‘You say you want a Revolution, well …’

Posted on May 1, 2025 by Joe Weber

If they’re going to change the world, universities need to do more

Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix, 1830. Source: DiPLO

A couple weeks ago, New York Times columnist David Brooks called for something akin to a revolution.

“It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising,” he wrote in a piece headlined “What’s Happening is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal.” He argued: “It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.”

Are we beginning to see the rise of such a rival power or, more properly, rival powers? Glimmers are emerging in some universities that are uniting to fight federal funding cuts and other actions President Donald J. Trump has taken to shatter what he sees as “woke” culture.

But, so far, the efforts seem oddly timid. Either university administrators fear being too out front in hopes they can avoid Trump’s vindictiveness or they think — mistakenly — that they can weather the gathering storm.

Rutgers profs David Salas-de la Cruz, left, and Paul Boxer

Showing less fear, a pair of Rutgers professors — chemist David Salas-de la Cruz and psychologist Paul Boxer — in March drafted a “mutual defense compact.” They proposed bringing together the 18 schools in the Big Ten athletic and academic conference in resistance to Trump.

This compact would commit the schools to provide “meaningful” cash for a defense fund aimed at supporting any member “under direct political or legal infringement.” It would provide legal counsel, governance experts, and public affairs offices “to coordinate a unified and vigorous response” that could include countersuit actions, strategic public communication, amicus briefs and expert testimony, legislative advocacy and coalition-building.

Quickly following suit, faculty senates at more than a dozen of the schools endorsed the idea. Encouragingly, they include those groups at Rutgers, one of my alma maters, and my prior employer, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The resolution passed at Rutgers called on the university’s president, Jonathan Holloway, to “take a leading role in convening a summit of Big Ten academic and legal leadership” to start the compact.

But Holloway has demurred. While he supported the “ethos” of the resolution, he did not formally endorse it, noting that he is stepping down at the end of the academic year, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. “I’m a president walking out the door in two months,” he said in a senate meeting. “Presidents going out the door have no lobbying power with their peers.”

Instead, Holloway encouraged faculty senators to “work with their colleagues in other university senates and shared-governance councils, whether in the Big Ten or beyond, to further test their thinking, understand what may or may not be possible, and identify the local constraints and freedoms that define the actions of peer institutions,” according to a spokeswoman.

Mealy-mouthed? PR-speak for “no way can we do this”?

Already, a spokesman for Ohio State told The Washington Post that “it is not legally permissible for the university to participate in a common defense fund.” Other administrators have not taken up the idea publicly, including representatives for leaders at Indiana and Nebraska who did not respond The Chronicle’s request for comment.

Perhaps it’s no wonder that the top university officials may hope a duck-and-cover strategy will serve them better. But that is likely only because they haven’t yet had to fight, as Harvard has. Recall that Harvard has brought suit against the administration for freezing billions in federal grants.

Some Harvard professors have even pledged to donate 10 percent of their salaries this year to support the university’s fight. “If we as a faculty are asking the University administration to resist the Trump administration’s attacks on academic freedom, we should also be willing to share in the financial sacrifice that will be necessary,” Harvard Kennedy School professor Dani Rodrik told The Harvard Crimson.

So far, all but one of the Big Ten schools have been spared the sort of attacks Trump had lobbed at Ivy League schools. The exception, Northwestern, lost $790 million.

But Trump’s wrath – and his social engineering – may be unavoidable. Nine of the Big Ten schools have gotten a letter from the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights warning of “potential enforcement actions” if they failed “to protect Jewish students on campus, including uninterrupted access to campus facilities and educational opportunities,” according to The Post.

Of course, the claim of fighting antisemitism is little more than a ruse, an excuse to undertake a far-reaching remake of higher education. Yes, antisemitism is a real issue — especially at Harvard and my other alma mater, Columbia — and needs to be rooted out. But, for Trump, it’s just a pretext.

As for other schools that have stayed clear of the president’s broad-gauge volleys, it is just a matter of time before they are hauled into the fight, like it or not.

Take note that the hit list of Project 2025 – the right-wing blueprint that Trump is following, despite disavowing it during the campaign – has a hefty array of education targets.

The agenda includes so-far incomplete measures such as capping support for indirect research at universities, authorizing states to act as accreditors or setting up alternatives to current accrediting bodies, terminating the public service loan forgiveness program, banning critical race theory and eliminating PLUS loans, among other things. Here is a handy tracker on how the Project’s efforts are proceeding.

As Ms. reports, only one-third of the Project’s efforts have been completed, so much more remains for the balance of Trump’s term.

And perish the thought that any shreds of diversity efforts could remain unscathed on campus. Schools could be prosecuted on civil rights grounds for that, including programming aimed at putting first-generation students on the same footing as others. The administration is investigating at least 45 schools in an effort to end “racial preferences and stereotypes.”

“Big Ten institutions haven’t been in the crosshairs, but they can read the writing on the wall,” Jonathan Fansmith, senior vice president for the American Council on Education, told The Post. For many college presidents he represents, the prevailing thought now is: “Trying to keep a low profile won’t stop the attacks.”

Yet he said he also suspects they would be wary to sign on to the compact without knowing exactly what it would require.

Only administrators, not faculty senates, can commit their institutions to the united front.

The Rutgers university senate supported the Big Ten compact with its vote on March 28. Organizers there plan a teach-in next week and May Day protests in support of the compact, journalism professor Todd Wolfson told The Washington Post. He expects a protracted fight with administrators over the summer.

