Abed Ayoub:
Support for Mahmoud, by the way, is coming not just from the ACLU, but we have seen it across all political ideologies, from Ann Coulter coming out to say this shouldn’t happen to the ACLU and to others in between.
What’s going to happen now is, this is going to infringe and chill freedom of speech on campus. You’re going to have a lot of students that don’t want to partake in activities or may be sitting out the next protest or the next rally, and it will have that chilling effect.
For Mahmoud directly, he’s going to have to fight this in court and in front of the judge, and the right decision was made today by the judge in New York. But he’s got a long battle ahead of him.
But, right now, we have to focus on this policy, and the administration needs to understand that this is an issue that the president’s base cares about, and they are going to — if they keep pushing this way, they’re going to overplay their hand and they’re going to upset many in their base as well.
So this is not going to play out politically the way the president and administration thinks. A lot of people are on the side of First Amendment rights, freedom of speech and freedom of expression in this country.
