Muslim students react to Trump campus detentions
(RNS) — A journalism student studying for her master’s degree at Columbia University, a young woman who asked to be identified simply as Elena, expected to be pushed by her professors to vigorously report the news on campus and beyond. But after fellow Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on March 8, despite having a green card, her professors have warned Elena, and others like her who are in the country on student visas, not to report on Khalil’s case for safety reasons. “[Our professors] are trying really hard to allow us to do our own jobs, but this is new territory,” Elena told me. “The J-school told us this for our own safety, and those of us who are here on visas are scared.” Acknowledging the bizarre limbo that journalism students like Elena are caught in, adjunct professor of media law Stuart Karle urged students to “exercise more caution while reporting.” Khalil, who has not been charged with any crime, is at the center of a firestorm over the …
