Actually, nothing really new at Columbia. New students arriving, classes start next week. Still tight security at the gates and the administration’s highest priority is to continue to ensure that no “antisemitic” protest of the war crimes going on in Gaza occurs on this campus. Some people here think this is great, some are appalled, most just don’t care.
I don’t think there’s anyone now unaware of the ongoing wholesale killing of innocents going on in Gaza as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign to drive the Palestinians from that land. The trustees and administration of Columbia know what is going on and have made their decision about their role in it.
In case you think this description of what is happening in Gaza is just the misguided opinion of one particular “antisemitic piece of shit”, here’s a clear explanation of what is going on from a New York Times commentator not known to be an “antisemitic piece of shit”:
I will leave it to historians to debate whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. But what is absolutely clear to me right now is that this Israeli government is committing suicide, homicide and fratricide.
It is destroying Israel’s standing in the world, it is killing Gazan civilians with seemingly no regard for innocent human life, and it is tearing apart Israeli society and world Jewry, between those Jews who want to still stand with Israel no matter what and those who can no longer tolerate, explain or justify where this Israeli government is taking the Jewish state and now want to distance themselves from it….
It is one thing for a country at war to justify collateral damage when going after the enemy’s top leaders. It is something entirely more sinister when you are killing and wounding dozens of civilians to try to kill, say, the deputy to the deputy commander.
It is also devious and sinister when you use your military to move hundreds of thousands of Gazan civilians from one part of Gaza to the other — under the guise of evacuating them from fighting zones — and then deliberately bulldoze the homes they left behind for no real military reason but with the clear ulterior motive of making life so miserable for them that they will leave the area entirely. And it is shameful when you stop and start humanitarian aid, with the hope that people will get hungry enough to leave.
But as I said, this is not just homicide pure and simple; it is also suicide and fratricide. Israel is now well on its way to making itself a pariah state.
Update: The IDF has explained what they did yesterday at Nasser Hospital, killing at least 20 people including many journalists and health care workers. They identified a camera taking pictures from a building, were well aware that it was a hospital building. A tank shell was fired at the part of the building where the camera was, killing at least one person near the camera. They then waited ten minutes, until first responders and journalists had gathered at the site where the person was killed, and launched another shell, which is the one that killed a large number of journalists and health care workers.
The camera the IDF was targeting was a Reuters camera.
Shelling a hospital with a tank because a camera is there? Then shelling the hospital again to kill those who responded to try and help the killed and injured? It doesn’t get much more war-crimey than that, and this is what Israel is doing every day to the population of Gaza. It’s also what the Columbia administration is going all out to stop anyone from protesting about on campus.
Israel is losing allies on a daily basis now, as even the complicit media reports on the war crime du jour. The clock is ticking and if the NYT editorial page turns on the Netanyahu government then you know that they are on a slippery slope. This follows on the heels of Iowa City voting to boycott and divest from Israel and companies that support the war.
Of course the Columbia administration continues to congratulate itself on its recent deal with the government and on its steadfast support of the extremist Likud government. Or for the first time they seem to be unaware that they are out of step with public opinion.
In case you missed it, well known Republican Congresswoman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted this at the weekend, an eloquent distillation of what many feel.
https://x.com/RepMTG/status/1959240450088280116
Whch started a firestorm between her and Laura Loomer.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/marjorie-taylor-greene-issues-passionate-221315126.html
So this is where we are now. MTG stands with the students, and the people of Gaza, and Jewish Voices for Peace. Columbia admin is off stage, somewhere way off to the far right.
Columbia is now stranded on an island with Smotrich, Ben Gvir and Netanyahu. On Marco Rubio Island, perhaps, or floating in Loomer Lagoon, holding hands with Victor Mendelson and Shoshana Shendelman. The rest of the world is watching in horror.
The University is being run by a right wing junta that seized power in a coup, and we are all trapped in Crazy Town until they decide to leave, or we decide to throw them out.
If Thomas Friedman is right, then not only is Israel becoming a pariah (the UN and the global South have already declared this to be true) but Columbia University is one too.
The NYT commentator forget one important detail: all the horrific acts perpetrated against Gaza by the Israeli government are done with the tacit approval of the US government: this is the BIG SHAME!
George Melki,
I would like here to stick to the connection to Columbia. Yes, the US government is providing crucial support for the murders in Gaza. The Columbia administration is doing its part by agreeing to
1. Characterize student protests against the murders as “antisemitic” and change university procedures to ensure that protesting students are expelled.
2. Lockdown the campus, purely to stop pro-Palestinian protests.
3. Adopt a definition of “antisemitism” that will allow charging those in the Columbia community who complain about the murders as “antisemites”.
