BY CATHERINE D’IGNAZIO
As a professor at MIT, I find myself navigating strange waters these days. Last semester, I advised the thesis of a student who left the country because she did not feel welcome in the United States (and she is a citizen). I listened to exceptional students from around the world tell me that they will not be applying to MIT because they do not feel the United States is a safe place for them. I comforted students after federal agents visited their dorms and aggressively sought to interrogate their peers. I supported students, staff, and faculty who had been doxed by vigilante websites hostile to their political views. I advised students how to protect themselves from getting abducted off the street by masked men.
This last one sounds fictional, but it happened: Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University doctoral student, was detained by federal agents in March while on her way to break her Ramadan fast. Like other student kidnappings and visa revocations around the country, Öztürk’s appears to be an “ideological deportation,” attempted because she cowrote an op-ed in her student newspaper urging Tufts University to publicly acknowledge the genocide in Palestine.
These are not normal times, and these are not my normal job duties. It is within the job description for a scholar and professor to try to name and describe precisely and truthfully the world that we encounter around us. For this reason, I want to offer a term from international relations to characterize Rümeysa Öztürk’s abduction and many other actions of the current administration: state terrorism.
Political scholar Ruth Blakeley writes that “state terrorism should be understood as a threat or act of violence by agents of the state that is designed to induce fear in a target audience, so that they are coerced into changing their behavior in some way.” What distinguishes state terrorism from other routine uses of force is that the violence is designed to “send a message”—to reverberate out into the population, to engender fear, and to shift behavior.
The US government’s detentions of students such as Öztürk constitute a burgeoning form of state terrorism, particularly when considered alongside other acts of political violence and coercion. These include using taxpayer dollars for deporting undocumented workers—some while they were seeking food outside homeless shelters, dropping their kids off at daycare, or driving to their high school volleyball practice. Or consider the apparently random acts of extreme aggression against other people who pose no threat: the German green-card holder stripped naked and interrogated until he collapsed and the Canadian woman held for two weeks in a detention center because of an expired visa. These acts include a raft of executive orders that strip rights from and deny the very existence of the transgender community, attempts to blackmail universities into ideological submission, and partisan investigations of law firms who work with the administration’s political opponents.
These government actions constitute both threats of violence and actual violence. But they are not only (or, in some cases, at all) about the individuals and institutions involved. Öztürk’s abduction is not specifically about her or her actions. Rather, it was a premeditated viral news event intended to sow fear among all international students and convey the idea that none of them are safe. The Trump administration’s strategy conjoins specific instances of threats and violence with widely reported media representations in order to spread fear. This is what distinguishes the current violence of the state as terrorist. It is not only a judicial project but also a public relations project and a strategic communications project.
Moreover, the administration doesn’t only need to use their own propaganda networks to distribute information about such events. The left- and center-leaning media are doing an excellent job circulating the violence and boosting public feelings of vulnerability and helplessness (thanks, New York Times). This gives the appearance that state terrorism is working, and in certain ways that might be true. I would estimate that about a third of my own working hours—hours that professors should be using to advance science and innovation or educate and mentor students—are now consumed with combating the impacts of state terrorism on my university campus: widespread fear, self-censorship, capitulation, and silence.
But we can disrupt this cycle. Naming these actions as state terrorism enables us to analyze the current situation and survive political violence, as people who have come before us have survived.
How can US universities survive state terrorism?
If you are in university leadership, you can lead with courage and moral clarity. Such qualities are hard to come by these days, not least because our administrators in higher education are, quite understandably, not trained to combat terrorists. The political moment requires us to adapt. Faculty, students, and staff would like to see a muscular and coordinated defense of the core values and mission of higher education. This includes resisting political interference to adopt a particular definition of antisemitism, dissolve DEI programs, adopt scientifically incorrect definitions of gender, or rewrite history to teach a series of untruths about white male heroes. It includes the courage to use endowments and mobilize alumni networks to survive this period of assault. As basic playground logic tells us, you don’t fight bullies by sticking your head in the sand or politely waiting for them to stop punching your friend.
If you are a university professor, the most important action you can take is to leave your office and talk to your colleagues. Many are scared to speak out for fear of becoming a target, losing funding, or seeing their students deported. I understand this fear and feel it too. Yet there are simple things we can do in the course of our everyday professional lives that will help us support each other through this period: We can go to faculty meetings, share information with each other, join national advocacy organizations, and host gatherings where we laugh and cry about the absurdity of all of this. Once we start talking to each other, other courses of action magically become possible.
If you are in a community (as I hope all of us are), you can connect with mutual aid groups who are protecting their most vulnerable members. I have been deeply inspired by the work in my own town, where neighbors are rejecting dehumanization and scapegoating in favor of love and generosity. We are protecting neighbors from kidnappers, feeding people, comforting children, and supporting families. In contrast to the acts of state terrorism, these simple actions spread a different message: you belong here. These networks of mutual aid have sprung up in cities, across states, and throughout the entire country.
Surviving state terrorism will not be easy. During this period, we must remember that the current project is an elaborate exercise in political theater designed to spread fear, isolation, and division. Acts of radical care, everyday courage, and collective action are the most effective antidote to state terrorism.
Catherine D’Ignazio is associate professor of urban science and planning at MIT.
Physician, heal thyself.
Its a sad day indeed when an American administration mounts a campaign that threatens liberty, freedom, and the right to free speech. Trump is an embarrassment to the history of America.
If Professor D’Ignazio wants to argue that ICE’s arrest of Rümeysa Öztürk for writing an opinion piece was an overzealous abuse of immigration law enforcement, then that is a fair point about which rational people can agree.
