First the good news: a Vermont judge has ordered ICE to release Rumeysa Ozturk. This is yet more evidence that one does not need to bow to the dictatorship. The judicial system is still functional, so one can go to court to successfully challenge illegal behavior.
Now the bad news: the Columbia acting president and trustees still won’t do this. There’s a new message that just came in (5pm Friday is a typical time for these) from Shipman about Supporting and Strengthening Columbia’s Research Enterprise. It starts off
For the past several months, Columbia’s research enterprise has been confronting one of the most sustained and serious disruptions in its history. Major interruptions in federal funding, especially from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), are affecting nearly every part of our research community. However, we are also responding with determination, urgency, and an unwavering commitment to what defines us as an institution.
The Trump administration on March 7 notified Columbia that its grants and contracts were being cancelled. Since this was clearly completely illegal, the obvious thing to do would have been to have Columbia’s lawyers immediately go to court and challenge this. Instead the trustees decided to agree with the Trump panel that the bogus antisemitism charges were accurate, announce that we’re guilty of the charges and seemingly willing to accept our punishment, not challenge it. The long and sorry story of how agreeing to the Trump demands led to nothing but more grant cancellations and more demands has now been going on for over two months. The only “urgency” in Columbia’s response was how fast it caved-in. As far as “unwavering commitment to what defines us as an institution”, what the trustees have done has permanently defined Columbia as the highest profile US institution to refuse to resist the new dictatorship as it tried to see how far it could push unconstitutional government by decree from the dictator.
Columbia has now waited so long that it may no longer even be possible to go to court. People have lost their jobs, labs are being closed, lab animals euthanized. I’m not a lawyer, but if you wait this long before doing anything, and spend the months publicly announcing your guilt and how convinced you are that the dictatorship is dealing with you in “good faith”, surely this must sooner or later destroy any possibility of getting a court to stop the illegality.
So, what is Columbia doing to “support and strengthen” research here? They’re still trying to negotiate a further cave-in:
We continue to engage with the federal government with the aim of restoring funding and reestablishing the flow of grant support in a manner that upholds and strengthens our institutional values.
They’re signing on to a lobbying effort about next year’s budget, both its size and ICR rates:
Through the Association of American Universities (AAU), we are also part of a coordinated national effort to push back on proposed cuts to NIH, National Science Foundation (NSF), and other agencies; reductions to facilities and administrative (F&A) reimbursements; and other policy changes that threaten the foundations of U.S. academic research. The AAU has launched a campaign aimed at educating the public on indirect costs, which is similar to the information we have posted about facilities and administrative costs at the University. These efforts are vital—not only to restoring funding, but also to reinforcing public trust in the research enterprise itself.
They are trying to replace some of the lost funding:
To support as much continuity as possible for our faculty, students, staff, and labs, we have launched two research stabilization funds:
- One, created with the support of NewYork-Presbyterian, is focused on Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons and the clinical and translational research taking place there.
- The other supports the broader university research community, with special attention to graduate students and postdoctoral fellows whose training grants have been affected.
These funds are not intended to replace federal support, but to serve as a bridge—allowing researchers to bring projects to completion, explore alternative funding, or pivot to new directions. The Office of the Executive Vice President for Research (EVPR) will oversee the application process, and more information is available on the EVPR website. Efforts to expand these funds through philanthropic support are already underway.
What’s also being done is what university administrations always do when a problem becomes urgent and needs to be immediately addressed: form committees. One new one is the Presidential Task Force on Columbia’s Research Mission, which will try to figure out what to do now that the money’s gone. The second is the Working Group on Strategic Engagement and Institutional Credibility, which is supposed to “change the narrative” and get us better PR. To change the narrative and restore the credibility they have wrecked, the trustees and president need not to form a PR committee, but to join Harvard and others fighting the dictatorship instead of continuing to appease it. It’s appalling that there’s no indication that this is even an option on the table.
Update: Harvard president Garber has issued a letter of response to the lunatic letter from McMahon. Columbia acting president Shipman should do some light editing and send something similar in Columbia’s name to McMahon.
Update: The bogus excuse of “antisemitism” continues to be the main tool of Trump’s war against Harvard. Here’s the latest. They also announced they are going after another antisemitic “prestigious university in the midwestern United States” without identifying it. Anyone know which midwestern center of antisemitism the Trump people are now going after?
Update: Worth reading is a blog post by Katharina Pistor and David Pozen on Columbia’s governance problems. It’s not just the Senate…
Update: DC court decision blocking the DOJ from cancelling several grants to the American Bar Association.
Update: Fund raising message today from Shipman. I don’t understand the idea of a call for help to maintain academic independence from someone who has already agreed to illegal demands, fired her predecessor to make Trump’s people happy, and is in the middle of negotiating to do more. Unfortunately this makes it look like Columbia going to court and fighting is not in the cards anytime soon, because if so, a fundraising message like this would wait until that announcement.
Update:(5/16/25) Situation stays the same. Columbia is “negotiating” with Trump, but no one knows what they are negotiating or who is representing Columbia in the negotiations. No one has any idea why Columbia will not go to court to try and get back the by now very large sums of grant money contracted but not paid. By no one I mean at all levels up to and including the provost. With graduation approaching, security is intense to try and stop any inconvenient protest about what is happening in Gaza, where large numbers of civilians were killed today. The acting president’s PR campaign is underway.
Update: The New York Times has a story about NASA “canceling the lease” of GISS in the building above Tom’s restaurant. NASA is moving the scientists out of the building for no sensible reason, since NASA can’t cancel the lease (which is through 2031 with the General Services Administration, which is still paying the rent).
