Last school year’s historic protests over the war in Gaza roiled campuses and dominated headlines, with more than 3,100 students arrested nationwide. Over the summer, the protests cooled off and students returned home. But college administrators spent the summer crafting new free speech policies designed to discourage students from continuing what they started last spring. Between May and August, at least 20 colleges and university systems—representing more than 50 campuses—tightened the rules governing protest on their property.

The protest encampments that appeared on more than 130 campuses last spring served as a visual reminder of the 2 million displaced people in Gaza. Students held teach-ins, slept in tents, created art together, ate, and prayed in these makeshift societies—some for hours or days, others for entire weeks or months. The free speech organization FIRE estimated last week that 1 in 10 students has personally participated in a protest regarding Israel’s war in Gaza. The protesters demanded that their schools disclose any investments in (variously) the Israeli military, the state of Israel, or the military-industrial complex in general—and disentangle their endowments from war-makers. 

Some student groups won meetings with administrators, disclosure of the terms of their college’s endowment, or representation for Palestine studies in their school’s curriculum. A few schools agreed to work towards divestment or implement new investment screening procedures. Students elsewhere, though, saw no concessions on their goals from college administrators—and were left, instead, to spend months doing court-ordered community service or working through a lengthy school-ordered disciplinary process.  

Prior to last year’s protests, “time, space, and manner” restrictions on campus protest were considered standard practice, said Risa Lieberwitz, a Cornell University professor of labor and employment law who serves as general counsel for the American Association of University Professors. Many universities had pre-existing policies prohibiting, for example, obstructing a walkway or occupying an administrative office. Those policies were usually enforced via threats of suspension or expulsion. This year’s restrictions are different, said Lieberwitz, who previously described the new rules as “a resurgence of repression on campuses that we haven’t seen since the late 1960s.”

Lieberwitz is particularly concerned with policies requiring protest organizers to register their protest, under their own names, with the university they are protesting. “There’s a real contradiction between registering to protest and being able to actually go out and protest just operationally,” she said. “Then there’s also the issue of the chilling effect that comes from that, which comes from knowing that this is a mechanism that allows for surveillance.” Students who are required to register themselves as protest organizers may prefer to avoid expressing themselves at all. 

MIT has lots of rules about ethical funding, about the duty to do no harm with one’s research. And yet, they refuse to apply any of those rules to their own behavior.

“The point of having a rally is to be disruptive, anyway,” said MIT PhD student Richard Solomon, who participated in last year’s campus protests. For Solomon, divestment is personal. Last month, Mohammed Masbah, a Gazan student he refers to as his brother and who spent several months living with his family, was killed in an Israeli airstrike. As Solomon pointed out in a column for the student newspaper, Masbah was likely killed with the help of technology developed at American universities like MIT. 

“MIT has lots of rules about ethical funding, about the duty to do no harm with one’s research,” he told Mother Jones. “And yet they refuse to apply any of those rules to their own behavior, their own research, their own institutional collaborations.” It’s hard, he said, for students to respect protest rules when their school doesn’t respect its own rules, either. (When asked to comment, a MIT representative pointed me to a speech by the school’s president last spring, in which she stated that MIT “relies on rigorous processes to ensure all funded research complies with MIT policies and US law.”)

Beyond demanding that protests be registered, many schools have banned camping on their grounds. Some have required that anyone wearing a mask on campus—whether for health reasons or otherwise—be ready to present identification when asked. Others have banned all unregistered student “expressive activity” (a euphemistic phrase that generally covers a range of public demonstrations including protests, rallies, flyering, or picketing) gatherings over a certain size. Still others have banned all use of speakers or amplified sound during the school week (including, in one case, the use of some acoustic instruments). 

At Carnegie Mellon University, students and faculty were informed during the last week of August that any “expressive activity” involving more than 25 students must be registered—under the organizers’ names—at least three business days prior to the event, and be signed off on by a “Chief Risk Officer.” 

In response, a group of Carnegie Mellon students, faculty members, and alumni lined up on a grassy campus quadrangle holding up signs labeled “1” through “29.” This act, now prohibited on Carnegie Mellon’s campus, drove home the policy’s absurdity—on a campus of 13,000 students, half of whom live on campus, a gathering of 25+ people may be harder to avoid than to initiate.

David Widder, who earned his PhD at Carnegie Mellon last year, called the new policy “authoritarian,” and unlike anything he’d seen during his six years at the institution. “We hoped to playfully but visibly violate the policy—and show that the sky does not fall when students and faculty speak out about issues that matter to them,” he told Mother Jones. “We can’t credibly claim to be a university with these gross restrictions on free expression.” 

According to a statement by the university’s provost, the new policy was intended to “ensure coordination with the university and support the conditions for civil and safe exchange.”

