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On a scorching Friday afternoon at L.A. Valley College, Loyola and Harvard-Westlake High tennis players gathered for a moment of silence wearing T-shirts that read “Live Like Braun,” in honor of Loyola captain Braun Levi, who was killed last weekend in Manhattan Beach while walking on a street.

A 33-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and homicide.

Loyola players decided after much reflection and mourning to play Friday’s Southern Section Open Division playoff match against Harvard-Westlake.

“We want to play for Braun,” coach Brian Held said.

A moment of silence was held. Levi’s mother, Jennifer, was there receiving hugs and support.

All week at Loyola, students have been supporting each other trying to heal. A celebration of Levi’s life will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday at Loyola.

In an email, Sylvia Almanzan, the grandmother of a Loyola student, wrote, “The Loyola faculty has been amazing during this time of providing counselors and support not only to the students but families as well. I just wanted to state how this remarkable young man touched so many lives especially my grandson’s in such a positive way.”

Levi’s doubles partner, Cooper Schwartz, was originally not going to play on Friday as a way to not tarnish his memory winning the Mission League title with Levi. He changed his mind and played with a new partner. They won their matches 7-5, 7-6 and 6-4 and on match points, Schwartz used Levi’s racket.

Harvard-Westlake won the match 14-4 to advance.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].

May 9 (UPI) — Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts University doctoral student grabbed by ICE in Massachusetts and imprisoned in Louisiana, was granted bail from ICE detention Friday.

U.S. District Judge William Sessions said at the end of the hearing that Ozturk raised “very substantial” and “very significant” claims of First Amendment and due process rights violations in her case.

He said her detention cannot stand.

Sessions said, “Ozturk is free to return to her home in Massachusetts. She’s also free to travel to Massachusetts and Vermont as she sees fit, and I am not going to put a travel restriction on her, because, frankly, I don’t find that she poses any risk of flight.”

The judge ordered the government to immediately release her.

Ozturk began coughing at one point during the hearing and she rushed out of the room to get her inhaler. She attended the hearing virtually.

A defense lawyer had urged the judge to grant immediate bail, telling him Ozturk faces “significant health risks” if she stays in ICE custody.

The 2nd Circuit’s U.S. Court of Appeals had ordered Wednesday that she be transferred back to Vermont.

Her student visa was revoked immediately and she was taken into custody by armed masked agents without warning March 25 in Somerset, Mass., after she co-wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper.

She was imprisoned in a Louisiana detention center afterward. Tufts University demanded her release “without delay.”

Ozturk is a Turkish national and was legally studying in the United States until the Trump administration’s State Department abruptly revoked her visa without prior notification.

Ozturk attorney Mahsa Khanbani said she was targeted for her pro-Palestinian views expressed in the student newspaper op-ed.

Trump administration prosecutors charge without evidence that Ozturk supported Hamas.

Before Ozturk’s release was ordered, her defense lawyers said she has not been charged with any crime and maintained that her detention violated constitutional free speech and due process rights.

President Donald Trump said May 4 during an NBC News interview he was not sure immigrants are entitled to due process rights.

Asked to respond to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio‘s comment that every person in the United States is entitled to due process, Trump replied, “I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.”

A federal judge in Vermont on Friday released a Turkish Tufts University student detained in a Louisiana immigration center more than six weeks after she was arrested while walking along a street in a Boston suburb, allowing her to return to her studies.

U.S. District Judge William Sessions in Burlington released Rumeysa Ozturk pending a final decision on her claim that she’s been illegally detained following an op-ed she co-wrote last year that criticized the school’s response to Israel’s war in Gaza.

Her immigration proceedings in Louisiana also will continue separately.

Ozturk detailed her growing asthma attacks in detention and her desire to finish her doctorate degree focusing on children and social media while appearing remotely at her bail hearing from the Louisiana center. She and her lawyer hugged after hearing the judge’s decision on Friday.

“Completing my PhD is very important to me,” she said. She had been on track to finish her work in December when she was arrested.

Lawyers for Ozturk, 30, said her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process.

Ozturk was to be released on her own recognizance with no travel restrictions, Sessions said. He said she is not a danger to the community or a flight risk, but that he might amend his release order to consider any specific conditions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in consultation with her lawyers.

