It is becoming more dangerous to protest at American universities of applied science and academic universities. President Donald Trump is threatening to impose suspensions and arrests. Institutions could lose their financing if they ‘allow’ protests.
Police deployment during End Fossil's protest at the Delft Career Days 2025. (Photo: Thijs van Reeuwijk)
If American universities ‘permit illegal protests’, they could lose their government funding. These are the words of the American president Donald Trump on his own social medium channel, Truth Social. “Troublemakers will land in prison or be deported back to their own country. American students will be thrown out of their study programme or arrested.” And he added in block letters, “No masks!”
Earlier this year, the American president announced that he would deport foreigners if they break the law at student demonstrations. In his latest message, he also threatens American students and the educational institutions themselves. Thus, Trump is escalating his threat to suppress student demonstrations, which are primarily protesting against Israel’s use of violence in Gaza. The American government fully supports Israel, and the president even sees real estate opportunities in rebuilding Gaza. The Palestinians will have to go live somewhere else, he suggested last month. The Netherlands does not support that option, according to answers to parliamentary questions posed by the SP party.
- Read what demonstration rights expert Marjolein Kuijers has to say about demonstrating on campus: “The principle of the international right to demonstrate is that protesting is always permitted, as long as it is done peacefully”
Limits
However, the political parties in the Netherlands have also wrestled with student protests in higher education. The Cabinet wants to ‘limit’ the right to demonstrate to combat the excesses, like the widely discussed destruction of property and violence seen at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). Demonstrators can be prosecuted if they employ violence. Last month one of the UvA demonstrators was sent to prison, partly because she had thrown a stick at the police.
At TU Delft, after a protest at the Delft Career Days last month, ten demonstrators were arrested for local breaches of the peace and one demonstrator for assault. At an earlier occupation after the pro-Palestine tent camp last year, one activist was arrested for filming the police and refusing to produce an ID card. They were later released.
Last year the universities jointly issued a new ‘guideline’, which was criticised by De Jonge Akademie [Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts and Science]: the guideline would suppress debate. Personnel of the University of Amsterdam recently went on strike for the right to demonstrate.
HOP, Bas Belleman/Delta, Kim Bakker
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Hoger Onderwijs Persbureau
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