President Trump threatened last week to take away federal funds from universities that allow what he called “illegal protests.”

The cuts apparently began with Columbia University, site of probably the most ongoing and boisterous protests, mainly over the New York City Ivy League school’s ties with Israel. The Trump administration announced it was cutting $400 million in federal grants to the school. Federal agencies that severed their ties with Columbia said it was because of the university’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”

The university’s interim president. Katrina Armstrong, subsequently issued a letter that the funding cuts will “immediately impact research and other critical functions,” but also wrote that the university was taking the cuts “very seriously” and is prepared to work with the government on its “legitimate concerns.”

The crackdown on Columbia protests seemingly ratcheted up Saturday when a Columbia student who helped lead last year’s pro-Palestinian demonstrations was arrested by federal immigration authorities.

Mahmoud Khalil, who is Palestinian and Syrian, was detained Saturday night by Department of Homeland Security agents, according to his lawyer, Amy Greer. The agents said they were acting on orders from the State Department to revoke his green card, the attorney told reporters.

DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said on Sunday night that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had arrested Khalil “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism.”

The funding cutoff and arrest came after Trump wrote last week on social media that “All federal funding will STOP for any College, School or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS!”

The federal government funds universities through research grants and student loans.

UC Berkeley is reportedly among an expanding list of schools being targeted for withdrawal of these funds over the university’s response to anti-Israel protests; UCLA and USC are on this list as well, according to the New York Times.

At UC Santa Cruz, about 100 pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested last May. University officials later said that while they support free speech, they were most concerned about all students’ welfare.

University of California campuses face another funding cutoff as the Trump administration in addition has used the threat of withdrawing federal money from schools to crack down on issues Trump campaigned against, such as transgender rights and diversity, equity and inclusion policies. The administration also has been cutting or threatening to cut research funds to UC campuses, including UC Santa Cruz, where a different kind of demonstration occurred last week as part of a national “Stand Up for Science” day of protest, inspired by recent layoffs and funding cuts to federal science programs and departments such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Most of UCSC’s biomedicine and technology research is funded by federal grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. The grants pay for research supplies and wages for hundreds of UCSC graduate students and staff researchers. But funding for new biomedical research remains held up, at least for now.

Cutting off research funding is beyond short-sighted and is harmful to vital scientific research that benefits all Americans.

And no matter how disagreeable many find the on-campus anti-Israel protests, and even as some protesters have voiced support for Hamas and veered into antisemitic attacks on “Zionists,” these statements are protected by our Constitution’s First Amendment, which allows free speech. Yes, campuses need to prohibit harassment of Jewish students, but withholding government money because that same government doesn’t like what protesters, or universities, are saying is a violation of these rights.