A group of 27 Jewish organizations and synagogues have filed an amicus brief voicing their support for Rümeysa Öztürk, the detained Tufts University doctoral student, the latest in a string of Jewish voices objecting to her arrest.
The brief calls antisemitism a “persistent scourge” and says that fighting it is “laudable,” but adds, “arresting, detaining, and potentially deporting Öztürk does not assist in eradicating antisemitism.”
It continues, “The government instead appears to be exploiting Jewish Americans’ legitimate concerns about antisemitism as pretext for undermining core pillars of American democracy, the rule of law, and the fundamental rights of free speech and academic debate on which this nation was built.”.
Öztürk, a Turkish national and fifth-year doctoral student at Tufts, was arrested by ICE last month while walking on the street. Öztürk had written an op-ed accusing Israel of genocide, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio Rubio defended her detention by arguing that she was a part of a student protest that was “creating a ruckus” and harassing students on campus.
Her detainment was one of a string arrests of pro-Palestinian activists on college campuses, including Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University who is set to have a pivotal court hearing Friday.
The Trump administration has also frozen hundreds of millions of dollars of funding from a string of elite universities. Hundreds of student visas have also been revoked; in many cases the administration has cited the international students’ pro-Palestinian activities and said the actions are part of its fight against antisemitism.
Jewish groups have increasingly voiced concerns about the campus crackdown and its implications for civil liberties. Öztürk’s arrest in particular has sparked objections, including from a pro-Israel student group at Tufts.
The amicus brief said the Trump administration’s crackdown on antisemitism on campuses recalled authoritarian regimes its signatories’ ancestors had left behind.
“To watch state authorities undermine the same fundamental rights that empowered so many Jewish Americans is chilling; to know it is being done in the name of the Jewish people is profoundly disturbing,” the brief stated.
Signatories included a range of liberal and progressive Jewish organizations, including the liberal Israel lobby J Street, the liberal rabbinic human rights group T’ruah, the progressive Jewish group Bend the Arc, the Jewish LGBTQ group Keshet, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association and congregations in New York City, Los Angeles, the Boston area, San Francisco and Washington D.C.
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