Trump threatens to jail people who disagree with him

Trump threat to target "illegal protests" runs afoul of the Constitution and suggests an illegal selective approach to law enforcement.

On March 4, 2025, the day of his address to a joint session of Congress, in a post on his digital platform Truth Social, President Trump issued a threat to unilaterally cut off federal funds to “any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests”.

He also threatened to deport anyone involved in such a protest or to imprison them, though he did not specify what laws he would be attempting to enforce. The vague nature of the threat, and its apparent universal application, have led critics to warn Trump is attempting to criminalize viewpoints he dislikes.

His actions so far during his second term suggest this may be the case. He has sought to de-fund any person, entity, or program, that in any way represents, advances, or even “believes in” what he calls “gender extremism”, “woke ideologies”, or “similar”. Such actions violate the First Amendment, the 14th Amendment, due process, and various other Constitutional guarantees and civil rights protections.

Most of the pushback has noted that protests should never be violent or include threats of or celebrations of violence and that people who harass, menace, or act violently toward anyone, should be held accountable to the law for those crimes.

It is also noteworthy that Mr. Trump did not take the same view of the people who were charged with violent crimes in connection with the January 6, 2021, paramilitary attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The ACLU sent an open letter to universities urging them to protect free speech rights, including visiting international students and faculty. The ACLU also sahred this statement:

“The federal government cannot mandate expulsion of students or threaten funding cuts to punish constitutionally protected speech on campus,” said Esha Bhandari, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.“While the administration can enforce Title VI to ensure a learning environment free from harassment, it cannot force universities into adopting restrictive speech codes that silence the viewpoints the government disfavors.”