It looks like the efforts of the Columbia trustees to negotiate “in good faith” with the Fascist dictator have failed so far. I guess this is good news, because the alternative would be reading an announcement further solidifying our reputation as “Vichy on the Hudson”. Maybe the trustees will some day realize they don’t have any choice except to go to court and fight. In the meantime, according to the NYT:
“We understand this finding is part of our ongoing discussions with the government. Columbia is deeply committed to combating antisemitism and all forms of harassment and discrimination on our campus,” a spokesman for Columbia said in a statement, adding that the school would continue to work with the government to address those issues.
The “Stand Columbia” group is solidifying its reputation as “Bend the knee, Columbia” by immediately coming out with a call for capitulation, without even knowing what we would be capitulating to.
Update: The Fox News story about this gets it right, with lede paragraph
The Trump administration on Thursday accused Columbia University of having violated federal law through its “deliberate indifference” toward anti-Israel protests that have been taking over the campus since Oct. 7, 2023.
This is not about the university allowing antisemitic attacks on students, it’s about Israel, with Columbia standing accused of allowing protests against the Israeli war on Gaza. Columbia was guilty of this until a year ago, but since then has had a policy of not allowing anti-Israel protests on campus, as the genocidal nature of the Gaza war becomes increasingly clear.
The New York Times has an excellent essay today by Steven Pinker, entitled Harvard Derangement Syndrome. This is about Harvard, not Columbia, but the two institutions are very similar, so most of what he writes applies here (except that they are now in open warfare with Trump, we’re trying to appease him).
Pinker has been one of Harvard’s most prominent critics on the subject of the excesses of identity politics, and he’s often been right about that. But about accusations of “antisemitism”, here’s what he has to say:
For what it’s worth, I have experienced no antisemitism in my two decades at Harvard, and nor have other prominent Jewish faculty members. My own discomfort instead is captured in a Crimson essay by the Harvard senior Jacob Miller, who called the claim that one in four Jewish students feels “physically unsafe” on campus “an absurd statistic I struggle to take seriously as someone who publicly and proudly wears a kippah around campus each day.” The obsession with antisemitism at Harvard represents, ironically, a surrender to the critical-social-justice credo that the only wrong worthy of condemnation is group-against-group bigotry. Instead of directly rebutting the flaws of the anti-Zionist platform, such as its approval of violence against civilians and its historical blind spots, critics have tried to tar it with the sin of antisemitism. But that can devolve into futile semantic disputation about the meaning of the word “antisemitism,” which, our council has argued, can lead to infringements of academic freedom.
Update: I haven’t always agreed with Matt Strassler about things, but he’s got it right
As far as I can see, the government is merely using Jewish students as pawns, pretending to attack Harvard on their behalf while in truth harboring no honest concern for their well-being. The fact that the horrors and nastiness surrounding the Gaza war are being exploited by the government as cover for an assault on academic freedom and scientific research is deeply cynical and exceedingly ugly.
Update: What I for a while mistakenly thought happened yesterday did happen today. Harvard went to court to challenge the removal of its ability to enroll foreign students and immediately got a temporary restraining order.
I have been told that one reason the Columbia trustees caved in March was that they had legal advice that Trump could do exactly this and that it would be a disaster for the university that they could do nothing about. We now know that this was very bad advice. So far, the court system is holding and absurdly illegal actions like this are often being immediately struck down. If, as seems all too possible, the trustees are about to cave-in further on the basis of legal advice that they have no choice because of things like this, they need to immediately fire some lawyers and rethink what they have been doing.
Update: Rise Up, Columbia has some analysis of the day’s events. They quote the opinion of a law school faculty member that the latest attempt to pressure Columbia is something that will quickly be enjoined or fall apart if the university does not cave, but goes to court:
It is very rare for an agency to complete the review this quickly, and to come to a final determination this quickly. That suggests to me that there were short cuts taken to prove the conclusion the Trump Administration wanted (similar to the Department of Education finding, which was legally insufficient and is invoked by reference in this press release). It would quickly be enjoined or fall apart, in my opinion, if Columbia filed suit instead of working with the administration to damage the university.
