Normal Violence, Active Silence: An evaluation of Repressive University (In)action Amidst Trump Admin Immigration Actions

• In Event: Disrupting the Status Quo of Political Repression

Abstract

Since taking office again in Spring 2025, Trump and his administration have invoked several executive orders (EOs) and taken additional executive actions pertaining to immigration, resulting in an environment of heightened fear and uncertainty on US university campuses. In our study, we seek to answer the following research question: what are the impacts of the Trump Administration’s immigration actions on university faculty, staff, and students (i.e., “university residents”)? To answer our research question, we have been employing three methods: (1) semi-structured in-depth interviews with university residents; (2) content analysis of publicly shared university statements; and (3) ethnographic participant observation of public events/activities (e.g., university/public rallies, faculty meetings, etc.). To date, we have conducted 24 semi-structured in-depth interviews and accumulated nearly 100 pages of interview-based notes, over 300 pages of interview transcript data, and over 50 pages of ethnographic fieldnotes. Informed by university resident insights and experiences, we argue that university silence normalizes violence. We find that (1) university structure is increasingly becoming defined by de facto (practice-based) and de jure (policy-based) normalization of silence; (2) apathy continues to serve as an effective mechanism of externalizing risk and violence to racialized university residents; and (3) community-building is emerging as the most promising avenue of not only “breaking silence” but also manifesting what we call a university culture of anti-silence. Accordingly, the contribution of our study is two-fold: (1) it serves as a living and growing archive for a historical moment perhaps of pivotal significance, especially within a context when the state might regard such research as threatening to the social status quo; and (2) it converses with and expands a rapidly growing critical migration literature pertaining to illegality regimes through the lens of higher education.

Authors

• Anthony M Jimenez, Rochester Institute of Technology

• Wenjie Liao, Rochester Institute of Technology