American court ruling
Teachers and students must be protected from Trump
Americans protest Trump's policies at the No Kings March in October 2025. Photo: Fibonacci Blue / Flickr
President Trump is an autocrat who demands absolute obedience from his officials, said William G. Young, a Boston judge in a case involving five students who were imprisoned or deported.
The judge had already ruled that the Trump administration violated the students' freedom of speech. Now, several news outlets report that Young is demanding additional protections from the government for a large group of university students and lecturers.
Arbitrary
Last year, the American government suddenly invalidated over 1,800 student visas on the grounds of alleged anti-Semitism. Even students with permanent residence permits were not safe, as the much-discussed case of Mahmoud Khalil showed. He was arrested due to his pro-Palestinian activism.
The Trump administration has been prosecuting or deporting its opponents. There also seems to be a great deal of arbitrariness at play: for example, in the way he imposes his will on universities. Many lawsuits have been filed against the government in this regard.
Reversal
The only solution that Young can see is to reverse the procedure: if the government wants to deport a specific group of students or teachers, it must first go to court to prove that it is not doing so in retaliation for an opinion they have expressed.
This protection only applies to members of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), the two parties that filed the lawsuit alongside the five students.
The associations asked the judge to protect all students and lecturers, but he informed the organisations on Thursday that he could not do that. Last year, the Supreme Court drastically restricted the power of lower courts to block national policy.
Reagan
According to The New York Times, the 85-year-old judge called this the most important case of his career. Young was appointed in the 1980s by then-President Ronald Reagan, from whom Trump borrowed the slogan Make America Great Again. Young will issue his ruling in writing in a few days.
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