The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org. March 17, 2025 "We Are Going to Fight Back": Expelled Columbia Labor Leader Vows to Combat Censorship, Retaliation --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- More large-scale protests took place across the country over the weekend demanding ICE release Mahmoud Khalil and defending the right to free speech. Here in New York, Grant Miner, the president of the Student Workers of Columbia–UAW, addressed crowds just days after Miner was fired by Columbia for taking part in antiwar campus protests. He was fired one day before his union entered bargaining talks. Grant Miner: "I was expelled and fired for participating in protest! This is a campaign of fear. The purpose of this is to cause fear and to quash the movement to free Palestine on our campuses and across the nation. I am here to tell you that labor, that students, that everybody here is going to fight back." .