He said he didn’t think electronic monitoring would be in order, and that she would also have at least monthly contact with a staffer of the Burlington Community Justice Center to report on how she’s doing, and her current and future plans.

The idea is for her to try to reintegrate into her community “after what has been a very traumatic event and incident,” Sessions said.

“This is a woman who is just totally committed to her academic career,” Sessions said. “This is someone who probably doesn’t have a whole lot of other things going on other than reaching out to other members of the community in a caring and compassionate way.”

He said the government has not offered additional evidence: “There is no evidence here as to the motivation absent consideration of the op-ed.”

A message seeking comment was emailed Friday afternoon to the U.S. Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review.

Sessions told Acting U.S. Atty. Michael Drescher that he wants to know immediately when she is released.

Sessions said Ozturk raised serious concerns about her 1st Amendment and due process rights, as well as her health.

Ozturk on Friday said the first of 12 asthma attacks came on at the Atlanta airport while she was waiting to be taken to Louisiana. The attack was severe, and she did not have all her medications.

“I was afraid, and I was crying,” she said.

A doctor who spoke with Ozturk said her condition could worsen if she is left in detention and could require emergency care.

The U.S. Justice Department said an immigration court in Louisiana, which is conducting separate removal proceedings regarding Ozturk, has jurisdiction over her case.

Sessions ordered Ozturk’s transfer to Vermont, where she was last confined before she was taken to Louisiana. The government requested a delay, but a federal appeals court upheld his decision Wednesday, ordering Ozturk to be transferred to ICE custody in Vermont no later than May 14.

Ozturk waived her right to appear in court in person, agreeing to move on with the hearing and participate remotely.

Immigration officials surrounded Ozturk in Massachusetts on March 25 and drove her to New Hampshire and Vermont before putting her on a plane to a detention center in Basile, La. Her student visa had been revoked several days earlier, but she was not informed of that, her lawyers said.

Ozturk’s lawyers first filed a petition on her behalf in Massachusetts, but they did not know where she was and were unable to speak to her until more than 24 hours after she was detained. A Massachusetts judge later transferred the case to Vermont.

Ozturk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper, the Tufts Daily, last year criticizing the university’s response to student activists demanding that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel.

Ozturk said Friday that if she is released, Tufts would offer her housing and her lawyers and friends would drive her to future court hearings.

“I will follow all the rules,” she said.

A State Department memo said Ozturk’s visa was revoked following an assessment that her actions ” ‘may undermine U.S. foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization’ including co-authoring an op-ed that found common cause with an organization that was later temporarily banned from campus.”

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in March, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.

“When did speaking up against oppression become a crime? When did speaking up against genocide become something to be imprisoned for?” said Mahsa Khanbabai, one of Ozturk’s attorneys. “I am thankful that the courts have been ruling in favor of detained political prisoners, like Rumeysa.”

McCormack writes for the Associated Press. Associated Press writer Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., contributed to this report.

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University doctoral student detained as part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestine visa holders, has been ordered to be released from immigration custody.

On Friday, Vermont-based US District Judge William Sessions ruled that Ozturk’s “detention cannot stand”.

“The court finds that she does not pose a danger to the community, nor does she present a risk of flight. The court orders the government to release Ms Ozturk from custody immediately,” Sessions said.

Lawyers for Ozturk, a Turkish citizen in the US on a student visa, had argued that the Trump administration’s efforts to detain and deport her violated her constitutional rights, including to free speech and due process.

Sessions appeared to side with the legal team’s argument, saying Ozturk’s “continued detention potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of individuals in this country who are not citizens”.

Ozturk’s lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, said in a statement she was “relieved and ecstatic” about the judge’s order but that it came far too late.

“When did speaking up against oppression become a crime? When did speaking up against genocide become something to be imprisoned for?” she said.

The 30-year-old Ozturk had appeared at the Vermont hearing via video from a detention centre in Louisiana, wearing an orange jumpsuit and a hijab.

During her testimony, she recounted being surrounded and detained by plain-clothed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents near her student housing in Somerville, Massachusetts, on March 25. Surveillance video of that incident later spread online, sparking outrage.

