Since U.S. President Donald Trump took office earlier this year, being put on a blacklist has far graver consequences. Where those blacklists once targeted individuals’ job security and social standing, they can now target fundamental intellectual and physical freedoms. Oberlin is at risk, as are all universities in the U.S., but our tight-knit community affords us resilience that will be crucial in fighting back against attempts to silence our voices.
On March 25, Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, was kidnapped off the street by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Shortly afterward, Canary Mission, an anonymously operated right-wing group known for doxxing critics of Israel, took responsibility for Öztürk’s detention.
“This is Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish national being deported for ‘activities in support of Hamas,’ according to [the Department of Homeland Security],” the organization wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Sources point to her Canary Mission profile as the primary cause.”
The announcement was almost gleeful, taking pride in the suffering of a student facing detention and deportation for a school newspaper op-ed criticizing the Israeli government.
Canary Mission, especially noteworthy for its attacks against university students and professors, poses one of the greatest threats to academic freedom and integrity in the U.S. today. Anyone who voices an opinion that is even slightly critical of Israel is in danger of having their name, photo, and personal information posted on Canary Mission’s website, a reality that often comes with dire circumstances. A Canary Mission profile does exactly what it is intended to do: with your name blacklisted as an accused “antisemite,” employment opportunities are limited. And as Öztürk’s living nightmare shows, if you aren’t a U.S. citizen, you may even be deported.
The fact that Canary Mission uses an effectively nebulous definition of “antisemitism” does not matter much. Once they’ve plastered your name and face on their website, the damage has been done.
Fear and intimidation are the weapons of cowards, regardless of whom they are deployed against or in whose name they are deployed. But Canary Mission is especially cowardly given the crowds they tend to pursue. The organization’s primary targets are vulnerable groups such as people of color, people with Arab or Muslim backgrounds, and non-citizens. They prey on the defenseless to make their tactics of intimidation appear more powerful than they really are.
That is not to say that Canary Mission’s actions are harmless or uninfluential — Israel itself uses the list as grounds to deny people entry into the country. Canary Mission is detrimental, not just to the individuals unfortunate enough to end up in their sights, but to society as a whole. Stifling any and all dissent against Israel’s actions by equating it with antisemitism makes conversation and debate unproductive. Beyond that, it only serves to further polarize people, pushing those on both sides of the debate further toward their respective extremes. Once someone’s life has been ruined for denouncing a genocide, it is unlikely they will be willing or able to engage in good faith with those on the other side.
Oberlin is fortunate enough to have mostly flown under the radar when it comes to pro-Palestinian dissent. We are not Columbia or Harvard — our campus is tucked away, and our voices travel short distances on the national stage. But we should not let our college’s unassuming nature lull us into a false sense of security.
Like any college or university in the U.S., Oberlin is vulnerable to slanderous attacks by those who seek to discredit pro-Palestinian viewpoints. Last year, I was the subject of a poorly argued op-ed in the Review written by an employee of the Center for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (“Review Article on Israel–Gaza War Contains Numerous Misrepresentations,” The Oberlin Review, Feb. 16 2024.). CAMERA is a pro-Israel media watchdog group that engages in public intimidation tactics much akin to those used by Canary Mission, albeit without a blacklist. Though I’m thankful for that piece’s limited reach and modest impact, it’s still evidence that Oberlin continues to grab the wrong kinds of attention. We are just as exposed to libel websites like Canary Mission as any other college, and we need to unite as a campus against them. The good news is that there are ways to do so effectively.
A list is only as powerful as the people who consider it sacred. Once being put on Canary Mission is considered unimportant, it will be completely stripped of any power that it currently has. Clearly, we aren’t at that point yet, but resilience through community ties can help soften the blow of smear campaigns. If others know that you are a decent person, that you aren’t an “antisemite” or a “terrorist” as a watchdog group may claim, the poison is far less potent. It is crucial, in a time of fear and uncertainty, that we do not bow to libelous forces seeking to discredit a shifting political paradigm. As the Palestinian cause becomes entrenched in young people’s politics, things will change. Though Canary Mission is doing its best to stop that progress, we must not let it succeed.
There is no reason to believe that such tactics couldn’t be used to stifle dissent on any number of other topics, from the Trump administration’s cruel deportations to climate change. Opposing politically charged smear campaigns is not only in the interest of those who have been attacked, but is crucial for all of us who want to preserve intellectual openness and honesty.
Given that this is my last piece for the Review, I want to end with a call to action: We live in a time that requires bravery but is marred by rampant timidity. Bravery is far more than engaging in activism or scrawling your opinions on the pages of a newspaper. It is the refusal to heed lies or abandon your ethics in the face of political pressure. It is standing, silently but solidly, in support of those who are wrongly persecuted. It is speaking for those whose voices have been silenced. All of those avenues are open to us. If we only dare to take them, they will lead us to a brighter tomorrow.
