Trump executive order to deport Hamas sympathizers on campuses prompts student newspaper to delete names
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President Donald Trump’s Jan. 30 executive order to cancel the student visas of Hamas sympathizers on college campuses is being met with resistance.

The editorial board at the Exponent, Purdue University’s student newspaper, said it “refuses to be party to such a blatant violation of the First Amendment rights of potentially hundreds of Purdue students.”

“That’s why, to protect the identities of pro-Palestinian students, we are removing the names, images and likenesses of every such student from our website published since Oct. 7, 2023,” the editorial board wrote on Feb. 3. “Further, in future coverage, no such information or images will be published online or in print by the Exponent — no exceptions — until this autocratic attack on free speech is overturned.”

Executive Order 13899 aims to combat the “unprecedented wave of vile anti-Semitic discrimination, vandalism, and violence against our citizens, especially in our schools and on our campuses” since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas first attacked Israel, sparking the beginning of a 15-month war that has left tens of thousands of people dead.

An anti-Israel agitator on Stanford University’s campus

An anti-Israel agitator on Stanford University’s campus on Friday, April 26, 2024. (Obtained by Fox News Digital)

“Such twisting of language to be used as a weapon is contrary to the First Amendment, which gives the Exponent its right to exist just as much as it gives the right to students to protest as they see fit. It is the opinion of the Exponent that standing back while our website is potentially used to identify the state’s enemies would be directly against those principles,” the board continued.

The board added that pro-Palestine protests at Purdue will continue into 2025, but the students they interview at protests “will no longer have their identities published.” 

A pro-Palestinian demonstrator holds a flag on the rooftop of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University

A pro-Palestinian demonstrator holds a flag on the rooftop of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University in New York, on Tuesday, April 30, 2024.  (Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Hamas and Israel’s recent ceasefire deal, which paused the deadly war, has led Hamas to release 10 Israeli hostages and five Thai nationals abducted on Oct. 7, 2023, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and increased humanitarian aid into Gaza. Six Americans remain in Gaza.

More than 46,000 Palestinians died in the war, half of whom are believed to be women and children, though that number could be higher, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. More than 90% of the roughly two million Palestinians living in Gaza were displaced during the war.

Fox News Digital’s Efrat Lachter and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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