Not much news from Columbia this week, the Fascist dictatorship was successful at getting the president of Columbia removed and has now moved on to Harvard, Princeton and Brown. Hopefully the leadership of those institutions is more willing to fight Fascism than Columbia’s. Or, at least, they may have noticed that if you do what Columbia did you’ll bring shame on your institution, and still not get your money back.
During the past week I’ve been trying without success to find anyone who knows anything about what is going on with Columbia’s leadership and its dealings with the Trump administration. The acting president of Columbia has just issued a statement, entitled Listening, Learning and Starting the Conversation, video here. In this posting I’ll try and do a close reading of the statement. Shipman’s text is the part in italics, my interpretation of what she’s saying follows.
First, the commitments the University made to address antisemitism, harassment, and discrimination, which were outlined on March 21, are now my commitments, and work is underway to continue their implementation. We are not changing course. I believe the plans, many of which were already underway, are the right thing to do, and good for our institution.
The previous president (Katrina Armstrong) was fired for insufficient dedication to implementing the cave-in to Trump. I’m not going to make her mistake. We should all be enthusiastic about the cave-in, which is “good for our institution”.
Second, we are proceeding, with integrity and care, in our discussions with the federal government about restoring our research funding.
Even with the cave-in, they still won’t give us the money back. They’re continuing to illegally use the money to try and force us to do more things against our principles, but we have to be really careful not to annoy them by resisting. We’re still too afraid to try and deal with their illegal behavior by going to court.
Third, I also want to acknowledge the deep fear and uncertainty being felt at this moment in our international community. I see you, and I hear you, and the University administration is, and I am, deeply concerned for all our international students and scholars…
We are committed to supporting our international community in any way possible for us. I’ve asked our team to substantially increase our funding and hours for our International Student and Scholars Office (ISSO), so that our advisors are more readily available to help…
Let me also make this clear—Columbia doesn’t have the ultimate authority, and we’re committed to following the law.
We are not going to do anything like what Tufts is doing for its imprisoned student. We’re not going to help any of our students who get dragged out of their dorms or off the streets, we’re not even going to mention their names. As far as we’re concerned, using bogus accusations that our students are terrorists to arrest, imprison and deport them is perfectly legal.
I’ll also take this moment to put some rumors to rest. No member of the leadership team or the Board of Trustees ever notified ICE about any members of our community. Full stop.
There was a March 10 Forward article with the text:
“Ross Glick, a pro-Israel activist who previously shared a list of campus protesters with federal immigration authorities, said that he was in Washington, D.C., for meetings with members of Congress during the Barnard library demonstration and discussed Khalil with aides to Sens. Ted Cruz and John Fetterman who promised to “escalate” the issue. He said that some members of Columbia’s board had also reported Khalil to officials.
“This unfolded very quickly because it was obvious,” Glick said in an interview Monday. “Everybody was upset,” he recalled of his meetings on the Hill. “The guy was making it too easy for us.”
Here I’m going with a non-denial denial. I won’t deny this, instead I’ll vigorously deny something different (trustees reported Khalil to ICE).
Update: Two Harvard Law professors argue in the Boston Globe that Harvard should not do what Columbia did, but go to court.
Update: The New York Times Editorial Board has advice for the Columbia trustees.
Update: My colleague Michael Harris puts the current attack on Columbia and other universities in perspective, including the role of “the billiard ball-headed billionaire bros.”
In a nutshell, the acting president of Columbia University has just provided ample evidence that she is a paradigm of cowardice and that her morality is very flexible.
Hang in there Americans. The bad days WILL end.
With love from Australia
Shayne
Columbia (and some others) are being used/publicized as examples of what is clearly a much broader attack on liberal higher education. I’m now getting communications from my alma mater out west, Pomona College, of the “requests” from Gov’t. for information/documentation about students & protests there, clearly intending to intimidate. The college is treading that fine line between saying they will obey all legal requirements, while protecting students’ rights & privacy — I’ll be interested to see how it plays out for them. Despite a long history and large endowment, I doubt they have the legal resources of a much larger institution.
Schecky R.
One government group demanding records from Columbia is a House committee demanding disciplinary records. Columbia is resisting that, see
https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/03/30/judge-holds-hearing-after-temporarily-blocking-columbia-and-barnard-from-sending-records-to-house-committee/
Besides that I haven’t heard about other government agencies demanding records. What has been going on here since the protests started is a very organized effort to identify student protestors, dox them and go to the authorities demanding action against them. The story in the posting above was part of that effort, and people are wondering if there is any involvement of administrators or the trustees in this (the Forward article claims there was).
What happened this week was two pro-Khalil demonstrations demanding the administration identify the trustees involved in this. The demonstrators locked themselves to the ironwork on the edge of campus (not obstructing anything). Only American Jewish students participated, no foreign students now dare participate in something like this. One of the groups doing the doxing (Betar) is now going after the Jewish students, distributing their names and demanding action against them. It also has put out a list of “Kapo” Jews, who they say should not be allowed into Israel.