Update: To the extent the Trump administration has a strategy here, it’s explained by Christopher Rufo on twitter:
The strategy should be to barrage the Ivy League universities with civil rights investigations and negotiate toward consent decrees, placing their administrations under a federal anti-discrimination regime. Then dismantle DEI down to the foundations.
If Columbia agrees to a consent decree, the Trump plan is to use that to have a Trump appointee exercise control over the university. On the “anti-semitism” front, any criticism of Israel would be eliminated (this there probably are trustees happy to vote for). On the other “DEI” issues, this would be an excuse for Trump’s people to control admissions and hiring, as well as vetoing any overly “woke” course content.
Update: A late Friday communication from Shipman is here. No change: still negotiating, no consent decree, no going to court, no fighting Trump. All about the huge effort by the university to fight antisemitism. As for the ongoing negotiations, to figure out what’s going on you’ll have to read between these lines:
The finding is part of the process to resolve these investigations and seek a restoration of our vital research funding. While we disagree with the government’s conclusion, we are continuing to engage in a thoughtful and constructive manner in addressing these serious issues. It is not a signal that we are no longer working to resolve the issues with regard to our critical and long-standing partnership with the federal government…
As we move forward in our discussions with the government, we will continue to explore all strategies as we do the important work of addressing these serious issues.
Update: Bend the Knee, Columbia is out with a new long argument for why Columbia must immediately capitulate to Trump. The main part of the argument is about the tuition Columbia would lose if Trump does the same thing he did to Harvard, remove its ability to enroll foreign students. This argument I’ve been told was a significant factor in the initial cave-in last March. The obvious problem with this argument is that yesterday a federal judge immediately issued a temporary restraining order since the Trump action was absurdly illegal, and the same thing would happen if the Trump people try this tactic here. Not only that, but such temporary restraining orders are now often getting turned into permanent injunctions (see an analysis by a law professor here):
Here, Judge Burroughs will likely follow the path of Judges Beryl Howell and John Bates, who permanently enjoined the administration’s efforts to punish the law firm Perkins Coie and Jenner & Block, respectively, for speech and conduct that met with the president’s disapproval. Those rulings will likely echo in this decision as well, but not for the same reasons. Here, the failure of the administration to follow even the most basic of administrative steps required to take its desired action will likely doom the effort.
I had thought that the Bend the Knee, Columbia people were a possible counter-example to my increasing conviction that this is all ultimately about Gaza, since that wasn’t a motivation they discussed. Things have changed in the latest newsletter, where they now make explicit that they share Scott Aaronson’s motivation for collaboration with the Fascist dictator, that this is justified by the supposed fact that anti-Israel protesters here are intent on killing the Jews. Worse than that, the anti-Israel protesters are domestic terrorists and threaten national security. Discussing the recent murders in DC, the author writes:
The alleged perpetrator had been affiliated with a communist organization (which led protests at Columbia’s gates, and since disavowed him), and has now been praised by certain extremist groups as embodying “the highest expression of anti-Zionism” and “an act of solidarity and love.” One these groups (which has a following at Columbia) is now going further, calling for its members to be “completely willing and ready at all times to KILL.”
We previously wrote in these pages: “Meanwhile, these extremists are going beyond public displays of support for terrorism, to claiming they are actively in coordination with and ‘seeking instruction’ from actual terrorists… Left unchecked, we fear it is only a matter of time before some unhinged individual decides to stop ‘playing make-believe’ and turns to actual violence.”
Tragically, it appears that time has come. When those who commit acts of violence are celebrated rather than condemned, we cross a line—from protest into something far more sinister. What once may have felt like theoretical risk has now crystallized. This is no longer a matter of campus politics. It is a matter of domestic terrorism and national security.
Harvard has its own analog of our Bend the Knee people, the 1636 Forum, which is run by Sam Lessin, who has been on a campaign to stop criticism of Israel at Harvard for a while. His latest newsletter has a long explanation of how disastrous the Trump order about foreign students is for Harvard, that Harvard has no choice but to negotiate surrender. That the whole thing is absurdly illegal doesn’t seem to him worth mentioning, nor that courts will immediately put a stop to it.
