How Obama and Biden Paved the Way for Trump’s Attacks on Universities
President Donald Trump has been laying siege to Columbia University, canceling $400 million in federal grants to the elite school. In exchange for having funds restored, Columbia’s administration has agreed to capitulate to a list of demands relating to campus anti-Israel demonstrations: The university will ban protesters from concealing their identities with face masks, create new disciplinary bureaucracies to punish purportedly disruptive students, and even police the Middle Eastern studies department for alleged antisemitism.
It’s not inherently wrong for the federal government to refrain from funding an extremely wealthy private institution of higher education, especially one with an endowment of $14.8 billion. But the Trump administration isn’t trying to save money for taxpayers—it’s using the money as leverage to make the university police student expression.
While some of the protesters at Columbia illegally occupied buildings, prevented other students from attending classes, or otherwise impeded legitimate school functions in violation of campus policy, the heavy-handed measures being imposed on the university will almost certainly lead to a crackdown on nonviolent speech. Some protesters are already facing severe sanction and even deportation. There is no question that the threat of losing funds will compel Columbia’s administrators to police anti-Israel expression in a manner that is careless and inconsistent with the campus’s stated commitment to academic freedom.
To the extent that the Trump administration’s actions have motivated this change in policy, they are drawing criticism from civil libertarians. Jonathan Zimmerman, an historian of education at the University of Pennsylvania, told The Guardian that Trump’s attack on Columbia is already having a chilling effect and that he has never seen anything like it before.
“Historically, there is no precedent for this,” said Zimmerman. “The gover
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