“We have had to lead and they have followed us,” Wolfson said. “Now we will demand they actually put resources into defending our campuses.”

Wolfson also serves as president of the American Association of University Professors. The AAUP is a union with chapters at more than 500 schools, including several in the Big Ten. It was among the first groups to sue the Trump administration over federal cuts to higher education funding.

Separately, about 10 Ivies and elite schools have put together what The Wall Street Journal called a private collective to fight deep cuts already mandated against them.

Perhaps because their schools already are being scorched by Trump, individual trustees and presidents are involved in the collective. The newspaper reported that participants have discussed red lines they won’t cross in negotiations with the White House. One such red line, for instance, is relinquishing academic independence, including autonomy over admissions, hiring, and what they teach and how it is taught.

The group has gamed out how to respond to demands presented by the Trump administration, which has frozen or canceled billions in research funding at schools it says haven’t effectively combated antisemitism on their campuses.

So far, Trump’s minions have been successful in picking off universities and law firms by attacking them one by one. So it’s not surprising that they are fretting about unification efforts, according to a source cited by the Journal. Within the past two months, the task force warned the leadership of at least one school not to cooperate with other schools to defend against the task force demands, one source told the paper.

Additionally, the American Association of Colleges and Universities has come out with a statement condemning what it called “unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American colleges and universities.” The petition was signed by more than 500 higher-education leaders nationwide.

“We speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education,” the statement said.

Speaking, of course, isn’t enough. As Harvard has done, taking the fights to court – the last redoubt, given the supine Congress – will be essential.

Brooks’s “uprising” has a long way to go, but Trump is certain to give timid administrators plenty of reason to man the barricades.

When taking aim at the king …

Posted on April 15, 2025 by Joe Weber

Trump has a fight on his hands, at lasT

Omar Little, portrayed by the late Michael K. Williams, source: Fandom

The wonderful character Omar Little, appearing in the eighth episode of “The Wire,” offers a memorable line: “Ayo, lesson here, Bey. You come at the king, you best not miss.”

That line, now 23 years old, resonates anew as Harvard has decided to fight back against the would-be monarch now soiling the White House. It applies, too, to a group of other schools – including Brown University, Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, California Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois — that have brought suit against Trump’s Department of Energy.

All are attacking the vindictive federal overreach Trump is using to withhold funds in his effort to reshape higher education policies. Together, the moves could embolden more institutions, such as law firms and Columbia University, perhaps including some that the president has already bullied into acquiescence of various sorts.

“This is of momentous, momentous significance,” J. Michael Luttig, a prominent former federal appeals court judge revered by many conservatives, told The New York Times. “This should be the turning point in the president’s rampage against American institutions.”

But they also had better win. Their opponent is a wily master of the judicial system who has shown that 34 felony convictions, among other legal humiliations, are not enough to defeat him. Just look at how – so far, at least – Trump has spit on an order by nothing less than a unanimous Supreme Court to return wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison.

Along with showing an astonishingly callous indifference to a jailed man’s plight, Trump seems to believe that all and sundry should bow to his will, no matter how wrongheaded it is. The president is similarly indifferent to the damaging effects his battle with universities are having on medical and scientific research.

Already, Trump is upping the ante in his battle with Harvard. In the wake of Harvard President Alan Garber’s defiance, federal officials froze $2.2 billion in multiyear grants and canceled a $60 million contract, along with the president threatening to remove the university’s tax-exempt status. The administration had put nearly $9 billion in funding at risk when Garber refused to bow to its demands for extensive policy changes and oversight.

“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” Garber wrote in a message to the Harvard community. He added: “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

As The Harvard Gazette reported, Garber’s message was a response to a letter sent late Friday by the Trump administration outlining demands that Harvard would have to satisfy to maintain its funding relationship with the federal government. These demands included “audits” of academic programs and departments, along with the viewpoints of students, faculty, and staff, and changes to the University’s governance structure and hiring practices.

Garber’s defiance stood in stark contrast to Columbia’s genuflection to Trump. So far, Columbia’s obeisance has not led to a restoration of the $400 million Trump cut. That, together with Harvard’s stance, may have prompted Columbia’s new acting president, Claire Shipman, to push back in a new message to the university community after her predecessor, Dr. Katrina Armstrong, had bowed to Trump’s demand and then quit.

Claire Shipman, source: Columbia Spectator

“To be clear, our institution may decide at any point, on its own, to make difficult decisions that are in Columbia’s best interests,” journalist and writer Shipman wrote. “Where the government – or any stakeholder – has legitimate interest in critical issues for our healthy functioning, we will listen and respond. But we would reject heavy-handed orchestration from the government that could potentially damage our institution and undermine useful reforms that serve the best interests of our students and community. We would reject any agreement in which the government dictates what we teach, research, or who we hire. And yes, to put minds at ease, though we seek to continue constructive dialogue with the government, we would reject any agreement that would require us to relinquish our independence and autonomy as an educational institution.”

Separately, the handful of top schools that brought suit against Trump’s Department of Energy are fighting a policy change that would reduce the amount of indirect support that federal grants provide. As Reuters reported, the DOE announced that it would cut more than $400 million in annual spending by setting an across-the-board 15 percent reimbursement rate for indirect costs of research.

Many of the universities involved in the lawsuit have negotiated far higher “indirect” rates than the 15 percent proposed by DOE policy. The National Institutes of Health announced a similar cut and was also sued. A federal judge has issued an order blocking the Trump administration from proceeding with those cuts, while the lawsuit against NIH proceeds.