Update: The Intercept has this story about what is going on with Shoshana Shendelman, one of the Columbia trustees.
Peter, here is the “Statement on academic boycotts of Israeli institutions” signed by big number of very prominent mathematicians in support of Israel.
https://sites.google.com/view/statementonboycotts/home
Prediction (made just now by my wife):
“we are going to find out in a week or 2 that Columbia has signed on to a consent decree with the administration. Shipman will then come out and say ‘we have not given up our independence as an institution.'”
Sounds depressingly plausible to me.
Dave,
Yes, depressingly plausible. I’m guessing this latest from the Trump people is their attempt to impose extra pressure to close the deal. It has always been clear that any new cave-in would be scheduled for after graduation, when almost everyone has left town for a while. The trustees like to announce this kind of disgraceful thing end of day Friday, so maybe early this evening, or Friday next week.
>The trustees like to announce this kind of disgraceful thing end of day Friday
Just like the administration which almost always does their most outrageous things late on Friday’s…
Restraining order placed on the Harvard student issue just now.
Dave,
Yes.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.285083/gov.uscourts.mad.285083.11.0_1.pdf
This is what I first thought happened yesterday: Harvard goes to court, immediately gets restraining order.
Seriously, I heard from multiple people that exactly this was something the Trump people could do to destroy Columbia that the university could not fight. The trustees need some new lawyers.
I do think it will still destroy Harvard (for a time) because few foreign students will enroll there for a while out of fear of such actions even after the slow process of the legal battle. But it is still the right thing to do.
The Pinker op ed is excellent. Reminds me of recent debates on these pages.
Dave,
Maybe I’m becoming too much of an optimist, but I’m starting to believe that the court system is going to hold. Absurd things like this will immediately be met with TROs, the craziness will be stayed while they grind through the courts, and Trump will lose the cases at all levels, even 6-3 or 7-2 at the supreme court.
I really hope the trustees are reading today’s news. Harvard’s announcing that it was fighting appears to have stopped them from a plan at that time to cave-in the next day. Harvard fighting and winning in court this morning may stop then from a cave-in plan today.
The harm is done, given the anti-science and visa chaos, no foreign student with any dose of lucidity would now consider to come study to the US, for the foreseeable future (a generation or two).
Even the future queen of Belgium (a 23-year-old student at Harvard) has been caught off-guard by this, so imagine any regular student with limited means. It’s just too much of a gamble.
Bob Sinclair,
I’m not sure this changes anything as far as potential international students goes. For a while now, Trump has been threatening this, he did it and a court immediately stopped it. Before today you might have worried about this happening and courts not stopping it. Now you know that’s not a thing you need to worry about.
Of course, given the high level of craziness now in the US, with foreigners and foreign students a major target of the craziness, any potential foreign student is going to be wondering not just about Harvard or Columbia, but about whether coming to the US is a good idea at all. I’ve heard from the administration that acceptances of offers of admission from foreign students are not down much. They still have to worry about “melt”, students who decide over the summer to not actually enroll. This though was already a problem last summer, pre-Trump, with more students not showing up than expected.
It seems to me though that the “we’ll take your foreign students away” card has now been played and shown to be worthless. I think the same thing will happen with the tax-exemption issue and ultimately with funding withdrawals. A dictator’s power lies in his successfully intimidating people (like the Columbia trustees…) to cave-in. If they instead fight back, they may find he’s a paper tiger.
Peter,
time will tell I guess, it’s only been 4 months of insanity!
But foreign students may not have the same nuanced/informed understanding of a situation (regarding the courts, the limitations,…) that’s very confusing even for people living in the US.
I’ve studied at CU in the late 90’s, coming from Europe, and it was already challenging enough back then to come here (as an average student). I can’t imagine having to make such a decision now, given the current uncertainty, hurdles, and risks.