4. Hiring of new pro-Israeli faculty and a vice-provost to oversee faculty with anti-genocide views.
While all this is going on, we’re being fed happy talk about everything is fine, and the lockdown is to make us all more “secure”. The student newspaper has a long article about the lockdown
https://www.columbiaspectator.com/city-news/2025/08/23/its-just-not-right-morningside-heights-residents-feel-impacts-of-ongoing-summer-gate-closures/
which manages to completely ignore the question of why it is there.
Hi Peter,
Regarding “some people here think this is great” and “some are appalled”, which group is the larger majority at Columbia? One question that I have in particular is whether & how much the answer changes if you restrict your sample to (i) STEM, (ii) physicists + mathematicians, (iii) mathematicians. Do you by any chance also have any gauge on the answer to the later questions (cases (ii) and (iii)) for the whole community, not just exclusive to Columbia? It has almost become existential for me at this point, and I need to decide if I want to be associated with these groups for the remainder of my life (I’m fully aware that no group is perfect, but I need to know where does the majority stand). For instance, why has Israel not been banned yet from the International Math Olympiad? And why was Russia readmitted back?
Regarding “most don’t care”: do you have an idea why is this so? I have often wondered why is it the case that the feeling of guilt does not let me rest, while many other people around me seem to be not bothered at all.
Regarding being called an “antisemitic piece of shit”: does he still think Israel is defending itself? Has he changed his mind yet? Or is he doing more mental gymnastics? If I were to read into his silence on Palestinians getting slaughtered everyday, at this point, I think it is safe to conclude that folks like him are most definitely enablers of a genocide.
Concerned Scientist,
I don’t think the drama between various crazy Fascists in our Fascist government means much.
Unfortunately at this point I don’t see any reason that we’re not headed towards:
1. Mass murder and complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza, replacing the Palestinian population with Israeli settlers. Ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, with Palestinians concentrated in Bantustans/prison camps.
2. Continued lockdown of the campus and harsh crackdown on anyone who does or says anything that will get NY Post coverage and annoy Steven Miller.
3. Full-blown Fascist dictatorship in the US.
4. No significant opposition to any of this from Columbia faculty, students or staff.
Anonymous,
I don’t have enough data to have any idea how things break down STEM/non-STEM, math/physics, etc. My impression is that claims that STEM is on one side, non-STEM on the other are exaggerated. For instance, the only group on campus that I know of that has been holding protests and actively fighting this is CUIMC Stands Up, based at the medical school.
The one thing that is clear is that the overwhelming majority of people feel there is nothing they can do, so best to try to not think about what is going on, especially not things like why one has to go through all these security checkpoints.
The whole point of the fanatical attack on the demonstrations was that those were a real danger to the opposition pro-genocide side. People seeing large groups gathering in the center of campus to protest genocide was starting to give many the idea that maybe they could do something. Shutting this down was the highest priority of those who support the genocide, and they have been completely successful.
You shouldn’t put so much emphasis on issues like the IMO one. Many people quite reasonably think that taking actions against individuals (e.g. possible IMO contestants) based on what their country is doing is a bad idea. One can sensibly argue both sides of this issue.
I certainly wonder what Scott thinks about the ever more obvious genocide. Does he think Tom Friedman is “an antisemitic piece of shit”? Dealing with Scott did really open my eyes. He’s quite clear in explaining the way he thinks about this: Palestinians want to kill him and his family, so he’s fine with killing them. If killing enough of them to make all of them leave is what it takes to make them no longer be a threat to his family, that’s both justifiable and their own fault. From everything I see, this point of view has the majority support of the Israeli people and is (unspoken) Israeli government policy.
On the “bright” side, Scott Aaronson has apparently finally decided to STFU because even he can no longer come up with any “liberal zionist” points and gaslighting options to rationalize/defend the genocide.
Peter, I want to be fully clear on the IMO issue. I think what IMO decided after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, was the right decision — to let individual Russians compete, but not under the Russian flag. The same should also have happened for Israel, just because of consistency. The only part I disagreed with the IMO decision in the Russian case was that they allowed individuals from Russia to compete “remotely”. I didn’t get the rationale for that — why should they not have been able to participate in person, if they wanted and say if they could get a visa to travel?
The only exception to this is if IMO decided that what they did after the Russian invasion was the wrong thing to do in hindsight, and therefore they shouldn’t make the same mistake twice. If that is the case, they should state that explicitly — that never again in the future will they ban individuals from competing at IMO under their countries’ flags, no matter what their country is up to. And if that is the case, they might as well suspend all flags from the contest altogether (something I’d wholeheartedly support) and let IMO simply be a competition of individuals, completely detached from any connections to the idea of nation states and national pride.