Linguistics Professor Uju Anya, who spoke at the rally, pointed out that at least $2.8 billion of Carnegie Mellon’s research funding has come from the Department of Defense since 2008. “We know that our universities have skin in the game now, in the weapons and in the money,” Anya said. “So, ultimately, Carnegie Mellon is in bed with baby bombers, and they don’t want us—the members of this community, who also have a stake in what the university does—to openly question them.” 

At some schools, the conflict over newly instituted protest policies has already made its way to the courts. The ACLU of Indiana announced August 29 that it would be suing Indiana University over an “expressive activity” policy which, like CMU’s, was implemented in late summer. The policy under debate defines “expressive activity” in part as  “Communicating by any lawful verbal, written, audio visual, or electronic means,” as well as “Protesting” and “Distributing literature” and “circulating petitions.” 

The policy limits “expressive activity” to the hours between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. “This is written so broadly, if any one of us was to wear a T-shirt supporting a cause at 11:15 p.m. while walking through IU, we would be violating the policy,” Ken Falk, legal director of the ACLU of Indiana, said. “The protections of the First Amendment do not end at 11:00 p.m., only to begin again at 6 a.m.” Since Indiana University is a public school, it is bound by the First Amendment and can’t limit speech as strictly as a private college. 

Lieberwitz, the AAUP lawyer, said she expects more legal challenges like the ACLU’s this coming year. According to the Crowd Counting Consortium at Harvard University, protests on college campuses are spiking again, though not at the levels seen last year. On at least two campuses, protesters have already been arrested. And between August 15 and September 3, there wasn’t a single day without some sort of Palestine solidarity action on a college campus somewhere in the United States.

---

The following is an incomplete list of US university protest policies changed between May and August of 2024. 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology: As of August 30, unauthorized tent encampments are prohibited. Authorized demonstrations on campus may only be organized by “Departments, Labs, or Centers, recognized student organizations, and employee unions.”

University of Virginia: Updated “Rules on Demonstrations and Access to Shared Spaces” as of August 26. Non-permitted tents are now forbidden, no tent can stay up for over 18 hours, unless “in use for official University or school events,” and anyone wearing a mask on University property must present identification if asked. No outdoor events are permitted between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. 

University of Wisconsin, Madison: Updated its policy on “expressive activity” August 28. “Expressive activity,” defined as activities protected by the First Amendment including “speech, lawful assembly, protesting, distributing literature and chalking,” is now prohibited within 25 feet of university building entrances.

University of California (1o campuses): Camping or erecting tents is forbidden as of August 19. Masking “to conceal identity” is banned. 

California State University (23 campuses): “Camping, overnight demonstrations, or overnight loitering” is banned, as are “disguises or concealment of identity,” as of August 19. 

Virginia Commonwealth University: As of August 9, anyone on University property covering their face must show identification. Encampments are explicitly prohibited, “unless approved in advance by the University.” 

University of Pennsylvania: As of June 7, encampments are banned, as are any overnight demonstrations, and “non-news” livestreaming. “Unauthorized overnight activities” are to be considered trespassing. 

James Madison University: As of August, no “tents or other items” may be used to create a shelter on campus unless approved by the university. Chalking on walkways is prohibited. “Camping” is defined as “the use of any item to create a shelter.”

Indiana University (nine campuses): As of July 29, “expressive activity” is limited to the hours between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m., and any “signs or temporary structures” are now required to be approved at least 10 days in advance of “expressive activity” by the university. 

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: As of August 21, camping is prohibited except in designated areas. 

University of South Florida system (three campuses): As of August 26, “activities in public spaces” after 5 p.m. are prohibited unless students request a reservation. 

Harvard University: Plans to ban “outdoor chalking” and “unapproved signage” are in process as of July 30, according to a draft obtained by the Harvard Crimson. Indoor protests have already been banned as of January 2024. 

University of Connecticut (five campuses): As of August 21, students cannot make amplified sound through speakers or megaphones, or use certain acoustic instruments like “trumpets, trombones, or violins” in public spaces at any point during the day Monday through Friday, with official university events excepted. 

Carnegie Mellon University: As of August 23, an “event involving expressive activity” occurring on campus “must be registered with the University if more than 25 participants are expected to attend” at least three business days in advance.  

Pomona College: As of August 2024, encampments are prohibited, and noncompliance may result in “detention and arrest by law enforcement.” Additional police officers have been hired to patrol campus.

Emory University: As of August 27, camping is prohibited on campus, and protests are prohibited between midnight and 7 a.m. 

Emerson College: As of August 23, protests may only occur between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m., and must be pre-registered with the college. 

Rutgers University: As of August 20, Demonstrations must be held between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. and only in “designated public forum areas.” 