As a foreign postdoc currently in the US at a Harvard-adjacent institution, I can at least anecdotally confirm Bob Sinclair’s worries: I haven’t felt safe here for a while, and the judiciary’s successes in blocking the administration’s actions only inspire mild confidence at best. Originally I was hoping to stay in this country for at least a few more years before returning to Europe, but I’ve decided I need to get the F outta H sooner rather than later. Most of my European colleagues share the sentiment that it would be highly ill-advised to go study or work academically in the US for the foreseeable future. The damage is indeed already done, and while the “taking away international students” card may be technically/legally worthless, the continued threats and sabotage attempts raining down from the oval office are having the desired chilling effect already.
foreign postdoc,
I understand completely. As you quite sensibly flee you likely will find the way out crowded, including a lot of Americans…
The Columbia trustees need to fight, not just to preserve the health of this institution, but to preserve the health of the whole society. Having a financially healthy institution won’t be worth much if it’s in a country no sensible person would want to live and work in.
Dave,
The late Friday announcement is here, but still no consent decree cave-in, still not going to court to fight. The Trump people are trying to turn up the pressure on the trustees for the consent decree, I hope others will be turning up the pressure to fight.
A thought about what’s going on. Stopping foreign students, removing tax-exempt status or whatever more creative illegalities they come up with are now looking like empty threats. Other hostile actions like increasing the endowment tax are going to happen no matter what. This latest “finding Columbia in violation” is meaningless, since it’s supposed to carry a threat that it will lead to grant cancellations, but they already did that at the beginning (more so after the cave-in). So the Trump people are likely making Rufo-style demands in their negotiations, but are running out of leverage. The trustees may be comfortable just “negotiating” forever: no new cave-in because there would be no significant reward for it, no fight back since best to look like we’re being submissive (unlike Harvard), at least keep the amounts Trump is stealing from us from going up.
This doesn’t change the fundamental problem that the country needs institutions willing to fight dictatorial illegality, but Columbia is making clear it won’t be one of those, is fine with being “Vichy on the Hudson”.
Hi Peter-yes like you I got that email at 4:04.
The government as you know doesn’t really care about Antisemitism. They use this as a convenient lever to try to do what they ultimate want-to make universities more right wing as a whole by dictating what can be taught, who can be admitted and who can be hired. The Title 6 statement thus is a front piece and likely behind the scenes there are the real demands (similar to what happened with Harvard where those demands were supposed to remain covert).
>The trustees may be comfortable just “negotiating” forever: no new cave-in because there’d be no big reward for it, no fight back since best not to annoy him and keep the amounts Trump is stealing from us from going up.
Yes but this can only last so long-it isn’t a solution for anything.
Dave,
Yes. The Shipman statement is all about “antisemitism”. A logical guess is that the trustees are fine with more rooting out of “antisemitism”, but the Trump people don’t care much about this other than as a wedge issue, they want the Rufo agenda. So they’re at an impasse.
To what extent the courts and US institutions will allow Trump to exercise dictatorial powers is still up for grabs, even if that’s a fight Columbia refuses to enter. I think where that is going will become clearer in coming months. Worst thing Columbia could do is give in to the dictator before the courts and those willing to fight bring him under control. Hopefully that won’t happen.
Haven’t heard from Scott in a while. Don’t know if he’s just not making it through the moderation, or if he’s (hopefully) finally decided to seek help.
anon,
No, Scott is not seeking help, he’d happily carry on the same arguments endlessly here. I know many others would like to engage with him, and others just want to get popcorn and watch the show. For a while I was learning something from this, but that’s not been true for a while, and allowing this to go on drives away people who have informative things to say.
So, I’ve asked him to carry on his “they want to kill all the Jews” arguments not on my blog but on his. You’re welcome to go watch the show over there.
Peter, there is a particular reason, why I sent you a link with mathematicians open letter in support of Israel. There are many prominent mathematicians, including several Fields medalists among them. Considering very low probability that all of them are brainwashed Trumpists, may be there are some reasons to take a look at their point of view and not be so categorical in your statwments
RandomizedPTU
I know many people on both lists. Looking at the lists of names tells you nothing about what is happening in Gaza. Also, this was from last year. The Israeli campaign to starve people and open discussion of complete ethnic cleansing of the region is more recent.
