(RNS) — “To whom does the First Amendment apply? Do undocumented immigrants have the five freedoms?”
“Oh, I think so. I think anybody who’s present in the United States has protections under the United States Constitution.”
You’d be forgiven for thinking that answer was the voice of a left-wing congresswoman speaking out on TikTok, or a woke nonprofit leader, advocating for open borders.
But you’d be wrong. That answer was delivered by none other than the late, great Antonin Scalia, remembered as the intellectual anchor of the Republican Party’s jurisprudence.
The occasion was a rather anodyne affair: a C-SPAN broadcast of “The Kalb Report” in April 2014 at the National Press Club, where the legendary, award-winning reporter Marvin Kalb sat down with Scalia and his Supreme Court colleague Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It was one of those throwback-type of Washingtonian conversations where the two associate justices talked about their deep friendship across very deep differences. They shared a love for the opera, and as it turns out, a love for the abiding bedrock freedoms found in the Bill of Rights.
Scalia, no stranger to fierce debate and a religiously devout Roman Catholic, reminded us: “If there’s a constitutional right, it applies to everyone who is in the United States, whether they’re citizens or not.” Ginsburg, his ideological opposite and close friend, added: “The Constitution protects all persons — not just the people we agree with.”
Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, left, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg on “The Kalb Report” in 2014. (Video screen grab)
In that same televised dialogue between the two justices, Ginsburg opened by reflecting on the Jewish holiday of Passover, describing it as “about the yearning for freedom and the need to speak out against injustice.” That holiday, she said, reminds us to uphold America’s enduring promise of safeguarding liberty for all people.
It’s a breathtaking conviction shared by two American judicial titans who were divided by so much — religion, party, persuasion — that must be remembered as a model way forward even our country is, in real time, grappling with this question.
On the evening of March 25, 2025, in the quiet of Somerville, Massachusetts, a chilling scene unfolded. Rümeysa Öztürk, a 30-year-old doctoral student at Tufts University, stepped outside her home to meet friends for iftar, the evening meal that breaks the daily Ramadan fast. She never made it. In a video now widely circulated, plainclothes federal immigration agents surrounded her, presented no warrant and whisked her away, essentially “disappearing” her to a detention facility in Louisiana. A federal judge has ruled that Öztürk cannot be immediately deported and that her detention case must now take place in Vermont.
What would be the offense that would justify detaining Öztürk? Not a criminal act. Not support for violence. Simply this: She co-authored an op-ed in The Tufts Daily calling for the university to acknowledge the devastation in Gaza as a genocide and urging divestment from companies tied to Israel. That act of political speech, a constitutionally protected right, became the basis for federal allegations that she had “engaged in activities supporting a terrorist organization.”
Rümeysa Öztürk is a Fulbright scholar. She has not been accused of any crime, nor has any evidence been presented to show she has done more than speak out on a university campus, through a student newspaper. A university that has since asked for her immediate release and affirmed its unequivocal support. Tufts University President Sunil Kumar responded to the incident by saying: “We are deeply concerned by the situation involving one of our students and are working to gather more information. We were not notified of this action in advance.”
Let us be clear: This is not just about one student.
The dangers of this moment extend well beyond Rümeysa Öztürk. If political speech — in this particular instance, in solidarity with Palestinians — can be construed as grounds for visa revocation and detention, what message does that send to the thousands of international students in the United States? What does it say about the values we claim to uphold in our institutions of higher education?
Despite the insinuation that she was privy to antisemitic attacks on fellow students, national Jewish leaders are raising alarms.
The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, led by Tufts alum Amy Spitalnick, issued a powerful statement of concern. “Jewish safety is inextricably linked with inclusive democracy in which everyone’s fundamental rights are protected,” Spitalnick said. “Using concerns about antisemitism as a pretext to suppress speech is dangerous and wrong.”
Hillel International CEO Adam Lehman shares these concerns, affirming both due process for any accused, as well as centering the work of ending antisemitism.
“We also share concerns over ways in which actions to combat campus antisemitism can actually fuel further antisemitism, feeding into long-standing tropes about outsized Jewish influence, and leading some people to unfairly hold Jewish students and faculty responsible for actions the government or others are choosing to pursue,” Lehman added.
Antisemitism is real, insidious and must be confronted. Our nation’s campuses have undoubtedly become horrific venues of antisemitic attacks. So, too, have they been places of insidious Islamophobic attacks. But being punished for co-authoring a student op-ed creates a landscape where students fear voicing their views, lest they be profiled, surveilled or worse.
You do not need to agree with the content of her op-ed to defend her right to write it. That is at the core of the First Amendment. You do not need to support her political persuasion — that’s what it means to live in a pluralistic society. You only need to believe that nonviolent political expression should never be criminalized or policed.
This case is a constitutional stress test. And it will determine whether we are who we say we are.
We can be a country that remembers its founding promise — that liberty and justice are not rewards for good behavior or popular opinions, but rights guaranteed to all. Or we can slide quietly into an unknown American age where speech is punished, dissent is surveilled and fear replaces freedom.
Which path are we going to choose in the season ahead? Count me in with Antonin Scalia and his friend Ruth Bader Ginsburg in this opera that is the current American moment.
(Adam Nicholas Phillips is the CEO of Interfaith America. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)