After all, immigration law enforcement is not perfect. And while it is a necessary, lawful function of government, it is subject to human interpretation and mistakes can be and have been made. When they are, they should be called out and dealt with.
But Professor D’Ignazio’s paper doesn’t stop there. Rather than engage in a normal dialectic over how to best deal with our country’s troubling illegal immigration issue, she apparently champions an intellectually dishonest approach to debate. She prefers using emotive and inflammatory words to persuade.
Professor D’Ignazio knows, no doubt, that if one can manipulate the meaning of words, then one can control a person’s perception of reality. And despite claiming that a professor should “name and describe precisely and truthfully the world that we encounter,” she, in fact, does no such thing.
Indeed, her advice is anything but truthful and precise. To persuade others to her point of view, she employs terms like: “state terrorism,” “kidnapping,” and “violence.”
A quick look at the universally recognized meaning of these terms will expose this tactic for what it is: a fallacious “straw man” use of “loaded language.”
“Terrorism” is mostly understood to involve physical harm (murder, beheadings, rape, torture, etc.) to further a political goal. It should not be used to describe the fear of being arrested for violating the law. A wrongdoer who is concerned about being apprehended by the authorities is not a victim of “terrorism.”
“Kidnapping” is mostly understood to involve the illegal abduction of someone by force. It should not be used to describe a lawful arrest by federal agents.
“Violence” is mostly understood to involve intentional harm by physical force. It should not be used to describe lawful arrests by ICE whose aim is not to harm, but detain, and possibly deport.
Bottom line: A professor should persuade by using reasoned arguments and not linguistic trickery.
What is truly intellectually dishonest is to obfuscate with vapid pedantry and disingenuous appeals to nuance and “normal dialectic”.
Just an example: Rümeysa Öztürk is in this country legally, so the acts against her can indeed be characterized as politically motivated kidnapping. Moreover, their intent is to terrorize not only her, but countless others in a similar position. Therefore, Prof. D’Ignazio’s words are accurate and pertinent for “normal dialectic”.
If you think my comment was pedantic or about nuances, then you would be well-advised to re-read it, because you really missed its point.
My argument has nothing to do with minor details or subtle differences as you assert. It has everything to do with exposing a deceptive technique used to manipulate a person’s perception of reality.
Maybe you think the difference between the definitions of a “lawful arrest” and “kidnapping” can be described as “nuanced,” but I can assure you that rational thinkers can see the width of the Grand Canyon between those words.
In your rush to criticize, you wrongly labelled my comment as “obfuscation” and – at the same time – missed the glaring fact that Professor D’Ignazio’s use of tortured linguistics fits, ironically, into the very definition of your word “obfuscation.”
My comment’s appeal – which you also missed – is simple: Persuade with honesty. If a professor has to manipulate words and mislabel fact situations to convince a party, then that professor has a very weak position and ought to re-evaluate it. Misusing words to win an argument is not what professors should do; and it is certainly not something they should teach.
And finally, your discussion of Rümeysa Öztürk contains multiple unsupported assertions upon which you base – in a somewhat circular fashion – your very own self-serving conclusion. Not persuasive.
Just one observation – She also uses the word “genocide” (para 2) as if it is just a matter of fact and there is no controversy about the usage at all.
Paul: Good observation
Intellectual dishonesty, manipulating the meaning of words, and linguistic trickery like using the phrase “troubling illegal immigration issue”? Or “mostly understood” in an effort to be dismissive of a point without offering any real backing as to mostly understood by whom? What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander.
Eric: Your remarks evidence confusion and a knee-jerk response. There is no logical “goose and gander” equivalence seen here.
As noted in my comment, linguistic trickery involves the use of emotive or inflammatory words (loaded language). It is employed to incorrectly describe a given fact situation with the intent of manipulating a person’s perception of reality in order to persuade.
The words in my comment that you quoted do not mislead, nor are they inflammatory or emotive. They are mere neutral garden-variety terms.
And finally, I think it is safe to say that you do not really need an explanation for the meaning of “mostly.”
I agree with professor D’IGNAZIO, these are not normal times. No other country in world history ever allowed 20+ million unvaxed & unvetted illegal immigrants to invade their country like the US did during the biden years. This was totally an insane action. Additionally, administrators, faculties, and students at a number of universities felt it was OK to attack and discriminate against Jewish students simply because they were Jewish. Freedom of religion is a cornerstone of our country.
The American people decided it was time to bring sanity back to America and elected Donald Trump. He’s doing EXACTLY what he said he was going to do, which is deport people who are here illegally, and stopping anti-American policies whenever he can.
Rümeysa Öztürk was a guest in our country. Her support of international terrorist group Hamas is more than enough for her visa to be revoked.
“Stephen Miller, a senior White House official, lashed out at the decision of a democrat judge who is delaying her deportation, saying “there’s a judicial coup in this country.”
“Foreigners in this country do not have a right to stay in this country if they support designated terrorist organizations like Hamas,” Miller told reporters.
“The secretary of state has the absolute authority… to revoke an immigration benefit or a visa and then to pursue a deportation.”
Professor D’IGNAZIO talks about masked men, kidnapping, and people being doxed. Really?!
The reason law enforcement officers need to wear masks is to hide their faces from violent leftist who would go after their families if they knew the officers identities. https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/07/15/dhs-announces-ice-law-enforcement-are-now-facing-830-percent-increase-assaults
Not sure what doxing websites the professor is talking about but there are apps out that disclose where ICE officers will be and Democrat lawmakers want to ban masks and put these people and their families in harms way.