Columbia University ceded to President Donald Trump’s calls for in trade for the 400 million {dollars} in federal funding that his administration threatened to withhold—together with guidelines that additional limit and criminalize protesting on campus, in accordance with a memo from the varsity to the White House.
Earlier this month, Trump had pulled federal funding and contracts from Columbia over claims that the college didn’t shield Jewish college students all through the pro-Palestinian, anti-war demonstrations on campus final yr. The administration offered Columbia with guidelines to comply with in the event that they needed the cash, and the college agreed to almost all of them.
As the Wall Street Journal first reported, Columbia agreed to ban masks throughout protests on campus, rent 36 new campus law enforcement officials and empower them to “remove individuals from campus and/or arrest them when appropriate,” appoint a senior vice provost with broad authority to supervise the division of Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies in addition to the Center for Palestine Studies, amongst different issues.
“Columbia University has, throughout its storied history, faced many challenges and obstacles. We have worked hard to address the legitimate concerns raised both from within and without our Columbia community, including by our regulators, with respect to the discrimination, harassment, and antisemitic acts our Jewish community has faced in the wake of October 7, 2023,” the varsity wrote within the unsigned letter, including that the brand new guidelines would “make our campus safer, more welcoming, and respectful of the rights of all.”
“At all times,” Katrina Armstrong, Columbia’s interim president, wrote in an announcement, “we are guided by our values, putting academic freedom, free expression, open inquiry, and respect for all at the fore of every decision we make.”
Many within the Columbia neighborhood, together with those that have confronted direct penalties from the college’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech, had been outraged on the settlement between Trump and Armstrong.
“Columbia has completely folded to every demand, showing us all what we already knew: admin is just doing everything it already wanted to do,” Grant Miner, one of many college students who says he was expelled for his involvement with pro-Palestine organizing on campus, wrote on X.
“By giving in to the Trump administration’s demands, Columbia sets a dangerous precedent that normalizes government intrusion on academic freedom and student expression,” the New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman mentioned in an announcement. “Instead of standing up for academic freedom, its core mission, and its faculty and students, Columbia has capitulated to the bullies. The law was on Columbia’s side, but the university hasn’t given the slightest public hint of resistance.”