From Missouri Digital News: https://mdn.org

®RM75¯®FC¯COL452.PRB - A Perspective about Trump's Internments®MDBO¯®MDNM¯ ®FL¯

This column departs from my normal subject of Missouri statehouse issues.

It stems from my concern that Donald Trump's actions against foreign students and higher education institutions with foreign students obstructs what I found to be a tremendous educational opportunity for students from other countries to understand how journalism thrives in the U.S. because of free-speech rights and judicial protection.

It was a two-way street because my American students also gained a better international understanding from their interactions with my exchange students.

It led to some long-term international friendships and contributed to a better international understanding about journalism and how important the courts have been in protecting journalism in the U.S. compared with other countries.

By way of background, for many years, in addition to hosting journalism students from other countries to cover Missouri's statehouse with my American students, I also conducted international workshops for journalists around the world.

My objective was to help them understand the significant rights and protections for journalism in the U.S.

One of the best examples of the court protection came in 1964 when the U.S. Supreme Court held that the First Amendment prohibited lawsuits against public outlets without proof of malice -- knowledge that the outlet knew the information was false or acted in reckless disregard as to whether the information was true or not.

Although the decision was a major victory for journalists, the lawsuit actually involved an ad in the New York Times from a civil rights organization, not a news story.

Another example from the Supreme Court came later in 1971 when the court upheld the right of the New York Times to publish classified documents from a government source that outlined the complicated history of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war.

I warned my international journalists to realize the rights for journalists in the United States may not be the same in their own countries. In fact, one of my former international students ended up in prison for a short term for simply reporting government violence in his country.

I now fear that the actions of Pres. Donald Trump and his administration could undermine what I sought to inspire my international students about the U.S. freedoms and rights that empower U.S. journalists and the public's right to know.

Pres. Donald Trump's "I don't know" when a reporter asked whether he needs to uphold the Constitution is a perfect example.

The president should have known better because the oath of office he took that is mandated in the U.S. Constitution is to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

If I were still an active MU faculty member, the current actions by Trump's administration would make me reluctant to sponsor international students to Missouri knowing they could be subject to removal without judicial review.

That's why I am sure faculty with whom I worked in other countries also are having second thoughts about sending their students to the U.S. I share that concern, particulary for the financial cost and educational disruption for a foreign student barred from academic study in the U.S.

It would be a loss not only for students for both foreign, but also for U.S. students who learned from my foreign students how special are the rights of journalists in United States.

On a more positive note, U.S. courts have become more forceful ordering judicial reviews before deportation and restricting recent administration actions against foreign visitors.

I have a personal family connection to Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act as justification for internment and other actions.

During WWII, that federal law was invoked to intern thousands of U.S. citizens of German, Japanese and Italian origin.

My grandparents in Torrance California volunteered to maintain the local plant nursery of Japanese owners after they were forced to a remote, desolate desert site (termed in some stories a "concentration camp") for internment.

My grandma continued to manage the family's plant nursery's finances until the family was released and returned.

Along with my dad's lengthy military service that began in WWII and the actions of my grandma remain a deep inspiration for me.

If you want to know more about the Japanese internments, search the website of Manzanar at https://www.nps.gov/manz/index.htm.

Backpacking in the Sierra Navada mountains overlooking Manzanar decades after the internments, I can vouch for the website's photos of how harsh was the desert environment and the oppressive heat.

Although, my father was born and raised in Independence in Owens Valley near Mazanar. He recounted to me his fond memories of the dry and hot region similar to the inspiring memories Manzanar inmates wrote about how they survived and thrived.

[Phill Brooks has been a Missouri statehouse reporter since 1970, making him dean of the statehouse press corps. Although now mostly retired, he has been the statehouse correspondent for KMOX Radio, director of MDN and an emeritus faculty member of the Missouri School of Journalism. He has covered every governor since the late Warren Hearnes.]

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