Columbia University Obeyed In Advance, Why Is That Not Working Out For Them???

Thank you, sir. May they have another?

Screengrab courtesy of YouTube

Last week the Trump administration whacked $400 million in grants and funds earmarked for Columbia University. The whacking was punishment for Columbia’s horrific sin of ... well, it’s hard to say, because if any university in America has abased itself by caving in to demands from the government or the MAGA crowd (with an assist from the New York Times) that it crack down on pro-Palestinian demonstrators or “wokeness” or students expressing opinions, it is Columbia.

And still, the Trump administration isn’t done, because the Trump administration is one giant bully, and you can’t negotiate with bullies, you can only punch them in the dick until they leave you alone.

On Thursday, the administration sent a letter to Columbia’s interim president outlining a list of “preconditions” that the (PRIVATE!) school must satisfy before it can begin “formal negotiations” to continue “its financial relationship with the US government.”

It’s an invasive list, one that sees the government taking an almost granular interest in the (again, PRIVATE!) school’s internal functions. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that the government didn’t demand Columbia build a giant statue of Donald Trump in the middle of campus with a plaque extolling his greatness. But give them time.

Among the demands:

• Enforce existing disciplinary policies. The University must complete disciplinary proceedings for Hamilton Hall and encampments. Meaningful discipline means expulsion or multi-year suspension.

• Primacy of the president in disciplinary matters. Abolish the University Judicial Board (UJB) and centralize all disciplinary processes under the Office of the President. And empower the Office of the President to suspend or expel students with an appeal process through the Office of the President.

Hamilton Hall is the building that was temporarily taken over by pro-Palestinian demonstrators protesting the United States’ support for Israel in its destruction of the Gaza Strip. Is it not enough that Columbia allowed ICE agents on its campus to arrest one of the more visible protesters and begin proceedings to revoke his green card? Is it not enough that Columbia has suspended or expelled some of the students who participated in that occupation on the very day it received this letter? Is it not enough that Columbia has put a lot more effort into groveling before the MAGA crowd and its supporters than it has put towards protecting its students’ right to protest?

Apparently, it is not.

• Time, place, and manner rules. Implement permanent, comprehensive time, place, and manner rules to prevent disruption of teaching, research, and campus life.

Again, this is ridiculously granular interference with how Columbia runs itself. And really has nothing to do with the federal government. It’s authoritarian overreach meant to chill academic freedom.

• Formalize, adopt, and promulgate a definition of antisemitism. President Trump's Executive Order 13899 uses the IHRA definition. Anti-“Zionist” discrimination against Jews in areas unrelated to Israel or Middle East must be addressed.

We are incandescent with rage that Trump’s people are using Jews as a shield to justify their demands for a crackdown. It’s a form of antisemitism itself, to treat our people like special snowflakes deserving of extra, codified protections. We’ve survived being kicked out of a gazillion places over the last couple of thousand years, we’ve survived the Holocaust, we’ve even survived community theatre productions of Fiddler on the Roof. We’ll survive the current moment without Daddy Trump turning into Hungary’s Viktor Orban on steroids, thank you very much.

• MESAAS Department - Academic Receivership. Begin the process of placing the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department under academic receivership for a minimum of five years. The University must provide a full plan, with date certain deliverables, by the March 20, 2025, deadline.

Academic receivership — putting a department under the supervision of an outside dean or provost or whoever because the department has been judged incapable of running itself — is a drastic step. We note that the Trump administration is demanding this step only for departments that study regions with decidedly non-white populations. Hm, wonder why they chose those departments! Truly it is a mystery.

We’re waiting patiently for any of the jackass pundits who have spent the last few years tsk-tsking about supposedly intolerant college students’ illiberal infringements on free speech (cough everyone at Bari Weiss’ intellectual chop shop The Free Press cough cough) to oppose this obvious stomping of First Amendment rights. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Columbia has already caved and caved and caved to MAGA over the last year and a half. The school's former president resigned after handling the protests so poorly that everyone lost confidence in her ability to lead.

There is also the Mahmoud Khalil situation, which grew worse this week when we learned that he had specifically been appealing to the school’s administration for help and protection from federal authorities in the days before he was taken from his home and shoved into the bureaucratic nightmare of our nation’s immigration system on what were specious-at-best justifications.

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And on Thursday night, the same day Columbia received the letter, Department of Homeland Security agents procured warrants and searched the dorm rooms of a couple of students who had reportedly been involved with the protests. They didn’t find anything or arrest anyone, but it had to be intimidating all the same. At least Columbia’s president had the sense to lament that one.

“We expect your immediate compliance,” the Trump officials said in the letter, adding that they would then “open a conversation” about “long-term structural reforms” to Columbia. This is what you would call a threat. Or, as the director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia accurately interpreted it, “We’ll destroy Columbia unless you destroy it first.”

The Trump team also put 60 other schools on notice about this in another letter a few days ago, but at this point every college administrator should assume they could be next. Clearly the administration is trying to make an example of Columbia to send a message.

It seems unlikely that anyone at a high level — administratively speaking — reads Wonkette. But just in case, here is something we hope they will think about:

Imagine if the Trump administration’s battles with Columbia University had the same dynamics as a teenage sex comedy from the 1980s. Columbia is the awkward nerd or the new kid in town or what have you, and the Trump administration is the football team or the fraternity or the popular high school crowd or the fraternity full of rich preppy blond dudes who drive convertibles and wear sweaters tied around their necks. And Columbia keeps getting its ass kicked until one day it learns karate or triumphs at the Greek Games or punches out Biff in the parking lot and wins the heart of an ethereal Lea Thompson.

Be the Daniel LaRusso or the George McFly you’d like to see in the world, Columbia. You maybe won’t get to bone Elizabeth Shue, but you’ll at least be able to look at yourself in the mirror.

[Huffington Post]

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