In the case of the indirect research support, the administration offers the specious argument that the cut would bring “greater transparency and efficiency” to federal government spending. In the case of the broader university reforms Trump is seeking, he and his minions have veiled their moves behind the claim of fighting antisemitism on the campuses.

The president’s broad list of demands to Harvard, however, gives the lie to the latter claim. He has demanded an end to diversity, equity and inclusion programs, for instance, along with eliminating any hiring preferences based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin, along with gutting any such preferences in student admissions. He has demanded audits to assure “viewpoint diversity” at the school without defining that.

Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist who is also a president of the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, told The New York Times that it was “truly Orwellian” and self-contradictory for the government to force viewpoint diversity on the university. He said it would also lead to absurdities.

“Will this government force the economics department to hire Marxists or the psychology department to hire Jungians or, for that matter, for the medical school to hire homeopaths or Native American healers?” he said.

In going up against Trump, the universities, no doubt, will be equipped with the best and brightest. Happily, they will fight a Trump Justice Department and other agencies that have lost their top talents in the president’s government-wide gutting efforts. Just consider that Harvard’s legal team includes William A. Burck and Robert K. Hur.

As the Times reported, Burck is also an outside ethics adviser to the Trump Organization and represented the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in the deal it recently reached with Trump. And Hur, who worked in the Justice Department in Trump’s first term, was the special counsel who memorably called President Biden “an elderly man with a poor memory.”

They are insiders who understand the man and the system they now are battling.

For his part, Trump is someone whose two years at The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School were undistinguished at best. “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had!,” one former prof of his said.

Still, he can work a lot of governmental levers, has a bottomless well of vindictiveness and can’t stand losing. The universities are in a fight for their lives and all of us have much riding on the outcome. They’d best not miss.

The harsh cost of ignorance

Posted on March 25, 2025 by Joe Weber

Did Columbia fail a promising student now facing foreign exile?

Yunseo Chung, source: The New York Times

Unquestionably, Yunseo Chung is one bright student, the sort most professors would love to teach. Sadly for her, however, the limits of her education at Columbia University are cruelly becoming all too apparent. They may get her tossed out of the country.

The Columbia junior is carrying a 3.99 grade point average, has made Dean’s List every semester since she enrolled, and she’s been involved with the college literary magazine, Quarto, and the undergrad law review. Apparently aiming for a legal career, Chung has also pursued internships at The Urban Justice Center, The Innocence Project and Federal Defenders of New York.

But, thanks to shortcomings in her schooling about the Middle East and, probably, post-adolescent naivete, the Korean-born Chung now is getting a legal tutorial of a sort she could never have wanted. The Trump Administration is eager to deport Chung, who came to the U.S. as a 7-year-old, brought here by a graduate-student father.

Barnard protests on March 6, source: The Guardian

“Yunseo Chung has engaged in concerning conduct, including when she was arrested by NYPD during a pro-Hamas protest at Barnard College,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told CNN. “Chung will have an opportunity to present her case before an immigration judge.”

The spokesperson said Chung, 21, “is being sought for removal proceedings under the immigration laws.”

The Trump Administration is chasing after Chung, a legal permanent resident of the U.S., because she took part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the university last spring and in protests of related student expulsions more recently. She appears to be in hiding.

Her lawyers have brought suit against Trump to enable her to stay in school and in the U.S., which the court papers call her “one and only home.” The suit adds, “Her immediate family lives here, her friends are here, and her plans for the future all include living in the United States.”

Like so many idealistic naifs who took part in the nationwide campus uprising against the Gaza War, Chung appears to be a victim both of Trump’s overreach and political and historical ignorance that abounds among college students. An English and women’s studies major, Chung seems likely to have been driven by an understandable horror at the bloodshed in the Middle East. Her compassion for at least some of the innocent victims is unsurprising, especially for a seemingly sensitive college student.

When she hasn’t been planning to help low-income New Yorkers through the justice center or to free unjustly convicted innocents, she has been dabbling in poetry, fiction and art at the school magazine. If she has had much political or historical schooling at the university, it isn’t apparent.

As with the other protestors, it is likely that Chung’s sensibility has been terribly misinformed, her compassion misdirected.

Recall that some departments at Columbia are hotbeds of anti-Zionism. Has Chung’s coursework has been influenced by that? One can only speculate for now. But one must also wonder whether things would be different if the university had required her – and other protestors – to take coursework that would better inform them about Middle East history. Columbia’s vaunted core curriculum could benefit from some of that.

If Chung were required to take truly fair and balanced studies as the price of returning to classes this year, might she be better off now? If she knew more of the long history of Israel’s victimization by terrorists, of the long legacy of Palestinian failures to respond to peace efforts, would she look differently at things? If she grasped the broader context in which the barbarities of Oct. 7, 2023, are just one horrific part, would she have protested against Hamas, not Israel?

Since the student uprisings, Columbia has been probing the depth of antisemitism on the campus. Just recently, in response to Trump Administration pressure, the school agreed to review its course offerings to make sure there is fairness and balance in them about the Mideast.

Regrettably for Chung, that review is coming too late. She now seems fated to become a poster child for Trumpian excesses in treating student protestors. As her lawsuit argues, “officials at the highest echelons of government are attempting to use immigration enforcement as a bludgeon to suppress speech that they dislike.”

