⭕️ Columbia University has caved to Trump’s threat of cutting off $400 million dollars in federal funding from the institution. The university announced that it will comply with Trump’s demands, and will apply the following changes, among others:
1. Granting campus police authority to arrest its own students.
2. Banning of masks, to prevent anonymity.
3. Appointing an overseer (vice Provost) to the Middle East and Palestine Studies department, effectively amounting to a receivership whereby a (((third party))) gets to influence and change curriculum, thus limiting the academic autonomy of professors.
4. Curtailing “disruptive” protests by requiring every protestors to identify themselves.
5. Changing the admission process due to a notable decline in both Black and Jewish enrollment.
6. Adopting a new definition of antisemitism, created by Columbia’s antisemitism task force, which includes implicating those who opine negative views about Israel in a way that they deem “exclusionary” to Jews. This is to be overseen by Columbia’s Vice Provost for the Office of Institutional Equity, Laura Kirschstein.
7. Launching programming for their hub in Tel Aviv this spring.
8. Hiring additional and new faculty for both the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and the departments of Economics, Political Science, and School for International and Public Affairs to “contribute to a robust and intellectually diverse academic environment, reinforcing the University’s commitment to excellence and fairness in Middle East studies.”
Many universities had previously noted that if Trump’s demands were met, it would set a dangerous precedent whereby universities, which are reliant on critical funding from the government which they could not function without, are forced to accede to government pressure without any practical recourse to challenge these threats.
Legally challenging Trump’s decision is not feasible since the government funds universities in a very diversified fashion rather than through a singular direct stream, thus the government can cut funding in multiple ways which can be nigh impossible to be comprehensively challenged in court.
