The following is a template letter — use (or adapt) if you can:
Dear UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT:
We, the undersigned urge you in the strongest terms not to cave in to the demands of the Trump administration with respect to “remediation” for purported violations of federal civil rights law during the 2024 campus protests against Israeli actions in Gaza. These actions by the Trump administration amount to extortion under the pretense of combatting antisemitism, and a continuation of their campaign to silence dissent and control the free discourse that is enshrined in the Constitution. The Trump extortion ploy against universities is just a part of their broader effort to control speech that has included ideological vetting of exhibits at national parks and at the Smithsonian museums, detention and attempted deportation of individuals voicing opposition to Trump policies, firing of longtime and dedicated civil servants and removing agency data that contradict the Administration’s declared truths, and the defunding and intimidation of media organizations that disseminate facts contrary to Trump’s preferred story-line. This is flatly un-American, and the stuff of tyrants.
It is important to emphasize that we fully support true efforts to fight antisemitism, but find the Trump administration’s use of that pretext cynical and without any credibility. If Trump were truly interested in addressing antisemitism, he would not have entertained known antisemites at his home for dinner, used antisemitic tropes in public on multiple occasions, curtailed or eliminated programs intended to fight far-right extremism, and voiced support for right-wing and antisemitic protesters in Charlottesville Virginia, among other actions. In that spirit, where Jewish or Israeli-American students have in fact been threatened or felt threatened, there are many remedies and actions that can be pursued that do not simultaneously demonize or penalize those peacefully exercising their rights to speak and to protest.
Moreover, protesting the abhorrent actions of the Netanyahu government in Gaza, where at least 60,000 people have now been killed and where Israel has mounted an enforced starvation campaign, is not in any way antisemitism. Protesting right-wing settler violence against Palestinian residents in the West Bank is not antisemitism. Such protests, in our view, are not only in line with a long tradition of Jewish activism for social justice, but are protests against policies and attitudes that will never bring peace to Israel or security to the Jewish people, in Israel or here in the U.S. Students had, and have, every right to engage in such protests without being accused of antisemitism, and you, as President of this venerable and prestigious university, should not allow the Trump administration to play this dictator’s game. It is wrong. It is cowardly. We must be better than that.
Do not let this university be yet another domino in a concerted campaign to quash the basic rights and freedoms that actually do make America great. That is how autocrats and dictators consolidate power. We entreat you, again, not to submit to this naked power ploy.
Signed (ADD HERE)