The Situation at Columbia XIII

Still no news about the status of negotiations for a possible further cave-in to autocracy by the Columbia board of trustees. In the meantime, a few items:

• It’s becoming unclear whether there will be any scientific research funding to get back with a cave-in, since such research is getting shut down throughout the various federal government agencies that fund it. According to Nature, the NSF has stopped awarding new grants, as well as stopping continuing funding of existing ones. They had been terminating awards, see more at this page. One target for defunding was anything related to studying and stopping misinformation. They’ve just announced that as of May 5, ICR rates will be capped at 15%. I believe this was also done at NIH, then DOE, with lawsuits filed in both cases, successful at stopping this at least temporarily in the NIH case.
• Last year something called the Stand Columbia Society was started, putting out regular newsletters. Once the Trump administration withdrew funding and started making demands of Columbia, the newsletters became much more about “Bend the knee, Columbia”, rather than Stand Columbia. The arguments for why Columbia should bend the knee turn out to not just be financial. The group has just completed a major effort they call The Sunlight Report. It’s a 469 page critique of the 335 page Sundial Report produced by a group associated with the University Senate.

  Personally, I skimmed the Sundial Report and decided the last thing I wanted to spend my life on was an extended account of the exact details of what happened here last year (produced with no input or insight from the administrators involved). Skimming the Sunlight report, the bulk is a copy of the Sundial report, with what is supposedly wrong with it highlighted and explained. The first problem they find is that they highlight “Hamas militants” and correct it to “Hamas terrorists” with the explanation:

  Bias: Terrorists. Hamas is a foreign terrorist organization, a status first designated by the U.S. Department of State in 1997 during the presidency of Bill Clinton, maintained by every subsequent administration, and continuing to have broad bipartisan support.

  If you’re a glutton for punishment and have read the entire Sundial Report, I suppose you should read this one too.

• The New York Times today has an article about the Justice department’s unusual attempt to investigate a Columbia pro-Palestinian student group.
• Scott Bok was chairman of the board of trustees at Penn when the controversies over student protests started. He and the university president (M. Elizabeth Magill) ended up getting forced out of their positions by university donors and other trustees. He has written a book that is about to appear, about his life in the finance industry, with two final chapters about what happened at Penn. There’s an article at the Chronicle here, an interview with him at the Daily Pennsylvanian here. I may try and get a copy of the book when it comes out.

  The account of what happened at Penn explains the behind-the-scenes dynamics of how the fight over pro-Palestinian demonstrations played out amongst the trustees, major donors and the president. I’m guessing there’s a similar story to be told some day about what went on at Columbia last year. This story about Penn helps to understand what is going on now, as universities like Columbia face the question of whether to resist the exercise of illegal dictatorial powers or whether to cave-in to them. A big part of the argument for a cave-in coming from some quarters is “what we’re being asked to do is largely things I think should be done anyway”. The Bok account provides details of the people and forces at work at Penn, but here at Columbia we’re basically all in the dark about the analogous group of people making decisions about our future and what they are doing.