Certainly, there’s no shortage of evidence for that claim. At a Las Vegas rally in October 2023, then-candidate Trump pledged to “terminate the visas of all of those Hamas sympathizers, and we’ll get them off our college campuses, out of our cities, and get them the hell out of our country.”In response to last spring’s Gaza Solidarity Encampments, Trump said: “One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country. You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave.”

Chung doesn’t dispute her activity in the demonstrations.

“Since 2023, along with hundreds of her peers, Ms. Chung has also participated in some student protests and demonstrations on Columbia University’s campus related to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and the devastating toll it has taken on Palestinian civilians,” Chung’s lawsuit says.

As a result of those demonstrations, Chung has run afoul of Trump’s promises to target “leftist, anti-American colleges and universities,” the document says. It cited White House statements that the president was fulfilling a campaign promise to deport Hamas sympathizers and send a message to “resident aliens who participated in pro-jihadist protests” that the feds “will find you … and deport you.”

Under Trump’s orders, authorities have pursued several high profile cases, at Columbia and elsewhere, along with Chung’s.

Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia graduate student and green-card holder who is married to an American, was arrested by ICE about two weeks ago and detained in Louisiana, as The Washington Post reported. One other graduate student, Ranjani Srinivasan, self-deported to Canada after the State Department revoked her visa. A third reportedly former student protestor, Leqaa Kordea, was arrested and moved to Prairieland, Texas.

People at Columbia aren’t the only ones under the gun. Indian national Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University on a J-1 temporary visa, was detained by ICE last week over social media posts and because his wife, a U.S. citizen, is the daughter of a former Hamas adviser, according to the newspaper. The State Department also revoked the student visa for Momodou Taal, a doctoral student in Africana Studies at Cornell University and pro-Palestinian activist.

And Brown University assistant professor and kidney transplant specialist Rasha Alawieh, was deported to Lebanon on March 14, despite a restraining order to keep her in the country. She admitted to attending the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah on a recent family visit.

To be sure, Chung seems to have been a follower, not a leader, in the Columbia and Barnard protests. Like many others, she is a sheep, not a shepherd.

She visited a campus encampment numerous times in April. Later, in May, she was accused by the school of vandalism for posting flyers on campus saying that trustees were “Wanted for Complicity in Genocide.” But the school dropped the poster matter.

Then this year, when Columbia expelled three Barnard College students – two for disrupting a class in January and one for taking part in a building occupation last spring – Chung was among students who early in March protested the expulsions. She and others were arrested, ticketed and released. Two days after the university suspended her, federal agents knocked on her parents’ door looking for her, and a few days later agents came to her dorm at night to search it.

Alerted by the university that she was being sought, she managed to avoid being caught. So far, she has stayed ahead in a tortuous cat and mouse game. At one point, an agent with Homeland Security Investigations texted her, writing: “Hi, Yunseo. This is Audrey from the police. My job is to reach out to you and see if you have any questions about your recent arrest and the process going forward. When are [sic] available for a phone call?”

According to her lawsuit, Chung’s role in the protests didn’t go much further than running with her peers. The idea that she might compromise U.S. foreign policy interests – a claim in the case against Khalil – seems absurd on its face.

“Ms. Chung has not made public statements to the press or otherwise assumed a high-profile role in these protests,” the suit says. “She was, rather, one of a large group of college students raising, expressing, and discussing shared concerns.”

But it’s clear that Trump is determined to pound an iron fist on protestors, particularly at Columbia. He seems to have a particular loathing for the university, which recently acquiesced to a host of demands he made after cutting $400 million in federal funding from the school.

The government’s actions are sure to sit poorly among many academics. They already are generating heat among some.

“The Trump administration is now trying to deport a permanent resident who has been in the US since she was 7 for what appears to be only a very minor role in pro-Palestinian demonstrations,” ethics and economics Associate Professor Itai Sher of the University of Massachusetts Amherst said on X. “Absolutely chilling to free speech.”

And, even as he has defended the rights of protestors to speak out, the Massachusetts professor has no use for antisemitism. A few weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas atrocities in Israel, Sher posted: “It is not antisemitic to go to a protest in support of Palestinians or to be harshly critical of the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza. However I can never recall seeing the level of antisemitism that I am seeing now.”

An adjunct professor of criminology at Australia’s University of the Sunshine Coast weighed in, too. “This is frightening,” Kerry Carrington said on X. “Pro-Palestinian Student residents of US born elsewhere targeted for deportation. #2025=1984 Orwell’s dystopia.”

The dean at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, Joel Hellman, added his voice in discussing the Suri detention.

“As Dean, I am deeply troubled by the chilling effect such events could have on freedom of expression on this campus, which is, of course, at the very core of our mission,” Hellman wrote in a note to faculty and staff. “Our commitment to fostering open inquiry, deliberation and debate has not always made for a comfortable campus, but I believe that time has shown that it has played a key role in maintaining our University values. This has allowed SFS to stay true to its commitment to promote diplomacy and understanding in an increasingly polarized world. We expect that the legal system will adjudicate this case fairly.”

Will the system do so in that case and the others?

Soon enough, Chung will have to surface to face the full might of Trump’s government. If the university had truly educated her – and so many others – perhaps she would not be feeling the weight of that crushing burden. One can only hope that she faces an immigration judge who respects free speech and understands idealistic, if uninformed, young people. And, if change can come to Columbia, others may not have to bear such weight in coming years.