She said she suffered a series of asthma attacks, 12 in total, as she was being transferred to Louisiana. The first came at the airport in Atlanta, she said, and she did not have all of the medication she needed.

“I was afraid, and I was crying,” she said.

The doctoral student told the judge her studies related to community engagement in children in warzones. She was among dozens of student visa holders and permanent residents targeted by the Trump administration for pro-Palestine advocacy.

The administration has relied on an obscure provision of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows the secretary of state to deport someone deemed to “adversely affect US foreign policy interests”.

Officials have broadly portrayed pro-Palestinian protests and other forms of advocacy as “anti-Semitic”, despite providing scant evidence in individual cases.

Still, Ozturk’s detention has been notable given her relatively low public profile, with her only public advocacy coming in the form of an article she co-wrote with three other students for the campus newspaper. The piece criticised the university’s response to student-led calls for administrators to acknowledge “Palestinian genocide” and “disclose its investments and divest from companies” with links to Israel.

Speaking at Friday’s hearings, Ozturk said Tufts would provide her housing if she is released, and her friends and lawyers would drive her to future court hearings.

She added that she remained committed to finishing her PhD degree.

Crackdown on pro-Palestine advocacy

The judge’s order on Friday came just over a week after Mohsen Mahdawi, a US permanent resident and pro-Palestine protest leader at Columbia University, was released from immigration detention by another federal judge in Vermont.

On Thursday, Mahdawi, who still faces an ongoing deportation case, announced the creation of the Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund, to help immigrants facing deportation hearings.

Speaking to Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey, Mahdawi recounted being detained by immigration officials as he attended a citizenship hearing in Vermont in April.

He said ICE agents had sought to transfer him to the more conservative jurisdiction in Louisiana, as they had done with Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil, another Columbia University protest leader targeted for deportation.

Mahdawi added that the move was meant to isolate him from his community and legal support.

“They had the aeroplane ticket, commercial flight printed with my name on it, but I was lucky enough that we missed the flight by nine minutes,” Mahdawi said.

That brief window, he explained, gave his lawyers time to intervene. They sought and received a temporary restraining order preventing Mahdawi from being transferred out of the state.

Mahdawi credits remaining in Vermont with paving the way to his release.

“I mean, if the plan worked out as they have laid it down, we would not be having this interview,” he said.

Prior to Ozturk’s hearing on Friday, Judge Sessions had ordered her to be transferred to Vermont no later than May 14, as that is where she was held at the time her lawyers filed an initial petition for her release.

Sessions, however, decided to continue with her bail hearing even before Ozturk was physically moved. The Trump administration had previously appealed an earlier deadline for her transfer to Vermont, set for May 1.

Ozturk has not been accused of any crime. The Trump administration has offered little justification for its decision to revoke Ozturk’s student visa, pointing only to the article she co-authored and claiming she was “creating a hostile environment for Jewish students”.

The administration has broadly claimed that visa holders are not afforded the same constitutional rights protections as US citizens, a question that could eventually be decided by the Supreme Court.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt briefly weighed in on Friday’s decision during her daily news briefing, where she reiterated the administration’s position that such rulings are tantamount to judicial interference.

“We’ve made quite clear that lower-level judges should not be dictating the foreign policy of the United States, and we absolutely believe that the president and the Department of Homeland Security are well within their legal rights to deport illegal immigrants,” she said.

“It is a privilege, not a right, to come to this country on a visa,” she added.

Student protest leader Mohsen Mahdawi has appeared at the Vermont state house to help launch a legal defence fund to help immigrants like himself who are facing deportation hearings.

His appearance on Thursday comes nearly a week after Mahdawi himself was released from immigration detention, after spending nearly 16 days in custody for his pro-Palestinian advocacy.

The administration of President Donald Trump has sought to deport Mahdawi and other student activists for their demonstrations, citing a Cold War-era law that allows the removal of foreign nationals deemed to have adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.

Though released on bail, Mahdawi continues to face deportation proceedings. He reflected on his time behind bars at a news conference where he and state officials announced the Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund.

“ I was unjustly kidnapped or detained, if you want to go by the legal term,” Mahdawi said with a wry smile.

“And without the support and the love that I received from the people of Vermont – Vermonters and the representatives of the people in Vermont – I may not have been here today among you.”