Scott,
Your obsession with finding calls for a second Holocaust in the stupidest things said or written by members of a miniscule student organization is just fanaticism. Among the many colleagues I talk to about these issues, Jewish or not, this is definitely not “mainstream” behavior.
Yes, this is about Gaza. The appalling news from there about the Israeli wholesale slaughter of civilians amid calls for ethnic cleansing of the entire population from members of the Israeli government is what is motivating these protestors.
You should look within yourself to understand where your fanaticism about a supposed second Holocaust comes from. Could accusing others of something you feel guilty about be a defense mechanism for dealing with the fact that people are being killed and driven from their homes as we speak? That you are obsessed with a vision of the Israeli people being killed and driven from their homes at a time when pictures of them doing exactly this to another people are on the front pages of all the newspapers is very striking.
I find it ironic that I’m the one who’s tried hard to keep the focus on Columbia, CUAD, Trump, Title VI, etc, honoring your wish not to relitigate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You’re the one who’s tipped your hand by complaining that I never mentioned Gaza—showing that, despite your protestations, this was your actual underlying concern all along.
There are Gazans I deeply admire: namely, the thousands who’ve recently risked their lives, risked torture of themselves and their families, to denounce Hamas for starting this war. These are the Gazans who’ve correctly identified the actual cause of Gaza’s suffering and who are trying to end it. The silence of Western protesters about their plight speaks volumes.
CUAD is the umbrella group that organized the protests we’re talking about. You don’t get to dismiss them as “some random crazies,” any more than I get to dismiss Netanyahu as some random crazy with no larger constituency in Israel.
October 7 was a second Holocaust, just one that was stopped early, by armed Israelis, after “only” 1200 were murdered. We now know, from recovered intelligence, that the original idea was to reach the West Bank and bisect Israel while Hezbollah simultaneously invaded from the north, and continue the slaughter until all seven million Jews lay dead from river to sea.
That Israel stands accused of the genocide from which it’s defending itself—Israel, which despite the existential stakes has maintained a civilian/combatant ratio that wouldn’t raise eyebrows in any defensive war anywhere else on earth—this is one of the most grotesque moral inversions ever, albeit one that’s extremely familiar by now, having been pioneered by the Soviet Union. As it’s said: “Tell me what you accuse the Jews of, and I’ll tell you what you’re guilty of.”
You’re demonstrably wrong that groups like CUAD are primarily motivated by Israel’s war in Gaza. We know this because they were praising October 7, and calling for Israel’s elimination, before Israel even started fighting in Gaza.
My experience with my own colleagues at Columbia leads me to believe that, while your views (“oh, just some overexuberant kids wanting to murder all Zionists, not a problem”) might be representative of the humanities faculty at Columbia, they’re not representative of the STEM faculty, most of whom remain grounded and sane. If I was wrong, though, that would only make it all the clearer that there really is a systemic problem there justifying a federal civil rights intervention, ideally by a government that actually and not just pretextually cared about the issue.
As we all realize, intelligence and immorality (or amorality) are not mutually exclusive traits. People who constantly shout “Holocaust! Holocaust!” when in fact Israel is the side that seems to have embarked on its “final solution” for its Palestinian problem may not be driven by feelings of guilt. Evil is more prevalent than we’d like to admit.
Scott,
At first when I started trying to understand what was happening at Columbia, I thought it was about Trump and antisemitism, so tried to avoid topics like Gaza. More recently I’ve come to understand that this is all about what Israel is doing in the West Bank and Gaza, and the intense fanaticism on the topic that you and others embody, making you intent on fighting battles to destroy your perceived opponents at places you know nothing about.
That you are actually proud in a morally righteous way of what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza isn’t something I would have guessed. Being for mass slaughter of civilians, driving a people from their homes, and so intent on it that you will sign up for collaboration with a Fascist dictatorship to further the cause is an impressive combo. And not one that only the humanities faculty at Columbia find problematic.
Peter,
This time I’m on Scott’s side: Please don’t hallucinate nasty opinions from Scott. I don’t get the impression that Scott’s proud of the ongoing genocide (even if he would hesitate to call it a genocide) and he definitely didn’t SAY he was proud of it, at least not in this comment section.
Scott,
I’d like to see some sources for that civilian/combatant ratio claim, preferably not Israeli sources since they’re nearly impossible to separate from Israel’s copious propaganda output. My own (admittedly brief) search suggests a rate of at least 75% civilian casualties for Israeli attacks on Palestinians, which seems high. More importantly, I don’t see why it NEEDS to be that high. Given Israel’s military strength, especially compared to Hamas, they should be able to afford much more precise strikes. Personally, I’m left with the impression that the lives of Palestinian civilians mean essentially nothing to Israel’s military.
Also, I think it’s a little disingenuous to say that Hamas started the war on October 7. To be clear, I think the attack was horrific and unjustifiable and everyone responsible should be brought to justice. But I also think this kind of violence is the inevitable result of Israel pushing innocent people out of their homes and land for decades – of course that will breed hatred and militancy. Israel’s current shotgun approach just means more Palestinians will turn to violence after seeing all their friends and family (who are likely innocent, normal people!) get brutally murdered.
AJewishGuy,
I don’t think what I wrote is an unfair characterization of
“That Israel stands accused of the genocide from which it’s defending itself—Israel, which despite the existential stakes has maintained a civilian/combatant ratio that wouldn’t raise eyebrows in any defensive war anywhere else on earth—this is one of the most grotesque moral inversions ever”
Scott’s proud defense of what is going on in Gaza as “a civilian/combatant ratio that wouldn’t raise eyebrows in any defensive war anywhere else on earth” is just repulsive.
Sorry all, I’m shutting off comments here. I can’t stomach moderating a discussion of whether its fine to slaughter tens of thousands of innocent people.