WASHINGTON --- President Donald Trump on Thursday stood next to a Syracuse University student in the White House as he ripped colleges and universities that he accused of suppressing free speech on campus.

Justine Murray, an SU sophomore, was among 10 college students invited to join Trump on stage in the East Room of the White House as he signed an executive order that threatens to withhold federal research grants from schools that don’t support free speech.

“If a college or university does not allow you to speak, we will not give them money,” Trump told an audience that included more than 100 college students from 28 states. “It’s very simple.”

Among the invited guests in the audience was Tyler Toomey, a junior at SUNY Oswego, whose conservative student organization received death threats after setting up a table on campus in support of Trump’s border wall.

The president asked four of the students on stage to share stories in which they said their speech was suppressed on campus. One student said she was stopped from handing out Valentine’s Day cards with religious messages on campus after she was accused of “soliciting.”

Murray, standing to the left of Trump on stage, was not asked to share her story.

SU officials confirmed Thursday that she attempted to set up a conservative student group on campus, Young Americans for Freedom. An application was denied by a student review board because it was missing required information, including a contract with an adviser.

Murray was not available for an interview with reporters after Trump signed the order. She stood next to the president as he signed the order, which could place $35 billion in federal research grants from 12 agencies under greater scrutiny.

Toomey, the SUNY Oswego student, sat in the audience to the left of Trump, four rows from the front of the room.

Toomey said White House officials didn’t tell him why he received the invite. But he suspects it’s because the college supported free speech for members of his organization, the Young Americans for Freedom Club. The club set up a table in a campus building in February, supporting Trump’s border wall.

“I would like to think I was invited because the SUNY Oswego administration did a good job and is an example of what colleges should do,” Toomey said in an interview. “They may not support our message, but they supported our right to speech.”

Toomey said some SUNY Oswego students are afraid to join the club because of online death threats. The university investigated and found none of the threats originated from its students.

“For conservative students, a lot of them don’t want to join our college clubs because they’re fearful of the hostile reaction we sometimes receive,” Toomey said.

Before the White House event, Murray from SU posted on her Facebook page, “I am deeply honored to join the president tomorrow in defending free speech on America’s college campuses, where I have personally battled an insidious movement to silence mainstream students who disagree with the conformist political dogma spewed by an increasingly intolerant faculty and their fawning pupils.”

SU Chancellor Kent Syverud said in a statement to Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard that the university takes seriously its free speech responsibilities on campus.

“I strongly believe that our nation’s college campuses need to be places where the First Amendment is respected, and where the full diversity of political views can be civilly discussed,” Syverud said. He added the university will do more to promote all viewpoints.

“I can’t imagine academic freedom or the genuine search for truth thriving here without free speech,” Syverud said, “and for that reason Syracuse University will continue to vigorously protect freedom of expression on behalf of all members of our campus community.”

Roy Gutterman, director of the Tully Center for Free Speech at SU’s Newhouse School of Public Communications, said one big question surrounds Trump’s order: “Whose free speech is he trying to protect?”

“If this sort of order facilitates free speech on both sides of the political spectrum, then that’s laudable,” Gutterman said. “But it looks like this is designed to protect free speech from conservative groups that are facing hostility on college campuses these days.”

Trump’s order also requires federal agencies to seek more information from schools about student debt and earnings of their graduates. The schools would have to provide the data for each program of study.

An administration official told reporters Thursday that colleges should be transparent about the average earnings and loan repayment rates of former students who received federal student aid. The information could be used by prospective student to compare schools and programs before enrolling.

Trump’s focus on student debt comes at the same time he has proposed a 10 percent cut in funding (about $7.1 billion) for the Department of Education in his 2020 budget and cracked down on debt forgiveness programs.

The president said he wants to eliminate federal subsidies for student debt under an Obama-era program that stopped interest from accruing on loans for those in school or who have an economic hardship.

Trump also wants to cut down on the number of student debt repayment plans that cap monthly bills as a percentage of income. Under his proposal, payments would be limited to 12.5 percent of a borrower’s discretionary income, up from 10 percent.

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