Mahdawi entered the national spotlight as a leader in the student protests at Columbia University, an Ivy League school in New York City that has been at the forefront of pro-Palestinian advocacy.

A legal permanent resident of the US, Mahdawi himself is Palestinian and grew up in the Far’a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. He has publicly described the oppression he said he experienced there, including the deaths of family members and friends at the hands of the Israeli military.

Since Israel launched its war in Gaza on October 7, 2023, Mahdawi has been outspoken in his opposition to the military campaign.

As an undergraduate at Columbia, he helped found student groups like Dar: The Palestinian Student Society and Columbia University Apartheid Divest. The latter has taken a lead role in protesting ties between the school and organisations involved with Israel and its military activities.

But President Trump has described such protests as “illegal” and pledged to crack down on non-citizen participants.

On March 8, Mahdawi’s colleague at Dar, Mahmoud Khalil, was the first student protester to be taken into custody for his role in the nationwide student protest movement. Others have since been detained, including Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk, who supporters say did little more than write an op-ed about the war in Gaza.

Just over a month later, on April 14, Mahdawi arrived at an appointment in Colchester, Vermont, ostensibly for his US citizenship application. Immigration officers, however, were waiting on site to arrest him, and he was led away in handcuffs.

Mahdawi was accused of no crime. The Trump administration, however, has accused him of harassing Jewish students and leading “pro-Hamas protests”, though it has not offered evidence to support those allegations.

“His rhetoric on the war in Israel proves his terrorist sympathies,” a recent document from the Department of Homeland Security said.

Mahdawi’s detention galvanised Vermont politicians on both sides of the political spectrum. Governor Phil Scott, a Republican, called on the federal government to release any evidence it had that Mahdawi was a threat to national security and denounced the surreptitious manner of his arrest.

“What cannot be justified is how this action was undertaken. Law enforcement officers in this country should not operate in the shadows or hide behind masks,” Scott wrote in a press release.

“The power of the executive branch of the federal government is immense, but it is not infinite, and it is not absolute.”

Meanwhile, Senator Peter Welch, a Democrat, visited Mahdawi behind bars at Vermont’s Northwest State Correctional Facility in an effort to raise awareness about his case.

Ultimately, on April 30, a federal district court deemed that Mahdawi was no flight risk and released him on bail, warning that the government’s actions could be interpreted as an attempt to “shut down debate”.

In his public appearance on Thursday, Mahdawi thanked his fellow Vermonters for showing him support and called on the state to act as an example to others.

“Home is where you feel safe and loved. And those who surround you, they are your people, and you are my people,” he told the crowd.

“This is a message of hope and light that our humanity is much larger than what divide us. Our humanity is much larger than unjust laws. Our humanity is much larger than being Democrat or Republican, Black or white, in a city or in rural area.”

Mahdawi also described how, when he was in detention, he saw an undocumented farm worker praying on his knees each night before going to sleep.

“ I think his prayers have been answered today by this initiative,” Mahdawi said of the legal defence fund.

The fund’s organisers said they hope to raise $1m to “build a lasting safety net” for immigrant families in Vermont. That sum, they said, would fund training and hiring legal staff to respond to what they described as an immigration “crisis”.

“Vermont is going to take action to ensure no one faces deportation, detention or family separation alone and unrepresented,” said State Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale. “This will be embedded in our civic infrastructure in a way we have not achieved before and we hope will have long-term benefits beyond this immediate crisis.”

Vermont State Treasurer Mike Pieciak added that the fund would ensure justice is not solely reserved for those who can afford it.

“This effort is not about politics. This effort is about principle,” he said. “The fundamental right to due process means very little if somebody cannot access legal representation, especially when they’re navigating a system as complex and as high stakes as the US immigration law.”

May 8 (UPI) — One student is dead and two others were hospitalized following stabbing outside a southern California high school, according to authorities who are hunting for two suspects.

Police were notified of the stabbing in front of Santa Ana High School at about 3:25 p.m. PDT Wednesday, the Santa Ana Police Department said in a statement.

The victims have been identified has teenage boys. The deceased victim was 14 years old, authorities said.

