Ozturk, a post-doctoral student at the Massachusetts university, was detained by plainclothes masked man last month in an incident which prompted outrage [Getty]
Tufts University on Wednesday publicly backed its student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national detained by federal agents last week as part of US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activism.
In a legal declaration signed by the Massachusetts university’s president Sunil Kumar, Tufts demands that the 30-year-old doctoral candidate be “released without delay so that she can return to complete her studies and finish her degree” at the school.
Video of Ozturk’s arrest by masked agents on a sidewalk has sparked outrage online, and added to concerns about freedom of speech and respect for due process under Trump.
Tufts is taking a stand as Trump has targeted prestigious universities that became the epicenter of the US student protest movement sparked by Israel’s deadly war in Gaza, stripping federal funds and directing immigration officers to deport foreign student demonstrators.
Critics argue that the campaign amounts to retribution and will have a chilling effect on free speech.
In its statement, the school asserted that it has “no information to support the allegations that she was engaged in activities at Tufts that warrant her arrest and detention.”
It described Ozturk as “a valued member of the community, dedicated to her academic pursuits and committed to her colleagues,” and said she had received an outpouring of support from students and staff.
Ozturk co-authored an article in the university student newspaper in March 2024 criticising the college’s handling of student anger around Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 50,000 since 7 October, 2023.
She is contesting her detention in a federal court in Massachusetts.
Trump has targeted institutions including New York’s Columbia University, initially putting $400 million of funding under review, detaining for deportation Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student who took part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia, and seeking to arrest others.
Columbia then announced a package of concessions to the government around defining antisemitism, policing protests and oversight for specific academic departments.
They stopped short, however, of meeting some of the more strident demands of the Trump administration, which nonetheless welcomed the Ivy League college’s proposals and said a review of its funding was “ongoing.”
The US government will also review some $9 billion in funding for Harvard University over alleged antisemitism on its campus, authorities said this week.