An academic leader now wears a Scarlet Letter

Posted on March 22, 2025 by Joe Weber

Columbia’s genuflection to Trump may haunt it, even as some good will come

In “The Scarlet Letter,” Hawthorne’s masterpiece, Hester Prynne publicly acknowledges her sin and wears the red “A” as a gesture of defiance and pride. It soon becomes a symbol of strength and compassion. Compelled by outsiders to accept the humiliating label, she does the right thing for the wrong reasons.

Dr. Katrina Armstrong, interim president of Columbia University, seems to be in Hester’s shoes at the moment. Her sin is not adultery, of course, but rather it is capitulating to a vindictive, petty tyrant who is just at the beginning of a war on higher education. Armstrong has become both a casualty of that struggle and a contributor to it.

Certainly, there can be little argument that some of the gestures Armstrong is making are long overdue – and, indeed, had been under way before Trump’s meddling. In essence, the good doctor is doing some right things for the wrong reasons.

Recall that Armstrong has succumbed to Trump’s $400 million extortion effort. Trump cut that amount of money from a reported $5 billion in federal funds that goes to the private Ivy League school, but then said he might restore the money if the school knuckled under to a string of demands.

Significantly, these demands included putting a particular Middle Eastern studies department into “receivership,” i.e., taking control of it away from departmental faculty and putting it under another university administrator. Typically, this is done when the department is judged to be dysfunctional, usually paralyzed by in-fighting or other problems that render it unable to function.

It’s not done, generally, for political or intellectual reasons.

But the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department (MESAAS), the one Trump targeted, is an interdisciplinary unit that has long been a hotbed of anti-Zionism. One professor there, Joseph Massad, referred to Hamas’s barbarities on Oct. 7, 2023, as “awesome” and “stunning,” for instance, and he waxed poetic that they could lead to the destruction of Israel, as former Columbia graduate student Liel Liebovitz, an editor at Tablet, put it.

In turning the Middle Eastern studies program into a “bastion of anti-Semitic propaganda,” Massad is hardly alone, Liebovitz reported. There are many profs like him. Consider just one other, Hamid Dabashi, who over the last 20 years has attacked “rich and powerful” Zionists who he said controlled the American government. In a 2014 article for Al Jazeera, Dabashi compared Gaza with Auschwitz and Israelis with Nazis, according to Leibovitz. The two academics have been active in anti-Israel campus activities, including moderating events by Students for Justice in Palestine, a group the university suspended for inciting violence against Jewish students.

For more about Hamas enthusiasts at Columbia, see here.

Disgusted by the likes of Massad, a longtime adjunct professor at Columbia’s School International and Public Affairs, Lawrence “Muzzy” Rosenblatt, went so far as to quit the university last December. He was revolted that Massad was slated to teach a class on Zionism and Israel.

“This would be akin to having a White Nationalist teach about the U.S. Civil Rights movement and the struggle for Black equality, or having a climate denier teach about the impact of global warming, or a misogynist teach about Feminism,” Rosenblatt wrote in his resignation letter. “While Massad has a right to think what he thinks, and speak what he believes, Columbia has a responsibility to teach objectively and fairly. At best perhaps one could tolerate a class on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict co-taught from the many diverse Israeli and Palestinian perspectives, though not by someone who advocates for the eradication of a group of people.”

“Columbia has lost not only its moral compass, but its intellectual one,” Rosenblatt wrote.

So, now Armstrong has agreed to put an array of departments that deal with Middle Eastern studies, including MESAAS, under control of a new Senior Vice Provost. That is a “receivership” in all but name.

The SVP will review course offerings at MESAAS, the Center for Palestine Studies, the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies (IIJS), the Middle East Institute. the Tel Aviv and Amman global hubs, the School of International and Public Affairs Middle East Policy major and other University programs focused on the Middle East “to ensure the educational offerings are comprehensive and balanced.” The SVP will recommend changes, as needed, to top administrators.

As detailed in a university statement, Columbia will also review coursework in other departments to assure “excellence and fairness in Middle East studies.” Even before Trump’s extortion effort, the university had reviews under way in the Arts & Sciences curriculum for classes dealing with the history of Israel and Zionism. Columbia also has invited visiting faculty and postdoctoral fellows at the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies to extend their teaching until new tenure-line faculty are hired, part of an effort to expand intellectual diversity among the faculty.

Armstrong also agreed to accept a definition of antisemitism recommended last August by a university task force. This refers to “prejudice, discrimination, hate, or violence directed at Jews, including Jewish Israelis. Antisemitism can manifest in a range of ways, including as ethnic slurs, epithets, and caricatures; stereotypes; antisemitic tropes and symbols; Holocaust denial; targeting Jews or Israelis for violence or celebrating violence against them; exclusion or discrimination based on Jewish identity or ancestry or real or perceived ties to Israel; and certain double standards applied to Israel.”

Presumably, students and faculty can be disciplined for antisemitism, as defined above. Indeed, the university did expel and in other ways take action against an undetermined number of students for some actions in last spring’s demonstrations.

Some critics take issue with the Columbia definition. An official of the free-speech organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, for instance, derided it as “vague and sweeping enough that it will imperil speech otherwise protected by the First Amendment.” He added that the federal government “shouldn’t pressure any college, private or public, to censor speech critical of any country.”

Whether one accepts the definition or not, these are appropriate efforts on Columbia’s part and some of them preceded Trump’s demands and exceed them. Even as she is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, some good will come out of Armstrong’s surrender.

Other points on which she has yielded, however, are more problematic. Is the requirement that student demonstrators be required to shun masks an intolerable interference with free speech? Is a review of admission policies, ostensibly with an eye toward not favoring some groups over others, really just a fig leaf for reducing diversity efforts? Is the adoption of “institutional neutrality” really just a refusal to publicly take stances on controversial matters for fear of offending Trump or others?