All three were transported to local hospitals, two in stable condition. A third victim, who was transported to a hospital in critical condition, succumbed to his injuries not long afer, authorities said.

“The wounds on the victims were stab wounds, so we believe that the weapon used was a knife,” Santa Ana police officer Natalie Garcia told reporters during a press conference.

She said police are searching for two suspects who fled the scene on foot. She described them as Hispanic males who may also be students at the school or at another nearby institution.

School police told authorities that the stabbing could be gang related, she added.

The Santa Ana Unified School District said the stabbing occurred shortly after the dismissal of students.

“Our thoughts are with the family of the student who passed and with all those impacted by this senseless act of violence,” it said in a statement.

On Thursday, there will be an increased police presence at the school and crisis counselors will be made available for area students who may require such services.

“We are committed to providing a safe, caring and supportive environment for all students and staff,” Santa Ana USD said.

The administration of President Donald Trump has continued to face setbacks in its attempts to deport pro-Palestinian student protesters, as courts probe whether the students’ rights have been violated.

On Wednesday, separate courts issued orders related to two of the most high-profile cases: that of Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk.

In New York, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ordered Ozturk, a 30-year-old Turkish student from Tufts University, be moved to Vermont no later than May 14.

That ruling marked a rejection of a Trump administration appeal to delay the transfer and keep Ozturk in Louisiana, where she has been held in an immigration detention centre since late March.

“We’re grateful the court refused the government’s attempt to keep her isolated from her community and her legal counsel as she pursues her case for release,” said Esha Bhandari, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Ozturk.

Separately, in Newark, New Jersey, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to deliver specifics about its rationale for describing Khalil, a leader in Columbia University’s student protests, as a threat to US foreign policy.

Inside Ozturk’s case

The latest ruling in Ozturk’s case highlighted a practice that has become common under the Trump administration: Many foreign students involved in the pro-Palestinian protest movement have been transferred to detention centres far from their homes.

Ozturk’s ordeal began on March 25, when six plain-clothed police officers arrested her outside her home in a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts, where she went to school.

Supporters believe Ozturk, a PhD student and Fulbright scholar from Turkiye, was targeted for having co-written an opinion article in her student newspaper, calling on Tufts University to acknowledge Israel’s war on Gaza as a genocide.

The US is a longtime ally of Israel and has supported its military campaign in Gaza. The Trump administration has accused Ozturk of having “engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans”, though it has not offered evidence.

After she was detained outside her home, Ozturk was reportedly whisked across state borders, first to Vermont and later to Louisiana, all within a 24-hour period, according to her lawyers.

Critics have described those rapid transfers as a means of subverting due process, separating foreign students from family, friends and legal resources they can otherwise draw upon.

In Ozturk’s case, the confusion led her lawyers to file a petition for her release in Massachusetts, as they did not know where she was when they submitted the paperwork.

On April 18, a lower court ruled that Ozturk must be returned to Vermont no later than May 1, as it weighed her habeas petition: a type of complaint that challenges the legality of one’s detention.

“No one should be arrested and locked up for their political views. Every day that Rumeysa Ozturk remains in detention is a day too long,” Bhandari, her lawyer, said in a statement.

But the Trump administration appealed, seeking an emergency stay of Ozturk’s transfer to Vermont.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected (PDF) that request, however. It said the government had failed to show any “irreparable harm” that Ozturk’s transfer would cause.

“Faced with such a conflict between the government’s unspecific financial and administrative concerns on the one hand, and the risk of substantial constitutional harm to Ozturk on the other, we have little difficulty concluding ‘that the balance of hardships tips decidedly’ in her favor,” the court wrote.

Though Ozturk is expected to be transferred to Vermont, where her habeas petition will be heard, the Trump administration is slated to continue with deportation proceedings in Louisiana.

The appeals court, however, explained that this should be no challenge for the Trump administration, given that Ozturk can appear through video conference for those hearings.

“The government asserts that it would face difficulties in arranging for Ozturk to appear for her immigration proceedings in Louisiana remotely,” the court wrote. “But the government has not disputed that it is legally and practically possible for Ozturk to attend removal proceedings remotely.”

The Trump administration has the option of appealing the decision to the Supreme Court.

