In an absolutely shocking capitulation, the university decides to fall on its sword for Trump. It comes out swinging against public health, banning masks on the campus; it allows Trump and his ignorance brigade a measure of control over university departments and curriculum. Columbia has abandoned its commitment to academic freedom.
The New York Times (and they should know how ungrateful Trump is when you kow tow to him) reported yesterday that “Several historians and veteran professors said that the move by the federal government to intervene in an academic department at a private university would be unparalleled in the modern history of U.S. higher education.”
Acting president Katrina A. Armstrong issued a statement two days ago that is now revealed as pure bullshit: “We will never compromise our values of pedagogical independence, our commitment to academic freedom or our obligation to follow the law.”
Her decision, or whomever’s it was, makes a mockery of this pledge. It will cost Columbia immensely in diminished admissions and prestige. Columbia is now a protectorate of Trump and his anti-education, anti-civil rights juggernaut.
And remember, Trump doesn’t give a flying fig about anti-Semitism. Musk is a Nazi. Vance went to Germany to advocate for the neo-Nazis. Trump says that Schumer isn’t really a Jew. Trump and his followers routinely make remarks that incite anti-Semitism. All Trump and his gauleiters are doing is exploiting anti-Semitism to install their fascist agenda and deflect from their own complicity.
The sheer foolishness of whomever it was that engineered this surrender displays again how lacking in strategic insight the most intellectually accomplished people can be. As PEN writes in a statement today, Columbia’s cave (in return for which they have no guarantee of getting their US funding back), “opens the door for even greater interference and retaliation from the Trump administration, threatening academic freedom, vital research, and students’ education.”