Tufts University

Courts Force Release Of Detained Students; Campus Activism Reignites

May 15, 2025 Michael Arria, Mondoweiss. Resist! California, Columbia University, Hunger Strikes, Israel, Mohsen Mahdawi, Palestine, Rumeysa Ozturk, Trump Administration, Tufts University, Victory

Since the last installment of this newsletter, two students detained by the Trump administration have been released on bail. Mohsen Mahdawi, the Columbia University student who was kidnapped by agents during a citizenship interview, was released from a Vermont correctional facility on April 30. “The two weeks of detention so far demonstrate great harm to a person who has been charged with no crime,” said U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford. Mahdawi addressed a crowd of supporters and reporters upon his release. “For anybody who is doubting justice, this is a light of hope and faith in the justice system in America,” Mahdawi told a crowd outside the courthouse after his release.

State Department Found No Evidence For Abducting Tufts Student

April 15, 2025 Sharon Zhang, Truthout. Educate! Department of Homeland Security, Deportations, Trump Administration, Tufts University, US State Department

The State Department internally found no evidence supporting the Trump administration’s reasoning for abducting and pushing to deport Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk, new reporting finds, just days before immigration officials snatched her off the streets and took her to a horrific immigrant detention center anyway. The Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing a State Department memo, that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had not provided any evidence of Öztürk engaging in activity labelled antisemitic or “terrorist” supporting. Additionally, searches of government databases did not turn up any evidence of Öztürk participating in terrorism-related activity.

Thousands Protest ICE Abduction Of Tufts Student

March 28, 2025 Julia Conley, Common Dreams. Resist! Boston, Campus Movement, Donald Trump, ICE, Immigrant Rights, Student Activism, Tufts University

As reports surfaced Wednesday that Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts University Ph.D. student who was abducted by immigration agents off a street in Somerville, Massachusetts, had been taken to a detention center in Louisiana, thousands of people assembled in the Boston-area city to demand Ozturk's release. Ozturk was transferred to the South Louisiana Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing center despite a court order barring immigration officials from moving her out-of-state without prior notice, and her lawyers shared a statement at Powder House Park saying they hadn't been notified about the Turkish student's exact whereabouts. They also said her F-1 student visa had been terminated.

What We Know About The Tufts University Student Kidnapped By ICE

March 27, 2025 Alysha Palumbo, NBC Boston. Educate! Campus Movement, Higher Education, ICE, Kidnapping, Louisiana, Tufts University

A Tufts University student is being held at an ICE detention facility in Louisiana, and there are growing questions about how she was taken into custody and the timeline of sending her out of state. One major issue is whether federal authorities defied the court order to keep Rumeysa Ozturk in Massachusetts, as it was issued just hours after her arrest Tuesday night. Video shows Ozturk, a Tufts University PhD student from Turkey, screaming as plain-clothes agents surrounded her and grabbed her on a Somerville sidewalk just off campus before taking her away.

Koch Academic Influence Returns To Massachusetts With New Tufts University Think Tank

August 25, 2020 By Dana Drugmand, DeSmog Blog. Educate! Higher Education, Koch Brothers, Massachusetts, Tufts University

When a new Massachusetts think tank housed at Tufts University launched earlier this year, Boston-based media described it as a “CBO-like center” (referring to the Congressional Budget Office) that would offer an “independent analysis” of proposed state policy and legislation. But one of the main funders of this think tank, called the Center for State Policy Analysis, is a program tied financially to the petrochemical billionaire Koch family. This apparent Koch-linked funding raises questions about just how independent the center’s policy analyses may be. Initial funding for this think tank, as CommonWealth reported, has come from one of the state’s largest private health insurance companies and from a program called Emergent Ventures, which is based at the Koch-funded Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

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