Inside Khalil’s case

Likewise, Khalil faces deportation proceedings in Louisiana while his habeas petition is heard in New Jersey, closer to his home in New York City.

On March 8, he became the first high-profile case of a student protester being arrested for deportation. Agents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrived at his student housing building at Columbia University, where his wife, a US citizen, filmed him being handcuffed and led away.

Khalil himself was a US permanent resident who recently graduated from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. He is of Palestinian descent.

On Tuesday, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in New Jersey rejected a bid by the Trump administration to transfer Khalil’s habeas petition to Louisiana.

And on Wednesday, US District Court Judge Michael Farbiarz ordered the Trump administration to provide a specific assessment of the risks Khalil poses by being in the US.

Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio has cited Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 to justify Khalil’s detention and deportation. A rarely used provision of the law allows secretaries of state to remove noncitizens who could cause “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences”.

But Rubio has so far been vague about what those consequences might be in Khalil’s case. The student protest leader has been charged with no crime.

Judge Farbiarz also required the Trump team to supply a catalogue of every case in which US officials have employed that law. The Trump administration is expected to appeal that judge’s order as well.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has dropped charges against seven student protesters from the University of Michigan, citing legal delays and controversies surrounding the US case, which she said has become a “lightning rod of contention”.

The decision on Monday puts an end to the case that started in May 2024 when the students, who pleaded not guilty, were charged with trespassing and resisting a police officer while attending a pro-Palestinian campus protest. 

“We feel vindicated that the case was dismissed,” said Jamil Khuja, a member of the defence team for the students. “These individuals committed no crime whatsoever. They were exercising their right to protest and engage in political speech on public property.”

Despite dropping the charges and growing criticism of the case, Nessel on Monday defended her decision to pursue felony charges against the students, saying “a reasonable jury would find the defendants guilty of the crimes alleged”.

However, Nessel added in a statement that she dropped the charges nearly a year later because she did not believe “these cases to be a prudent use of my department’s resources”.

While hundreds of students were arrested during the wave of pro-Palestine campus encampments that swept the United States last year amid Israel’s war on Gaza, most were immediately released.

The case in Michigan gained national attention and became symbolic of the nationwide crackdown on pro-Palestine demonstrations, with Palestinian rights advocates arguing that the Nessel case was an attack on freedom of speech and assembly.

Defence lawyers for the accused had filed motions for Nessel to recuse herself from the case, citing accusations of bias – assertions that the attorney general dismissed as “baseless and absurd”.

“These distractions and ongoing delays have created a circus-like atmosphere to these proceedings,” the attorney general said in her statement.

Khuja, the defence lawyer, said the team was “absolutely confident” of winning the case, either by judicial dismissal or not-guilty jury verdict, and criticised Nessel’s characterisation of the pretrial proceedings as “circus-like” as untrue.

He said requesting Nessel’s removal from the case was warranted, adding that the charges should have been brought by the county and not the state’s attorney general, according to Michigan’s prosecution procedures.

Free speech ‘under attack’

To underscore the alleged bias, the defence lawyer also noted that weeks before filing the charges last year, Nessel had clashed with Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, “the only Palestinian in Congress”, for defending the chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, which has been used by student protesters.

Soon after Nessel charged the students, Tlaib accused the attorney general of “possible biases” within her agency, underscoring that other protest movements did not face a similar legal crackdown.

The attorney general responded by accusing Tlaib of anti-Semitism, although the congresswoman made no mention of the attorney general’s religion or Jewish identity.

“Rashida should not use my religion to imply I cannot perform my job fairly as Attorney General. It’s anti-Semitic and wrong,” Nessel wrote in a social media post in September.

The controversy stretched for weeks, with CNN and pro-Israel outlets echoing Nessel’s anti-Semitism allegations against Tlaib without evidence.

Khuja said the attorney general ultimately wanted to “make an example out of those protesting for Palestine”.

He added that the case was larger than the students and politicians involved.

“The First Amendment applies to all speech, but it’s been under attack in order to shield Israel from criticism lately,” Khuja told Al Jazeera.

“And this case proved that those who believe in Palestinian rights, their views are just as legitimate as anybody else’s, and the First Amendment protects those views and your right to express them.”

