By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-04-01 21:23:12 | Updated at 2025-04-02 23:08:42
1 day ago
A 'fascism' expert is leaving the US for Canada over fears Donald Trump is implementing the ideology.
Jason Stanley, a philosopher and professor at Yale, made the announcement Monday, in an interview with MSNBC.
Speaking to host Ana Cabrera, the academic who frequently appears on the network pointed to the administration's mass deportation effort as proof - as well as what many framed as ideological attacks on America’s colleges and universities.
Singling out the arrest of a Tufts University student who recently participated in pro-Palestinian protests in particular, Stanley called it evidence the far-right, authoritarian ideals are already being pedaled.
Stanley, an American citizen who's at no risk of deportation, explained how he's accepted a job offer at a Canadian college as a result, eager to escape with his family.
The Ivy League processor went on to chide rival schools like Columbia, for what he billed as bowing to Trump's crackdown.
On Friday, the school's interim president resigned from her role just one week, seemingly in protest of its decision to change several policies to satisfy Trump administration demands.
On Monday, Trump moved to suspend dozens of federal grants to Princeton as part of a bid to combat antisemitism - spurring some strong words from Stanley, a lifelong citizen born in New York, in working-class Syracuse.
Scroll down for video:
Jason Stanley, a philosopher and professor at Yale, said Monday is leaving the US based on his belief that Donald Trump is engaging in fascism by arresting foreign students engaged in activism.
Singling out the arrest of Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk in particular, Stanley called it evidence the far-right, authoritarian ideals are already being pedaled. Ozturk, seen here being arrested off-campus outside Boston, participated in pro-Palestinian protests
'This crackdown, Columbia’s capitulation to this, is a grave sign about the future of academic freedom,' he told Cabrera on the set of her eponymous show.
'Hauling people off the street and sending them to Louisiana prisons like they did at Tufts University for co-authoring op-eds in the student newspaper' is another sign, he continued.
Stanley had been referring to recently arrested Tufts student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was detained last Tuesday by ICE officials outside Boston, off-campus.
Footage of masked, plain-clothes officers handcuffing and arresting the young woman - a legal resident here on a student visa - before bringing her to a detention center in Louisiana has since circulated.
Attorneys retained by Ozturk believe the move was direct retaliation to a pro-Palestinian essay she co-authored last year.
Stanley, an expert on authoritarian regimes and the author of seven books on the subject, said more of the same.
He claimed he seeks to 'send a warning to Americans' by relocating, while making a poignant point.
'The message is that they’re going to do a kind of stochastic terrorism against our country,' Stanley said, framing the campaign as 'a brutal attack' on free speech.
'This crackdown, Columbia’s capitulation to this, is a grave sign about the future of academic freedom,' Stanley said of the ongoing effort - one Trump has said is to combat antisemitism
'The message is that they’re going to do a kind of stochastic terrorism against our country,' Stanley said, framing the campaign as 'a brutal attack' on free speech
'They’re going to target people one by one so that those who are in fear will shut up, essentially,' the author of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, said.
'Universities are filled with fear already. They’re ceasing to make public statements,' he continued.
'They’re not banding together. Right now they’re targeting non-citizens for, you know, writing in student newspapers,' he went on.
'I’m sure, or I suspect, they’ll start pulling people’s passports, targeting U.S. citizens for various reasons, and exploiting Americans’ ignorance.'
Aside from the deportations, Trump has sought to ban school-led diversity initiatives, as well as policies supporting transgender athletes.
Stanley, fresh from accepting a position at the far less prestigious University of Toronto, did not bring up the case surrounding Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old permanent resident who participated in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia.
The Trump Administration is trying to deport her as well - an effort that earned a stern rebuke from Democrat Bernie Sanders.
'Trump is trying to deport a Columbia Univ. student who has been a permanent resident in the U.S. since she was 7,' the Vermont senator said last week.
Stanley, fresh after accepting a position at the far less prestigious University of Toronto, did not bring up the case surrounding Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old permanent resident who participated in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia
'No, Mr. President. This is a democracy. You can’t exile political dissidents,' he said, speaking to Trump directly. 'Not in the United States.'
So far, just days into the bid, the administration has said it has revoked at least 300 student visas over pro-Palestinian demonstrations. '
'We do it every day,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week at an official press conference. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa,'
'I hope at some point we run out because we have gotten rid of all of them,' he went on. 'But we’re looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up.'
Speaking to Cabrera Monday, Stanley concluded his decision is consistent with all of his scholarly works on fascism.
Aside from his kids, he's also relocating with wife Njeri Thande, a Connecticut cardiologist.
In a separate interview with the Daily Nous, he compared their move to that of his family in the early 1930s, when they fled Germany amid Adolf Hitler's rise to power.
'Part of it is you’re leaving because ultimately, it is like leaving Germany in 1932, 33, 34,' he said.
Aside from his kids, he's also relocating with wife Njeri Thande, he told MSNBC's Ana Cabrera, on the set of her eponymous show
So far, just days in, the administration has said it has revoked at least 300 student visas over pro-Palestinian demonstrations.' Pictured, a recent procession at Columbia last week where participants ripped their diplomas in protest of a fellow student who was detained by ICE
'There’s resonance: my grandmother left Berlin with my father in 1939. So it’s a family tradition,' he said.
As for a prospective solution to the oppression, he told the philosophy website: 'You’ve got to just band together and say an attack on one university is an attack on all universities.
'And maybe you lose that fight, but you’re certainly going to lose this one if you give up before you fight.'
'I don’t see it as fleeing at all,' he concluded. 'I see it as joining Canada, which is a target of Trump, just like Yale is a target of Trump.'
The first publicly known arrest occurred last month, when federal agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and graduate Student at Columbia.
Last week, several of his fellow students staged their own procession, tearing their diplomas in protest of his arrest.
Khalil has since surfaced as the face of the opposition, being a legal U.S. resident with a green card. He is currently being held in a federal detention complex in Louisiana, where he has been for nearly three weeks.
Attorneys are fighting to free him in both immigration court in Louisiana and federal court in New Jersey.
If an immigration judge grants bond, the government could appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals. If so, he could remain there so several more months, Chris Kinnison, a Louisiana-based lawyer, told the Wall Street Journal.