University of Minnesota (five campuses): On August 27, university administrators unveiled new  “guidelines for spontaneous expressive activity,” which state that all protests must end by 10 p.m., must use no more than one megaphone, and that groups of over 100 people must register their spontaneous expressive activity at least two weeks in advance.

Syracuse University: As of August, “unauthorized use or assembly of tents or other temporary shelter structures” is prohibited.

Did your school implement a new protest policy this year? Email shurwitz@motherjones.com.

---

Correction, September 13: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s protest policy as prohibiting protests within 25 feet of university buildings, rather than prohibiting protest within 25 feet of university building entrances.

For our September+October issue, we investigated the Border Patrol’s sharp growth, its troubling record on civil liberties, its culture of impunity, and its role in shaping the current political moment—one that echoes the anti-immigrant fever that led to the agency’s creation a century ago. Read the whole package here.

It was dawn and we were in Sunland Park, New Mexico, a few hundred feet from the border, watching the US government surveillance towers that watch all of us. They were positioned atop a bald hillside, taking in a constant stream of images from all angles. One tower, a sleek, 33-foot telescoping pole built by Anduril Industries, the defense contractor run by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and funded by PayPal co-founder and GOP megadonor Peter Thiel, was capable of recording night-vision images and spotting human beings up to 1.7 miles away.

My companions were Tucson-based photographers documenting the growing landscape of border surveillance mechanisms. They were working with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to map all such towers along the border—a vast, expensive, and increasingly automated network that is now effectively an electronic wall.

Less than 10 miles away, in El Paso, the importance of automated surveillance and artificial intelligence was the theme of the annual Border Security Expo, a massive conference that drew roughly 1,700 attendees in 2023. Many of them were employees of the “industry partners” that market and sell such technology to representatives from 46 state agencies; they were joined by overseas buyers and a handful of academics. “Border Security Expo [is] the best place to gain access to this hard-to-reach, highly qualified audience,” the exhibitor prospectus boasted.

Inside the exhibition hall, visitors were met by a Verizon-built robot dog performing an uncanny march: forward like an old-timey soldier, side to side like a jittery crab.

“This is a partnership,” Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens said during the opening panel. “We’re expressing to you the things that we need and relying on the big brains in this room and your companies to come up with the next way forward.”

The conference featured panels such as “Border of the Future” and “DHS Acquisition: Tone From the Top.” Inside the exhibition hall—a large, fluorescent-lit chamber resembling the belly of a colossal blimp—visitors were met by a Verizon-built robot dog performing an uncanny march: forward like an old-timey soldier, side to side like a jittery crab.

Automated ground surveillance vehicles, as the dogs are known, can lend “a helping hand (or ‘paw’) with new technology that can assist with enhancing the capabilities of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel, while simultaneously increasing their safety downrange.” These dogs are ready to be outfitted with cameras, sensors, and radio.

Other exhibitors featured “No BS” canine food to help optimize real-life working dogs; virtual reality training systems that sharpen law enforcement’s shooting skills; all-terrain tanks; heavy-duty cargo e-bikes; mobile fences; and guns, of course. Occasionally, the displays reminded attendees of the true adversary most border technologies targeted: people. A heat-­sensing camera that works from miles away, for instance, and sensors that can detect a human heartbeat hidden in a vehicle.

Like nearly everyone else, CBP leadership has a serious case of AI fever, and officials make clear that this kind of technology acts as a “force multiplier” to Border Patrol agents themselves. Surveillance tower cameras and drones can alert agents when a vehicle or person comes into view and help CBP ascertain the threat level. AI tools also help screen cargo coming into the country and scour data from CBP One—a notoriously glitchy app that asylum seekers must use to navigate their legal process—to detect cases of suspicious identity.

Just last year, CBP’s AI monitoring system flagged “a suspicious pattern in the border crossing history” of a car in Southern California. Upon further review, 75 kilos of drugs were found in the vehicle, and the driver was arrested.

The Biden administration has insisted on the responsible use of AI. Yet such guidelines rarely have any teeth—and could be easily dismantled under a new administration.

AI and machine learning at the border aren’t entirely new. The first autonomous towers were installed in 2018, and two years later, the Trump administration brokered a deal with Anduril. (Luckey, the brother-in-law of Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, donated $100,000 toward Trump’s inaugural celebrations in 2017.) Trump’s bombastic rhetoric has always focused on mass deportations and his cherished border wall. But all along his administration was building a surveillance apparatus that the Biden White House has since expanded—and that could be the single most powerful tool in the hands of a second Trump administration to carry out extrajudicial exclusion at the US border. One that could be used against its citizens, too.