The “pro-Israel” one is mainly about the boycott question, doesn’t say much about what is happening in Gaza. One can be appalled by what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza and opposed to a boycott. I don’t think my views about what is happening in Gaza would be especially unusual for an Israeli (for instance anyone who reads Haaretz).
Sorry all, that’s it for the Gaza discussion here, was not a topic of this posting.
Update: unfortunately I keep getting reminded that Gaza is central to what is happening here, so can’t be avoided. This particular boycott issue from last year is peripheral to what is happening here.
Since Gaza is completely central to the whole story at Columbia, it’s important to understand the perspectives of the two sides in that conflict. The protesters are intent on promoting the side of the inhabitants of Gaza and you can read what they write and listen to what they have to say. Those crying “antisemitism” are upset by this, so want the protests to be stopped, and have a very different perspective.
For a clear explanation of one version of their perspective, Scott Aaronson explains it by defending the killing and starvation of the wives and children of his enemies as a necessary evil, since to be an Israeli against this would mean:
“you would let yourself and your whole family, including your kids (if you have any), be burned alive or shot point-blank, in order to save the wives and children of the genocidal enemy who’d set out to kill you”
See https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=8861#comment-2010058
I encourage people who want to discuss this to do it not here, but with Scott on his blog. Moderating a discussion of the mass killing of innocents is something I can’t do.
I think it would be better to have an open discussion of the Gaza war here, with you, Aaronson, and anyone else contributing. In my earlier comment I said had no better source of information on the situation at Columbia than your blog, and comments on it. By “comments” I meant precisely this kind of sharp disagreement. I have learned more from this disagreement than I have from the New York Times or other journalism. That is because the emotions thus revealed cast their own light.
I would be happy to discuss the meaning of the word “genocide,” the laws of war, the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, or related things here but you don’t seem to want that, so I won’t. I’m not sure Aaronson’s blog is the best place either, but I’ll come up with someplace.
Again, thanks for all of this information about the situation at Columbia.
Michael Gogins,
Gaza is a complex topic, there’s no way I’m going to spend my time engaging in and moderating the kind of discussion you’d like to see. Surely there are many other places this is going on. My interest is in what is happening here at Columbia as our community struggles with a takeover attempt by a Fascist dictator.
Scott’s comments here did a great job of explaining the relevance of Gaza to our current struggle: in his view and that of others, criticism of what Israel is doing in Gaza is equivalent to calling for killing all the Jews. To force Columbia to suppress such criticism (=fight “antisemitism”), all tactics are justifiable including collaboration with the Fascist dictator’s efforts to illegally gain control of the university.
On the topics of relevance to the Columbia situation, Scott has gone on and on and made his argument clear. I wasted a huge amount of time trying to argue with him about this. By now it’s clear that more such efforts would just be a waste of time. He has a very clear and very simple set of beliefs and convictions about this, which anyone interested in has now had an opportunity to hear here. If you want more, he has his own blog…
Peter-
I am very impressed by your courage in standing up for basic humanity in Gaza.
You probably don’t want your blog to turn into a clearinghouse for academics commenting on Gaza, but I thought after the comments of RandomizedPTU I could explain why I have signed several petitions calling for boycotts of Israeli universities.
A few years ago I would have thought that Israeli universities were bastions of liberalism in Israeli society, and that boycotting them would be counter-productive. My eyes were opened recently not only by the genocide in Gaza, but by the book “Towers of Ivory and Steel” by Israeli academic Maya Wind. I encourage everyone interested in this issue to read it.
In particular, I was unaware of the very close connections between the IDF and Israeli universities. This is even true for the mathematics and physics departments. For instance, Hebrew University has a program called Talpiot, where cadets in the Israeli air force are trained in the math, computer science, or physics departments. After graduation, they typically spend several years in R&D in the IDF or the weapons industry.
This means that Hebrew University math and physics departments train IDF soldiers, in uniform, to develop weapons and machine learning systems that are used in the genocide in Gaza.
