Trump stated on Truth Social on March 4 that federal funding would be pulled from educational institutions that “allow illegal protests.”
Credit: Jean Park1968 Wharton graduate and President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he would pull federal funding from educational institutions that “allow illegal protests” in a Truth Social post.
In the March 4 post, Trump said that non-citizen student protesters who participate in “illegal protests” would be imprisoned or deported and promised to expel or arrest American student protesters. The announcement comes following a January executive order directing federal agencies to identify and deport non-citizen participants — including college students — in pro-Palestinian protests.
Trump did not clarify what classifies a protest as “illegal.” A request for comment was left with a University spokesperson.
In a statement on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression — a nonprofit aimed at protecting free speech on college campuses — called the message “deeply chilling.”
“Today’s message will cast an impermissible chill on student protests about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the group wrote. “President Trump needs to stand by his past promise to be a champion for free expression. That means for all views — including those his administration dislikes.”
MRMJJ Presidential Professor at the Graduate School of Education and free speech expert Sigal Ben-Porath told The Daily Pennsylvanian that she found the ambiguity in Trump’s labeling of certain protests as illegal to be “worrisome.”
“My real concern here is that there could be no clarity,” she said. “If you, as a student, don’t have clarity about what would qualify as illegal, and you would like to protest something … how do you do that?”
Ben-Porath added that she believes the best course of action for Penn to take would be to “wait for further guidance,” as the process for implementing Trump’s order is not immediately clear.
“Typically, public universities and colleges are subject to the First Amendment in stricter ways than private universities,” Ben-Porath said. “But when the statement is that you will lose your federal funding … [they] are basically in the same boat.”
Trump’s message comes days after the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, and the General Services Administration announced that they would begin a comprehensive review of Columbia University’s federal grants and contracts in response to the “relentless harassment of Jewish students” on campus.
According to HHS, the review has prompted consideration of stop-work orders for $51.4 million in federal funding.
On Feb. 28, the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced that it would visit 10 higher education institutions that have “experienced antisemitic incidents” since October 2023. Penn was not on the task force’s list of campuses.
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