MADISON, S.D. — Dakota State University hasn’t experienced the student protests taking place at other U.S. colleges. Nestled in rural South Dakota, most of the nearly 4,000 students have been focused on their studies or job hunts, avoiding politics and partisan groups.

Until now.

The university administration decided to award an honorary doctorate to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and invited her to give a commencement speech May 10, bringing politics to the campus.

In response, students have planned a rally on graduation day opposing the former South Dakota governor and the Trump administration and expect protesters from across southeast South Dakota to join them.

They want to speak out against the federal government’s immigration policies, which are being implemented with Noem’s oversight, on behalf of peers who fear for their legal status. They also are expected to protest Noem’s anti-LGBTQ+ actions during her time as governor.

Some students and faculty also said they thought the honorary degree was too high an honor to bestow upon her.

Among Dakota State students, many are unsure if they should join the objections or stay quiet to avoid the kind of punishments suffered by students at more outspoken colleges.

“The atmosphere is tense,” humanities instructor Daniel Spencer said. “Students are afraid of making their voices heard.”

Students studying in its renowned cybersecurity program have traditionally been hesitant to take political stances because they fear potential blowback when they later seek government and private sector jobs.

The school’s location in Madison, a small town about an hour’s drive northwest of Sioux Falls, also is a factor.

“Many of our students are from rural South Dakota, and there’s a bit of an unwillingness to confront authority,” professor emeritus Dale Droge said. “We don’t have very many students in the political sciences or history where they might be thinking about these more civil rights kind of actions.”

Hundreds of international students who attend Dakota State and haven’t yet been affected by recent Homeland Security actions are weighing their participation options. The agency had terminated the legal status of more than 1,000 international students before reversing course and outlining a new policy for those terminations.

“I have international students coming to me from outside of the senate, across campus, who expressed to me that they don’t want to get involved in any of this because they have fears of getting their visas revoked,” said Anden Wieseler, a Dakota State junior and student senate vice president.

Noem’s support for the school

The school selected Noem because she was an “unwavering champion of Dakota State” during her time as governor, university spokesperson Andrew Sogn said in a written statement to the Associated Press.

Noem, who received a political science degree from South Dakota State University, supported Dakota State’s cybersecurity initiatives and helped secure millions of dollars in funding, cementing the school’s standing as a national cybersecurity leader, Sogn said.

“She was asked to share remarks with DSU’s graduates based on her distinguished and groundbreaking career in public service, and her many efforts to support the citizens of the state of South Dakota and the nation,” Sogn said.

Noem’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Dakota State President José-Marie Griffiths nominated Noem to receive an honorary doctorate, though the university declined to provide details of the offer. The general faculty and student senate voted against the nomination, with only one of the 15 student senators voting in favor of the nomination, Wiesler said.

Fear of speaking out

“There is a fear among a lot of the international student body on speaking on this matter, just a result of the current political climate,” said Tyler Sprik, a freshman and student senator. “That’s part of the reason me and several other senators have become so involved — it’s because a lot of our colleagues can’t.”

Faculty members also are apprehensive to share their opinions publicly. Some said the administration discouraged them from speaking to media and joining student rallies. Some cited President Trump’s heightened scrutiny on higher education as reason for caution.

Other students said they feared reprisal from the administration and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they didn’t want to jeopardize their jobs.

Sogn said that faculty members are welcome to speak with the media.

South Dakota faculty are afforded fewer protections than in other states due to a 2020 state law outlawing faculty unions at public colleges.

Droge is troubled by the reluctance to speak out.

“It is very concerning to me that we’ve reached a point in not just Dakota State, but in so many institutions that people are afraid to speak freely even on issues like this of free speech and principles and ethics,” Droge said. “These things aren’t against the university in any way, but it’s about allowing people to speak their minds freely.”

Some faculty members also said having a high-profile figure at commencement may take attention away from the graduates.

“The biggest chatter I’ve heard from students and other faculty is first and foremost concern that there will be a disruption to the commencement, which we all feel is so important to the students that are there,” said Stephen Krebsbach, a computer science professor.

Still, many students are preparing for the rally.

“The students’ attitude is clear. No honor for Noem. Give commencement back to the graduates and listen to us,” Sprik said.

Raza writes for the Associated Press.