I think we have a moral imperative to boycott such institutions in the present context.
“Towers of Ivory and Steel” raises many other issues which support a boycot (for instance, I was unaware that Hebrew university is partially in occupied East Jerusalem). However, the Talpiot example really struck home for me.
Peter,
Appreciate the fact that you continue to post on this. I suspect my alma mater may be next on the list, but I think a lot depends on successful the Trump administration’s efforts are at ‘disciplining’ Columbia and Harvard.
Do you think there is a way to apply pressure on the university admin to take a more aggressive stance against Trump’s nonsense? What would compel the university to take Trump to court?
Re Scott: for what it is worth, I’m in my 30s and my Jewish friends are of the same age as well. From what they tell me, there’s a very sharp generational divide on Gaza within the diaspora. Pretty much everyone over 40 is like Scott, and everyone under 40 is appalled/engaging in soul searching etc. over what’s happening. A lot of this is captured in the documentary “Israelism”. You might find it interesting.
Kevin,
Thanks for the comment and the explanation of your thinking on this.
All: I probably shouldn’t have allowed the initial comment, since the issue of boycotts is a complicated one not much related to what I’m trying to focus on here. Maybe at another time I’ll post something and encourage more discussion of this, but that’s all for now.
LTLFTC,
I learned recently that Northwestern is the “prestigious midwestern university” that the Trump people recently announced they are now going after. The plan likely is to try to pick off some of the top places one by one, then be able to get everyone to believe resistance is futile. So far they had a great success with Columbia, but Harvard is thwarting them, they are doing everything they can think of to try and win that, because if Harvard shows you can successfully fight, their project is doomed. This is one reason why what the trustees at Columbia have done is awful, and why it’s so important they start to fight.
I wish I had some ideas about how to get universities to fight back.
About the generational issue. I haven’t so much seen that, with most of the people I know well older and not at all supportive of what Israel is doing in Gaza.
All,
This morning the moderation queue is full of comments wanting to argue about whether to have arguments about Israel. Enough of this for now, absent something new relevant to the Columbia situation.
Good to see that the courts have blocked Trump’s decision to ban international students from Harvard. But what if Trump still orders his administration to no longer grant any visas? Theoretically, foreign students would still be able to come, but in practice they would be blocked one by one. Would each and every student have to fight its case in court to get in?
If you step back and observe what has been going on at some of the best institutions of higher education in the US during the last couple of years, you realize that there are people, both “esteemed” members of those school systems and outsiders, who are apparently quite willing to destroy them to stop any criticism of Israel! Level of this idee fixe in these people seems pathological and doesn’t say much for the moral and logical standing of their beliefs.
Confining myself to things I know something about, i.e., Columbia and the law, I agree with our host’s analysis above, that the Columbia trustees currently plan on negotiating indefinitely. Most of the university’s grants remain in place, foreign students are being enrolled, and what was agreed to so far, though some may dislike it, was very much what a number of alumni, faculty (200 or so, at least), and students advocated. Let Harvard take the lead, and piggyback on their success if they achieve it. That is what I would recommend if I were Columbia’s counsel (which I certainly am not).
I would add that law school professors, at Columbia and elsewhere, are not always a good source of legal advice. Most of them have very little practical experience with civil litigation and lack understanding of its costs and risks.
>Good to see that the courts have blocked Trump’s decision to ban international students from Harvard.
I should point out what the block is here. It is not a judgement by the judge based on the merits of the case. It is temporary halt based on the fact that extreme harm would result to Harvard if the restraining order was not put in place. The block is there so the case can continue without this harm in the short term.
Dave,
Yes, but if this kind of TRO is effective it shows that courts can immediately stop the kind of illegal use of dictatorial powers that Trump has tried to exercise. We’ll see, but I’m assuming for now that courts ruling on the merits of this will uphold the constitution.
An interesting question is why the first Harvard suit about grant cancellations didn’t ask for a TRO. I read somewhere that they decided instead to ask for some sort of expedited ruling, would love to hear from a legal expert about that issue and what’s going on with the Harvard suit.
