The McCarthyite Assault on Columbia University Ramps Up
And the University's leadership has made things worse
Earlier this week, I published a piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the disastrous confrontation between Columbia University and the Trump administration. Last Friday, the administration announced that it was cutting off $400 million in grants to the university because of supposed continuing inaction in the face of campus antisemitism. Notifications of grant terminations started to arrive early this week. Among other things, Columbia’s Irving Cancer Center has had its research budget largely gutted. Many scientists have had the principal funding for their research programs stopped. The action was blatantly illegal. The Civil Rights Act and subsequent legislation mandate specific procedures that need to be taken in order to terminate federal funding in response to civil rights violations by universities, and the administration followed none of them. In my article, I warned that the university should not try negotiating with the administration. The goal of Trump and his followers has not been to protect Jewish students. That is a flimsy pretext. The goal is to draw blood, and to show its power.
Unfortunately, Columbia’s interim president Katrina Armstrong chose to negotiate. Instead of denouncing the cuts, publicizing the horrific damage they will do to American science, and suing to stop the illegal move, she sent out a series of vaguely worded messages to the campus which spoke principally about her own principles and commitments, rather than saying anything about the cuts themselves. Meanwhile, she was reaching out to the administration to see what “next steps” could be taken to restore the funds."
It was a colossal mistake. The administration has now responded with an absolutely outrageous letter, outlining a series of steps that it insists Columbia take to preserve its “financial relationship” with the federal government. It includes, among other things, reforming admissions policies, especially in regard to international students, overhauling disciplinary procedures, and, most outrageously, placing an academic department under receivership—i.e. removing its chair and placing it under the direct control of the university administration. This department—Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies—has long been a target of critics such as Bari Weiss, who call it a hotbed of antisemitism. In sum, the administration’s demands amount to a full spectrum attack on Columbia’s academic autonomy.
Thanks to Armstrong’s understandable but utterly disastrous strategy, the university is now in a far worse position than it was before. It has already halfway conceded the principle that it can let the Trump administration dictate academic policy to it. If Armstrong continues to “negotiate,” she will be doubling down on this concession. If she now does a U-turn and defies the administration, she has given it the pretext to follow through on its threat and cut off all federal funding to the university. Regardless, her leadership is now utterly compromised. What a catastrophe for American academia.
The MESAAS department has been a hotbed of antisemitism for decades. It has nothing to do with scientific research of course.
Another great, and inestimably important, substack David, as was your piece in the Chronicle. Did you see this letter from the historian (and Yale PhD) Matt Connelly at Columbia to the president of Yale. He's an ally in the fight. All good wishes to you and your family, Paul
Dear President McInnis (and dear affiliates of the late, great International Security Studies program):
When I was lucky enough to be a Ph.D. student at Yale, I never considered the possibility that the U.S. government would threaten classmates with deportation simply because they opposed U.S. foreign policy. I never had to worry that a president would warn he would not "tolerate" a university that refused to help round up students, or threaten to cut all student financial aid at a university if professors did not stop teaching certain interpretations of American history. I know that there has been too much conformity and groupthink in academia. But even at its most extreme, the forces of "political correctness" never tried to send anyone to Gitmo, and did not vow to "destroy" non-conforming institutions.
At ISS, we learned to think strategically, in terms of ends and means. If our goal is to defend the independence and excellence of higher education in America, we cannot let Trump make an example of Columbia, to intimidate every other institution. Instead, we need to be forming alliances, and marshalling all our resources. So may I ask, with all due respect, when will Yale -- and other colleges and universities -- begin to support Columbia, and present a united front?
Sincerely,
Matt Connelly, Ph.D. '98
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Matthew Connelly
Professor of History
Columbia University
www.matthewconnelly.net