Columbia University agreed to make major concessions to the Trump administration in order to have $400 million in federal funds reallocated to it, which the government had decided to freeze, accusing the university of failing to combat anti-Semitism on campus during pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
The university caved in to most of the administration’s demands, which included measures such as banning face masks on campus, giving security officers the power to remove or arrest people, and immediately overhauling the Middle East Studies program.
The program in question will now be overseen by a new official, and no longer by the university’s faculty.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has warned at least 60 other universities of possible action for allegedly failing to comply with federal civil rights laws related to anti-Semitism. It has also targeted three law firms that the president says have aided his political opponents or helped to unfairly prosecute him.
The sudden termination of millions of dollars in federal funding at Columbia University had already caused a halt to medical and scientific research programs at the institution.
Scientists and doctors who had been awarded grants from the National Institutes of Health after months or years of work reported receiving unusual e-mail notifications last week that their projects had been halted because of “dangerous anti-Semitic actions.”
Among the canceled programs was the development of an artificial intelligence-based tool to help nurses detect a patient’s worsening health condition in the hospital.
“Legitimate questions about our practices and progress can be asked, and we will answer them”, Katrina Armstrong, Columbia’s president, had said only a few days ago. “But we will never compromise our values of pedagogical independence, our commitment to academic freedom, or our obligation to follow the law”, she had bravely stated. However, in the end the university accepted all the demands, presumably to save the 400 million dollars in funds that had been placed in jeopardy.
“This is an unprecedented situation,” said Professor Jonathan Zimmerman, an educational historian at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia graduate, “The government is using money as a cudgel to micromanage a university.”
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported a story dating back to the late 1990s about the rather complex relationship between Donald Trump and Columbia university.
At the time, Columbia needed more space to accommodate researchers, lectures and students, and the MAGA leader proposed to then-director Lee C. Bollinger to invest in its properties, asking for $400 million. The same amount of federal funds at the center of the dispute between the current government and the Ivy League university, leading to speculation that this is more a case of Trump’s long memory for slights–even after decades– and his relentless need to exact retribution.
According to many insiders, Trump has never forgotten the “No” he had to swallow 25 years ago from Bollinger and Columbia University and this is his chance to get even.