Yes, can stop for a very short time (not based on merit). Then the TRO will have to be extended. Then the case will finally be adjudicated. I assume the TRO was immediate because otherwise many students would be in imminent danger of deportation. That is different than in the grants case.
Peter, you might be interested in this thread:
https://x.com/StandColumbia/status/1926700588621819945
Basically, they make the point that the fact that it is “absurdly illegal” is irrelevant. In other words, you are not even wrong. :-|.
Aaron Bush,
As far as I can tell, “Stand Columbia” is just Tao Tan, a right-wing Columbia alum with a job in the finance industry, who knows little about the tactical legal situation. Part of his motivation is expressed in the last sentence:
“People cheering for domestic terrorism cannot be part of this community.”
He’s on board with the Trump agenda regarding Columbia, which motivates his obsessive campaign to prove that the university has no choice but to bend the knee to Trump and do whatever he wants.
Are you sure? His political giving (assuming this is him) doesn’t look very “right wing” to me:
https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=Tao+tan
Joseph Snyder,
I admit I don’t know that much about him. He appears to be genuinely devoted to Columbia. Twenty years ago when he was a student he wrote for the Spectator, and was characterized, see
https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/columbia-daily-spectator/184991/13
as a “right-wing” contributor then.
He was one of a small group of alumni early last year petitioning the university to crack down on protests. The stuff in his latest accusing protestors of being terrorists and a national security threat shows where he is on that issue.
From his contributions, he’s clearly not a MAGA republican, and preferred Clinton over Trump in 2016. The Lincoln project is an organization of Republicans opposed to Trump.
I suspect there are significant numbers of trustees, alums, faculty, staff, students who are sane and anti-Trump, but would be perfectly happy with the crackdown on anti-Israel sentiment or even Chris Rufo changes that Trump’s people are pushing. If you feel the dictator is going to advance your agenda, you may find the arguments in favor of caving in to dictatorship to be strong ones.
I googled and found this panel discussion he was on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJW_K5VuiJ0
Watching now…
Joseph Snyder,
Thanks! That video represents well the viewpoints of Stand Columbia and the analogous Harvard organization. While they present themselves as representing large groups at Columbia and Harvard the people writing these newsletters seems to be not much more than just Tan at Columbia and Woo and Sam Lessin at Harvard.
Unfortunately, it’s quite possible that some of the Columbia trustees share the same views. The Stand Columbia newsletter looks like one person (Tao Tan) putting a lot of effort into a campaign to influence the trustees to cave. Personally, I can very much understand why someone would devote themselves to such a campaign…
“If you feel the dictator is going to advance your agenda, you may find the arguments in favor of caving in to dictatorship to be strong ones.”
Peter, are you suggesting that if a dictator advances your agenda, you should oppose for that reason alone? So if Trump says “breathe”, we all stop breathing? That seems just as unprincipled, and quite frankly, absurd.
I don’t know Tan either. I just finished watching his talk. I don’t agree with him on everything but I thought it was maybe 80% quite reasonable. Where do you get cave stuff from? At one point he said the Trump demands were overreach and no university could accept it?
A Stand Columbia Sympathizer,
No, I didn’t say anything like that.
Let me try and make this as clear as possible. What we are living through is a direct and largely successful assault on US democracy, by a new president and Fascist movement intent on tearing up the constitution and having a dictator rule the country by decree. It is everyone’s duty to fight this in any way they can. The future of democracy here depends on it. If everyone just caves-in to the decrees, US democracy is over. If they go to court and the judicial system holds the line, we have a chance.
Applying this to the Columbia situation, while I don’t agree with a lot of what the trustees have done and might do in the future to suppress anti-Israel protest here, that’s a different and much less important issue than the issue of fighting Trump. Most specifically, I don’t have a major problem with the trustees deciding to implement the “antisemitism” actions of the cave-in. What I have a huge problem with is their decision to (unlike Harvard) not go to court to challenge the legitimacy of the dictatorial decree. What they have done de facto accepts the legitimacy of the new decrees from the dictator and discourages others from fighting. It’s hard to overemphasize what an awful decision this is.
