India, May 28 -- The Trump administration's directive to US embassies to pause new student-visa interviews until steps are in place to screen political leanings of applicants is in keeping with Washington's ongoing actions against perceived anti-Semitism in US campuses. Such profiling has far-reaching implications for US academia, research, business, and the political economy at large. It will have an immediate impact on students who may have been preparing to study in the US: Indians constitute the largest international group in universities there.

The larger message here is that America has changed and will henceforth be less tolerant of dissent. It will actively seek to censure (and censor) views that are not aligned with the administ...