But this would first require Border Patrol to effectively analyze all the data it’s collecting. At the Expo, Border Patrol officials routinely noted that AI surveillance tools have amassed so much information that CBP needs machine learning tools to make any sense of it. “In the past we were looking at hundreds of millions of nodes of data,” said Ray Shuler, DHS’s assistant director of cyber and operations technology. “Now we’re looking at multibillion-node graphs.” Shuler says his unit alone is running up to 400 servers at any given time and is constantly in need of more storage capacity.

But managing this data, said Joshua Powell, CBP’s director of AI implementation, is what “will give us the advantage over our adversary. They have the resources. They have the money. They have connections.” Officials invoked the “adversary” repeatedly throughout the convention—a militarized villain, and a mushy one at that. But who, exactly, was this well-heeled, tricked-out, tech-savvy enemy amassing at our gates? It could be anyone—which is why we need constant surveillance.

For its part, the Biden administration has insisted on the responsible use of AI. In 2023, DHS named tech specialist Eric Hysen as the department’s first chief AI officer, issued a departmental framework for responsible AI, and launched the AI Corps, a team of 50 experts to better monitor and implement the technology. “AI is going to make us bigger and faster and stronger—it’s not going to make us any less accountable,” Hysen claims. Yet as EFF investigations director Dave Maass points out, such administrative guidelines and bodies rarely have any teeth—and could be easily dismissed or dismantled under a new administration.

At the Expo, Border Patrol officials insisted that their work is saving lives—and that the latest technological acquisitions support this mission. But some border tech is inherited from war zones or inspired by them; notably, many of the vendors also contract with the Department of Defense. As Harvard researcher Petra Molnar, author of The Walls Have Eyes, argues, border zones are perfect test sites for technologies with questionable human rights applications, since they’re often obscured from public view. Once refined and normalized at the border, they can more easily slip into the mainstream—iris scans at airports, for instance, or automated traffic tickets issued to anyone who runs red lights (which the Texas legislature outlawed in 2019). Maass argues that surveillance reliant upon algorithmic technology can make mistakes—with consequences that can be dangerous for the person on the other end.

The future of the border is one of endless expansion and externalization—well staffed and automated, optimized by artificial intelligence, and implemented by men in green.

Those of us who live far from the border might imagine surveillance towers situated in remote swaths of the desert. Some of them are. But often they are positioned in border towns near schools and downtown shopping centers, on Native American reservations, and alongside the highways where we all drive. “We are actually talking about a surveillance network that monitors communities…that have nothing to do with transport or crime,” Maass told me. “They are just living their lives, doing their thing, but they’ve got the CBP tower looking in their window.”

US border defense is ever-expanding in reach—moving not just deep into our country’s interior, but also far beyond our own walls. “Most people don’t know there are Border Patrol agents today deployed around the globe in dangerous areas,” Chief Owens explained to the crowd on the Expo’s opening day, “with the express purpose of making sure that they can stop the threat from ever reaching our borders in the first place.”

Powell, too, spoke of the need to “[push] our borders out beyond what we’ve traditionally been focused on, an outline of the United States…out through Western and Eastern hemispheres to identify who is thinking, planning, and attempting to make entry into the US and then why.” By collecting and sharing data with intelligence agencies across international borders, the thinking goes, we’ll be better able to defend our own. Ultimately, the future of the border is one of endless expansion and externalization—well staffed and automated, optimized by artificial intelligence, and implemented by men in green.

When he was in El Paso for the Expo, Dugan Meyer, a graduate student and one of the photographers contributing to EFF’s countersurveillance map, headed out in the late afternoon to New Mexico’s Mount Cristo Rey—a bare, rugged peak adorned with a giant white statue of Christ from the 1930s. Here, the insistent advance of the border wall is briefly broken by the base of the mountain and becomes a major hotspot for Border Patrol activity, migrant crossings, and deaths. That night, Meyer hung out near the wall in the brush, watching as helicopters patrolled the skies while Border Patrol trucks scoured the dark. At one point, Meyer heard someone climb the wall from the Mexican side and drop down into the United States. Meyer saw the man step carefully over railroad tracks and then disappear into the scrub.

Patrol forces reappeared within minutes, as if something had alerted them to the crossing. Perhaps something had. For the next hour, Meyer watched the hunt. The Border Patrol has access to heat-­seeking cameras, surveillance towers, drones, helicopters, and ground sensors. The man was racing this vast, mechanized force, all odds seemingly against him, and yet every day, in spite of the billions of dollars spent to stop them, people like him manage to get through. For Border Patrol authorities, however, this becomes one more piece of evidence that they need more of everything: funding, agents, towers, robot dogs.

This endless expansion is the reality the Expo was selling—and, maybe more importantly, banking on.

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center. Read the rest of our Border Patrol investigation here.

Image credits: Allison Dinner/AFP/Getty; Rebekah Zemansky/Shutterstock, Shutterstock (3)