My argument with Stand Columbia is on precisely this point. Theirs (yours?) is a determined campaign to get the trustees to do exactly (not litigate) what I think it’s crucial they should do.
On top of this, that a significant part of the pressure to not fight comes from those who want to collaborate with the dictator motivated by the desire to suppress any criticism of the genocidal killing and starvation of civilians in Gaza, make this extreme immorality on top of extreme immorality.
Joseph Snyder,
See my above comment for exactly where I disagree with Tan. The crucial point is whether Columbia should go to court. He argues strongly against, I argue strongly for. Neither of us are lawyers. He argues he is being practical, I argue he is being immoral (although also impractical, since Trump will violate whatever deal you think you’ve negotiated with him).
My impression of what he and others think is that while they agree the demands made on Harvard are overreach, they are in favor of many of them. They strongly oppose Harvard’s going to court, feel that instead Harvard should negotiate with the Trump people, ideally reaching a deal which would cut out the worst of the overreach, and leave precisely a list of changes to the university that’s pretty close to what they want to see anyway.
“Most specifically, I don’t have a major problem with the trustees deciding to implement the “antisemitism” actions of the cave-in. What I have a huge problem with is their decision to (unlike Harvard) not go to court to challenge the legitimacy of the dictatorial decree.”
So now you (a math professor) are more of a litigation expert than the prestigious law firms advising Columbia? Do you know that almost all litigation ends in settlement? Including Harvard’s prior Title VI antisemitism case, which also settled with policy changes. In any lawsuit (which you seem to have little experience with), it is generally true that the faster you settle, the better the settlement terms.
The bottom line is that you don’t know what the trustees have been offered in the negotiations, which may have been different from what Harvard was offered, and you don’t know if the terms might get worse if we sue. So you really have no idea what the cost-benefit tradeoff of a lawsuit is. You are, however, oddly confident in your ignorance.
A Stand Columbia Sympathizer,
You’re quite right that I don’t know what legal advice the trustees are getting, or what demands the Trump people are making of them. I don’t think you do either.
One thing I do know about this is that at the time of the cave-in Armstrong, etc. were telling people that the legal advice was that Trump could remove Columbia’s ability to enroll foreign students and we would have no recourse. They were not telling the trustees that if Trump did this 15 minutes later there would be a TRO stopping him.
I’m not looking at this from the point of view of trying to figure out how to optimize the financial position of the university. While I’m usually quite skeptical of moralizing arguments, this is a very unusual case where I see a very clear one: do we bend the knee to the dictatorship and flush US democracy down the drain, or stand and fight?
A Stand Columbia Sympathizer,
As for the trustee’s legal advice and decisions, I’ll just point out that, based on their legal advice and best judgement, so far they have decided not to settle, and to hold litigation in reserve as a possible next step. I know why I’m campaigning for them to litigate, but I don’t understand at all why you are campaigning to get them to settle, not litigate. If you’re fine with what they’ve done so far, why not just support the position they are taking publicly: “we’re negotiating, may be able to settle, may have to litigate, we don’t know yet.”
“They were not telling the trustees that if Trump did this 15 minutes later there would be a TRO stopping him.”
Pure poppycock. TROs and injunctions were issued in the cases Trump ultimately lost as well as in the cases he ultimately won. Any lawyer knows that.
“I’m not looking at this from the point of view of trying to figure out how much to optimize the financial position of the university.”
That much is obvious, though somewhat surprising for a math professor. We are both ignorant of the facts but only one of us appears to be coldly indifferent to the loss of jobs and research that would result from taking these “moralizing arguments” seriously.
“I don’t understand at all why you are campaigning to get them to settle, not litigate.”
I support the trustees, period. If litigation becomes necessary because the Trump administration is making demands to Columbia that are so beyond-the-pale as to alter the cost-benefit calculus, I would support litigation until those demands become more reasonable, at which time we should settle. At no time should we set the University on fire to feel morally superior.
By contrast, you seem to prefer to agitate for performative irresponsibility in the name of not “bending the knee”.