Beyond those details, there is a larger question: should a private university be brought to heel by a thin-skinned, grudge-bearing authoritarian who seems to be acting more out of personal animus than any commitment to intellectual fairness or real hostility to antisemitism? How petty is he, you might ask?

Consider the magic figure has been $400 million that Trump ordered cut. That figure seems like a number plucked from the air.

Certainly, it doesn’t reflect the value of grants and other federal funds the university gets. That tally, if the White House can be believed, is closer to $5 billion. So why didn’t Trump cancel $1 billion or more, something closer to the full amount? He named no specific programs for slashing and didn’t identify any particular cuts he wanted that would have added up to $400 million.

And why would the former middling New York real estate developer and failed casino magnate single out the New York school for such special treatment? Beyond the pro-Palestinian demonstrations of last year – an upheaval that has been largely resolved — what about Columbia put it in his gunsights in his national assault on higher education – a war in which he can now claim quite the high-profile scalp?

The New York Times, in a bit of smart reporting, has provided some answers.

Back around 2000, Trump tried to sell Columbia a parcel of land a couple miles away from the main campus, a parcel between Lincoln Center and the Hudson River, the newspaper reported. His asking price for what he called “Columbia Prime” was $400 million. The university had Goldman Sachs look over the deal. The firm’s valuation: $65 million to $90 million.

Outraged, Trump stormed out of a meeting with trustees. When Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger opted to expand elsewhere, Trump publicly labeled Bollinger – a lawyer who had clerked for a Supreme Court Justice and who went on to run Columbia for two decades — “a dummy” and “a total moron.” Ever the self-aggrandizer, Trump – who had been a disappointing student at the University of Pennsylvania for a couple years — wrote in a letter to a pair of Columbia student journalists: “Columbia Prime was a great idea thought of by a great man, which ultimately fizzled due to poor leadership at Columbia,” scribbling on it “Bollinger is terrible!”

Now, one key question is whether Trump has wrung all his vengeance out of Columbia. Recall that his administration called agreement to his demands just a “precondition” for negotiations about the $400 million. Will there be more demands, especially now that he has forced Columbia to roll over?

An Atlantic piece suggests Trump will just be emboldened. “Surrendering to Donald Trump, however, would be a serious error,” writer David A. Graham argued. “The first impact would be on Columbia itself, which would be granting control to an administration that has been frank about its desire to knock universities down a few notches.” He noted that Armstrong’s predecessor, Minouche Shafik, sought to placate GOP critics last spring, satisfying no one and losing her job in the process. In addition, he wrote, Trump’s pattern is to turn on both those who criticize as well as appease him.

“We are appeasing an angry king,” journalist Andrew Sullivan wrote about Trump in 2019. “And the usual result of appeasement is that the angry king banks every concession and, empowered and emboldened by his success, gets more aggressive and more power hungry.”

Moreover, while combatting entrenched antisemitism among some Columbia faculty members is overdue and appropriate, the precedent created by bowing to Trump’s meddling is alarming. As the president of Princeton, Christopher Eisgruber wrote in The Atlantic, the government’s “recent attack” on Columbia presents “the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s” and urged universities to speak up in defense of their rights.

“Every citizen and officeholder who cares about the strength of our country must also care about free speech, self-governing thought, and the untrammeled quest for knowledge,” Eisgruber wrote. “They, too, should demand a stop to the government’s unwarranted intrusion on academic freedom at Columbia.”

And, as FIRE attorney Tyler Coward contended: “The federal government abandoned its existing process to brow-beat Columbia — and Columbia folded. Higher education reform shouldn’t resemble a shakedown. Colleges and universities shouldn’t be bullied into accepting speech-restrictive demands because the government dangles a $400 million check over an institution’s head …. Shaking under government pressure, Columbia crumbled. If Columbia — with its immense resources and influence — can’t stand up to government demands that threaten free speech, what are other colleges to do?”

For better or worse, Armstrong will now forever wear an academic scarlet “A.” It will not represent defiance, but genuflection, not standing up for academic independence, but kowtowing to a bully. And, for all the needed good that her mandated changes will do, the letter will not be something she can wear with pride.

Is Free Speech Really Free?

Posted on October 29, 2023 by Joe Weber

Taking stances can cost one a job

As anti-Israel forces on and off campuses continue to protest, some employers are launching counterprotests of their own – firing or refusing to hire those who go public with pro-Palestine stances. The trend reflects an unsettling truism about free speech: it may be anything but “free,” as speakers have to live with the consequences.

Take, for instance, the cases of two global law firms – New York-based Davis, Polk & Wardwell and Chicago-based Winston & Strawn. Davis Polk revoked job offers to three law students at Columbia and Harvard because they were leaders in student organizations that had backed letters blaming Israel for Hamas’s savage Oct. 7 attacks. Similarly, Winston & Strawn revoked an offer to an NYU student, the former president of the school’s University Bar Association, who had written a message to the group, saying “Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.”

Neil Barr, chair and managing partner of Davis Polk, told The New York Times that the firm did not want to employ anyone who endorsed the Hamas atrocities.

“The views expressed in certain of the statements signed by law school student organizations in recent days are in direct contravention of our firm’s value system,” the firm said in a statement. To ensure that “we continue to maintain a supportive and inclusive work environment, the student leaders responsible for signing on to these statements are no longer welcome in our firm.”