At the moment, from what I see, the only Jewish students on campus in danger are these students, but I’m not seeing anyone calling for action to protect them. Things have gotten so bad that even Shai Davidai has taken to criticizing Betar, pointing out that accumulating lists of Jews to denounce to the authorities is problematic.
Sorry, no links provided to this disgraceful story, for obvious reasons.
Relevant interview: https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/a-university-president-makes-a-case-against-cowardice
Especially note Roth’s comment on “anti-antisemitism”.
Jerome M.,
Thanks, that’s a great article. This part is disturbing:
“Someone on the faculty at Columbia who works in the administration asked me to put together a group of presidents. I was unable to. I wrote something quickly for people to sign, and one of the people I contacted said to me, “Are you sure the president at Columbia wants you to?” I said, “I’m not sure.””
We’re hearing “other institutions wouldn’t help us resist Trump”, whereas this is indicating the Columbia president wasn’t interested in joining a campaign to resist Trump.
From the “Commitments” document linked in the acting president’s statement:
“Columbia has been engaged in an ongoing discussion about how the University can continue to fulfill its academic mission of teaching, learning, and research while creating and sustaining an environment that enables free expression, rigorous debate, and open dialogue.”
I’m not sure why “ongoing discussions” are needed. Why can’t Columbia continue to do what it was doing BEFORE it started cracking down on students protesting Israel’s war on Gaza?
Thank you for being a voice of reason and truth on this issue, Peter.
I’ve been reading your blog for a long time (since I first read your great book), and it’s heartening to see a scientist I respect engaged in principled, reality based discourse on this.
I hope your job isn’t at risk for speaking out as you have, but I have a feeling you’d speak out regardless.
Zoki,
My personal situation is secure, which is one reason I feel that I should be speaking up about these issues. There are a lot of people here who for good reason are afraid to say anything. We keep hearing from the trustees and president that they are devoted to “free expression, rigorous debate, and open dialogue”, but those are not things they want to see or encourage right now. One reason I’m fairly confident I’m not going to have the administration coming after me is that the last thing they want is any engagement of any kind with the faculty at this time.
The last faculty meeting was March 5, devoted to explaining technical Arts and Sciences budget issues. There has been zero open dialogue or rigorous debate about what is going on and what the trustees are doing. It’s hard to overstate the extent to which
1. the faculty and most of the administration have no information at all about what is going on.
2. since the events of last May, the campus has been in a very intensive security environment and the pro-Palestinian protests have been almost completely shut down. Those claiming this campus is a place where protestors are threatening people’s safety have absolutely no idea what they are talking about.
Hi,
“Those claiming this campus is a place where protestors are threatening people’s safety have absolutely no idea what they are talking about.”
I am afraid that they perfectly know what propaganda is about and how to use it. This is a propaganda war. Paradoxically, they are making the same kind of fabrications Hitler’s acolytes made against Jews in the 1920s and 1930s, although in the opposite direction. But with quite the same purpose: justify state rulings against those opposing the aims of the party. The question is if you are prepared to use counterpropaganda in such an effective way, because history taught us that truth telling alone may not counter the power of propaganda.
JE
https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/controlling-universities
Peter,
Based on everything I’ve read, I think your analysis is spot-on.
It’s telling that the task force report on antisemitism doesn’t even define what antisemitism is. Nor do I see any attempt in the report to verify that the statements by those interviewed by the task force are true.
The term “antisemitism” in 2025 is being used the way the word “terrorism” has been used since 2001 to mean “whatever those in power don’t like.”
There is little to no reality-based reporting on this in the “mainstream” media. And many people who know better are terrified to speak out.
Zoki
In the meantime,
https://www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2025/04/04/a-letter-to-columbia/
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-849285
“Mahmoud Khalil accused Columbia University of creating a “manufactured public hysteria about antisemitism” and likened the school to a Nazi collaborationist government in a letter dictated from an ICE detention center.”
“As in his first letter from ICE detention on March 18, Khalil accused Columbia of “laying the groundwork for my abduction” by exercising “repression” of pro-Palestinian students. In Friday’s letter, while writing about the recent resignation of Columbia’s acting president, he called the school “Vichy on the Hudson,” a reference to the Nazi collaborationist government in France.”
In the letter, Khalil also charged Columbia with being an “arm of the state,” writing that the school had “systematically gutted every value it claims to uphold.” He also called on students to join the protests, warning that “neutrality on Palestine will not protect you.”
“This institution’s singular concern has always been the vitality of its financial profile, not the safety of Jewish students,” wrote Khalil. “This is why Columbia was all too happy to embrace a superficial progressive agenda while still disregarding Palestine, and this is why it will soon turn on you, too.”