on college campuses,’ said Radhika Sainath, senior staff attorney with Palestine Legal. 

‘So, I do think that there is a very, very strong possibility that he will appoint people who are looking to quash the movement for Palestinian rights, either by redefining or using definitions of antisemitism that make it impossible to criticize Israel,’ Sainath added.” 

The Guardian

Trump Likely to Use Antisemitism Claims to Launch Crackdown on US Universities | Nov 18

“Free speech advocates warn of an impending crackdown following a year in which public pressure and congressional hearings have already led to the resignation of several university presidents, the disciplining of faculty and students, and thousands of arrests.

‘We’ll see more of that, unfortunately, and more direct attempts to pressure universities to squash protests, more of these McCarthyite hearings, more threats to pull school funding,’ Radhika Sainath, a senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, a group that has sued several universities over the suppression of pro-Palestine speech, told the Guardian.”

AJ+

Trump Will Only Accelerate Biden's Activist Suppression | Nov 20

“President-elect Donald Trump says he plans to deport pro-Palestinian student activists and could potentially use anti-terrorism and anti-mafia laws against the movement. But Dima Khalidi, the founder of Palestine Legal, says the Biden administration laid the foundation for his repressive policies.”

Middle East Eye

Renewed crackdown on free speech aims to overwhelm US student protests | Nov 29

“The IHRA definition has sparked heated debates, with advocates arguing it is necessary to protect Jewish students from discrimination, while opponents contend that it silences legitimate criticism of Israeli policy. 
 
Tori Porell, an attorney with Palestine Legal, described how the Trump administration could weaponise this to undermine student activism.

‘So far, Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students have been able to rely on the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights to investigate discrimination,’ Porell said. ‘But I think those investigations would look very different under a Trump administration.’”