Davis Polk noted that in two of the cases, it was considering reversing course and hiring them because they said they had not endorsed the criticism of Israel. The letters blaming Israel for Hamas’s attack did not include individual names. It’s not clear what the law firm knew or didn’t know about the students, other than that they were leaders in the group or groups that backed the statements.

As for the NYU student who lost an offer at Winston & Strawn, that person has doubled down on the criticism of Israel. Ryna Workman, who appeared on ABC defending Palestine and criticizing Israel, was caught on camera covering up posters of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas with pro-Palestine signs. Appallingly, Workman repeatedly ducked questions about whether she – or “they” as Workman prefers – had any empathy for Israeli victims.

Workman was ousted by NYU law school Dean Troy McKenzie as head of the student bar association. Other members of the group had quickly distanced themselves from Workman, saying they mourned “the tremendous loss of human life,” while sidestepping any specific condemnation of Hamas. Subsequently, all members of the association quit, saying they feared for their safety, and the group disbanded.

As many American business leaders remain horrified by the Hamas atrocities, some say they will refuse to hire students who take stances similar to Workman’s. Some major Wall Street investors, including hedge fund chief William Ackman, have called on companies to blacklist members of groups that have taken pro-Hamas stances. Ackman, a Harvard graduate, also demanded that Harvard release the names of such students.

As reported by Forbes, Ackman tweeted that “a number of CEOs” approached him, asking for the student names to ensure “none of us inadvertently hire any of their members.” One CEO, Jonathan Neman of the healthy fast casual chain Sweetgreen, responded to Ackman’s post on X, saying he “would like to know so I know never to hire these people,” to which healthcare services company EasyHealth CEO David Duel responded: “Same.”

Still other outfits have canned those who refused to condemn Hamas or backed Palestinians. Artforum fired its top editor, David Velasco, after a call for a ceasefire, signed by thousands of artists, appeared on the publication’s website.

“We support Palestinian liberation and call for an end to the killing and harming of all civilians, an immediate ceasefire, the passage of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the end of the complicity of our governing bodies in grave human rights violations and war crimes,” the letter said.

As reported by ARTNews, a sister publication, Artforum publishers Danielle McConnell and Kate Koza in a statement wrote, “On Thursday, October 19, an open letter regarding the crisis in the Middle East was shared on Artforum’s website and social platforms without our, or the requisite senior members of the editorial team’s, prior knowledge. This was not consistent with Artforum’s editorial process. Had the appropriate members of the editorial team been consulted, the letter would have been presented as a news item with the relevant context.”

Velasco was fired soon after high-profile dealers, artists, and other signed another letter that referred to “an uninformed letter signed by artists who do not represent the artistic community at large,” ARTNews reported. This new letter, titled “A United Call from the Art World: Advocating for Humanity,” referred to the Hamas attack, but not to Gazans caught up in the warfare.

For his part, Velasco, who had worked at the publication since 2005 and served as editor since 2017, was unrepentant in comments in The New York Times. “I have no regrets,” he told the paper. I’m disappointed that a magazine that has always stood for freedom of speech and the voices of artists has bent to outside pressure.”

As the Times reported, the initial letter was widely condemned, drawing responses by figures in the art world. On WhatsApp, campaigns were organized to dissuade advertisers from working with the magazine.

Similar actions are occurring at other media outlets. The board of the British-based biomedical and life sciences journal eLife fired editor-in-chief Michael Eisen, after he praised The Onion for a satirical post headlined “Dying Gazans Criticized For Not Using Last Words To Condemn Hamas.”

As reported by NBC News, Eisen, who is Jewish and has family in Israel, posted that he had been fired “for retweeting a @TheOnion piece that calls out indifference to the lives of Palestinian civilians,” he wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“I expressed my opinion, an opinion about the way that American institutions, especially universities, have been kind of not expressing equal concern for the deaths of Palestinians as they have Israelis, which I think is a moral mistake and a political mistake,” Eisen told NBC. “I don’t think that Israeli scientists should feel like the scientific community does not have their backs. The support has been very strong — I thought it was obvious. People don’t always express themselves well in these situations. I wish I made clear how I empathized with them, too.”

Similarly, PhillyVoice.com canned a sports reporter after he tweeted his “solidarity” with Palestine. The Philadelphia 76ers organization tweeted on X: “We stand with the people of Israel and join them in mourning the hundreds of innocent lives lost to terrorism at the hands of Hamas,” along with the hashtag #StandWithIsrael. As The Guardian reported, journalist Jackson Frank, who covered the team, responded: “This post sucks! Solidarity with Palestine always.”

And then there are the doxxing trucks. Operated by the group Accuracy in Media, these mobile billboards have shown up at campuses including Columbia, Harvard and Penn showcasing the faces of members of anti-Israel campus groups. The trucks are emblazoned with legends such as “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.”

While AIM leader Adam Guillette argues the trucks merely “amplify” information, they have drawn heat as amounting to harassment. The Harvard Hillel Jewish center “strongly condemns any attempt to threaten and intimidate” students who signed the letter, Harvard’s student newspaper the Harvard Crimson reported. And the University of California Berkeley law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky called the truck “despicable,” the New York Times reported. Columbia University president Minouche Shafik issued a statement before the latest truck appeared on the university’s campus, saying some Columbia students “have been victims” of doxxing, calling it a “form of online harassment” that will “not be tolerated,” according to Forbes.

