Two weeks ago, 20-year-old Purdue sophomore Yeonsoo Go was kidnapped by ICE.
Despite holding a valid visa, she was taken from her apartment, detained without due process, and transferred to a federal immigration facility hundreds of miles away. Her visa wasn’t expired. There were no new charges. There was no trial.
This wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was an abuse of power.
West Lafayette’s own state representative, Chris Campbell, condemned the arrest:
“Yeonsoo Go is a young woman who came to the U.S. on a legal, religious worker’s dependent visa. An attorney for the Episcopal Diocese in New York, where Go’s mother serves as a priest, says that her current visa doesn’t even expire until December.”
Let that sink in. A legal resident. A sophomore at a public university. Kidnapped by the federal government under false pretenses, and only released after a week of national pressure and legal intervention.
Despite the national attention, Mung Chiang, the president of Purdue, has not made a statement in Go’s defense. In fact, Purdue has been entirely silent on this issue. This could be largely explained by Purdue’s “institutional neutrality” policy, which reads as follows:
This policy provides that the university will refrain from taking an official institutional position on a government proposal or policy debate that touches on a social or political issue being contested in the public arena unless that proposal or policy has a direct bearing on the university’s fiscal affairs or on the tools afforded to it to advance its land-grant mission.
This policy aligns with Purdue practice, dating to an April 1966 statement from then-Purdue President Frederick Hovde that cites a resolution approved by the University Senate earlier that academic year, and embraces and incorporates the principles set forth in the University of Chicago’s 1967 Kalven Report.
This broad policy is open to much interpretation: what does “direct bearing” mean? What makes a policy one that’s “contested in the public arena?” At what point does something become “an official institutional position?”
To you, these questions might seem a bit silly, and intuitive to answer, but frequently these grey areas are where the frontiers of “contested social or political issues” are fought.
When it’s student safety that’s on the line, even if that means “taking an official institutional position,” then Purdue University ought to take a standpoint, even if that is a matter of national debate. Purdue University must be proactive and support the protection of civil liberties, lest they end up in a fascist state where freedom of speech is no longer protected.
President Chiang’s refusal to condemn Go’s detention, despite it clearly “bearing directly” on Purdue’s ability to protect and educate international students, reveals the true function of this so-called neutrality: deference to power.
Purdue has bent over backward to accommodate the political right, hosting controversial conservative figures to campus (like Charlie Kirk), all while hiding behind policy when real lives are at stake.
But neutrality in the face of injustice is not neutrality at all, it is complicity. And when a 20-year-old student can be disappeared from her home by ICE with no institutional pushback, it sends a clear message: Purdue will not protect you.
In fact, Purdue has used their “institutional neutrality” clause as a weapon against students. Most notably in the issue of The Purdue Exponent v. Purdue University. Purdue required that going forward, Purdue’s name wouldn’t be on The Exponent, and it wouldn’t be sent around campus.
Rather than supporting a decades-old student newspaper, Purdue has used its neutrality policy to strip The Purdue Exponent of its name and visibility on campus, distancing itself from any accountability for what students publish, while weakening their ability to distribute it.
Purdue cares more about their “reputation” than about the civil liberties of their students.
That silence becomes even more chilling when you remember who Purdue is trying not to upset. Donald Trump has made it clear that universities are one of his primary targets, revoking federal funding, and dismantling the DoE. Purdue, under the leadership of Mung Chiang, has already positioned itself to align with that rhetoric.
Instead of standing up to political overreach, the university has signaled its willingness to comply. By staying silent as ICE detains one of its own students under false pretenses Purdue is proving loyalty to an agenda that treats higher education as an enemy, that’s not neutrality.
That’s surrender.
And it sends a chilling message to every international student and every advocate for civil rights on campus: in a moment of crisis, Purdue will not stand by you.
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I disagree because in the long run, what is a statement actually going to do? It might fit the rhetoric that you want but its going to just end up being performative and do nothing. I think a way better way to help with this is to actually get involved with local immigrants in your community and make sure their needs are met and ask them about their feelings on the situation so they feel heard. Forcing every powerful voice to align with your ideas only affects the abstract plain and does nothing to actually help the real people being targeted by this. Online activism can only change thoughts, and in order to have a real impact on these people being persecuted, its necessary to do real actions that benefit their lives. At the end of the day, Purdue could condemn this or say nothing, but if you really help these people are being targeted, that will be remembered forever and have a true impact on them.