Some demonstrators at Drexel and Penn universities covered their faces and declined to speak publicly, saying they feared being targeted by university officials or losing financial aid, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Some noted the doxxing trucks and pointed to a man filming demonstrators on his phone. A Penn alumna at the rally complained, “The surveillance, harassment, and intimidate of these young people is like no other.”

In the academic world, few would dispute that the free exchange of ideas – even noxious ones – should be free of punishment. Students, especially, should be able to speak their views and debate without fear.

However, employers are also free to shun those whose views they find reprehensible. The world off campus is a lot harsher.

As the New York Times reported, in another social media post, hedge fund manager Ackman said he was “100% in support of free speech.” But, he added, “one should be prepared to stand up and be personally accountable for his or her views.”

The college hunt gets personal — open letter to a niece

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Joe Weber

Dear Sam,

So, senior year is hard upon you. That means prom, a top spot in the cheering squad, maybe a full-court press in calc to buff up that transcript. And, of course, it’s time for you and colleges to get serious about one another.

You’ve checked out a few places already. A couple big state universities, a few state colleges – most of the places touchingly within 50 miles or so of home. You’ve probably pored over their websites, talked to folks there and maybe chatted with a teacher, coach or guidance counselor about your options. You and your parents may have checked out finances to figure out what you can afford, perhaps gotten some info about aid and scholarships.

It’s a good start, Sam, but – with any luck – not the end of the game. Let me lob a few thoughts your way. Take these from a grizzled uncle who has been around the academic block a bit, between attending a few schools, teaching at three universities and, most important, seeing three of your cousins go through the same sleuthing sessions you now are involved in.

 First, talk to more people. Start with your extended family. At least nine of your cousins have been through the mill already, in undergrad and grad schools. Some went to big, private, urban or suburban schools (Boston University, Columbia, Stanford). Some opted for smaller private schools (Bucknell, Stevens, Pomona). And some chose big public schools (West Virginia, Rutgers, Michigan State, University of Oklahoma). Some went to community colleges for a while. Find out what they liked, what they hated. They’ll tell you, in spades.

 Think about your aunts and uncles. Shockingly, they can be helpful and they’d probably talk with you. Their alma maters include Rutgers, Columbia, Colorado State and the University of Toronto, among other places. One is now pursuing a Ph.D. Even if they natter on about goldfish-swallowing, panty raids and ukulele-playing, they might have a few useful pointers to share.

 Visit more places. You must pick up the vibe on a campus to figure out whether you’d like to spend four years and lots of Mom and Dad’s money there. One cousin visited Georgetown and was turned off. Why? The girls dressed like they were at a fashion show or were stalking husbands, not like they were there to learn. Blue jeans, please, and forget the makeup. For her, Harvard’s holier-than-thou attitude was fatal for it. Another thought Berkeley’s refusal to let her stow her luggage in the visitor center for the tour was a killer sign that it wasn’t all that user-friendly. A much smaller, more indulgent school outside LA couldn’t have been more obliging, by contrast.

 Think broadly. Why limit yourself to a tiny corner of the country you’ve known all your life? The U.S. is a big place and on- and off-campus life, socially and intellectually, in the South, West and East differ. Want to climb mountains and ski on your weekends? Think about Denver or Fort Collins. Want to learn really good manners? Think about Atlanta. Want to hear people talk funny? Think Boston. Why just New Jersey, Delaware or even Pennsylvania? Sidenote to Mom and Dad: It took us a while to accept the idea of our youngest in far-off California, until we realized it was just a plane ride away, just as Massachusetts and New York were for the other two.

 Look at the US News and World Report rankings, but look deeper. Some schools rank high overall but may not be so strong in the discipline that interests you. If you really want to dig into schools, check out the websites for particular departments. Are the faculty distinguished? Indeed, will you ever see the senior faculty or, as often happens, will you be taught by grad students?

 Figure out what you want. Visits are crucial. Big urban schools are great for some folks (one cousin went to a small high school, so wanted thousands of classmates.) Smaller, more intimate colleges are better for others (after a big public high school, another cousin craved a small liberal-arts spot). Want Division One athletics? Could be exciting, but how much time do you really want to spend on the field? Unless you are quarterbacking the football team, it won’t be all there is to life in school (one cousin quit the D1 track team she’d pined for when she learned it meant no other after-school activities and not all that much time for schoolwork). Small fish in big pond or vice-versa – what works for you?

 Think about life after class. If you pick a big school, a sorority can make a cold and daunting place more intimate. It can also give you lifelong friends, the chance to learn leadership and offer great academic and social support, not to mention a nice place to live. At a smaller school, the dorms may be just fine.

 If you like the idea of a big place, find one that offers “learning communities.” These groups, which bring together like-minded students to study and sometimes live together, make a sprawling campus smaller. You might find lifelong friends there, too.

Sam, there’s a lot more to picking a place where you’ll spend some important years than just popping in on a few nearby campuses. Would you buy the first blouse you see on a rack? Would you limit yourself to just a few stores in the mall? How about the first CD in the bin? (Oh, I forgot. Nobody does that anymore).

Times do change, of course, Sam. But find out what wrong turns (and right ones) others who’ve been down the road have taken. And, whatever you do, shop around. One last thing — don’t sell yourself short. Pick a range of schools, but make sure to aim high. To mix metaphors (something a good English teacher will mark your down for), cast your net wide. Once you’ve applied to a lot of places, you can still go to the school down the block. It won’t move, but in coming months your hopes may.

Love,
Your uncle.

The Big Picture

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