Anyway, I think the IMO issue is not that big and I only meant it as an example of double standards, and I’m only writing this to be fully transparent about my views on the issue. The bigger issue that gnaws me from inside out is the total silence from the community (some people like you have indeed spoken up, but not nearly enough have done it), that I once aspired to become a part of and spent so many years becoming a part of, and considered to be a beacon of truth, integrity and justice in the world, alas, only to end up in betrayal.
Anonymous,
Expecting a complicated organization like the IMO to act consistently and be devoted to principle is expecting too much. That organization in particular has to deal with the views of people from all sorts of countries with different values and political agendas.
The way the Columbia community is dealing with the “antisemitism” attacks and with the attacks from our new Fascist dictator has certainly made me unhappy. But I don’t think it’s different than the rest of society. In 1933 and other times, people who wanted to be dictators found that some parts of society liked dictatorship and that most of society was going to just go along and not fight. Academia is no better or worse than the other wide range of institutions in the US that are going down without a fight.
“I understand that Columbia University put an end to the demonstration on campus, but what I can’t quite grasp is why people aren’t protesting outside the university. And what about other universities—why aren’t we seeing demonstrations happening there as well?”
Peter,
A sincere question: when you and I were young, the universities were torn apart over the issue of the war in Vietnam, and the faculties at elite schools generally stood up for the students’ right to organize, protest, hold “teach-ins,” etc.
So… where is the faculty at Columbia? The ideal of a university is to have free and open discussion, with no views forbidden. Where is that at today’s elite schools?
Columbia simply is its faculty and students: can the faculty stand up for the ideal of a university?
Re the NYT: I also urge everyone to read the recent NYT bestseller “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning” by Peter Beinart, who is himself an NYT contributor, as well as a practicing Orthodox Jew. It is brief, readable, and a heart-rending look at the horrors in Gaza. Equally important is “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” by the Israeli Jewish historian Ilan Pappe. The two books would serve as an excellent basis for “teach-ins,” if anyone today has the courage to take that course.
Dave Miller in Sacramento
another Anonymous/David H. Miller,
Not clear to me why in the US in general there is so little public opposition to the Gaza genocide or to the Fascist dictatorship. Part of the answer is hopelessness: if you try and follow the news and understand what is happening, it’s one grim and depressing story after another, hard to find anything to be hopeful about or anything one can do.
Locally, it’s also hard to understand why there has been so little opposition here from the faculty/staff/students to what has happened. Here at least part of the reason is clear. I just walked through the center of campus where they’re preparing for a big orientation week event that looks like it will feature speeches by our leaders. About forty security people are being placed all around the area where people will be sitting and listening to the speeches. This huge and unusual security presence we’re told is there to “keep us safe”. Safe from any embarrassing protest about what is going on.
It’s very simple. What’s going on in Israel/Gaza is half a world away. People at Columbia have their own careers, lives, and livelihoods to lead. It’s sad what’s happening there, but it really doesn’t affect us. But disruptive protests and federal funding cutoffs do. Peace at home > peace in the other parts of the world.
Anonymous2,
Yes, but you are conflating two different things that are going on:
1. Gaza is far away, so people don’t care, and are not sympathetic to having their lives disrupted by those who do.
2. We now live in a Fascist dictatorship, which will effectively shut down our institution if anyone here does anything they don’t like. The institution is enforcing policies to ensure no one does this.
2. is not something far away, it’s right here and it does affect us. It’s true that if you like the Fascist dictatorship the effect is positive. If you’re upset by the Fascist dictatorship the effect is negative. What we’re learning very quickly is what it’s like to live under dictatorship: people have “their own careers, lives, and livelihoods to lead” so they agree to keep quiet about certain topics.
Peter Woit, what I have observed as a STEM faculty member is that my colleagues *may* be upset by Fascist dictatorship, but they are *more* upset by disruptive protests and funding cutoffs. So this is a relative weighing of two evils, and for the moment, the protestors (and the backlash) is seen as worse. Will it always stay that way? Time will tell, but my feeling is that the protestors by their actions and overreach delivered a recipe for repression to the Trump administration. Congratulations, CUAD.
Anonymous2,
You keep identifying protests=Fascist government shutdown of the university.
The student protesters are not the ones responsible for the fact that we’re living under the control of a Fascist dictatorship at Columbia now. That responsibility lies with the Fascists and their collaborators here and elsewhere.
By the way, this is the standard way Fascism works: it comes to power by lying and demonizing a group of its opponents as violent, disruptive terrorists, requiring suspension of usual civil liberties and institution of a dictatorship to restore peace and security (now we have the army being brought into liberal cities). One thing the Fascists can always count on is enthusiastic collaboration from those opposed to the demonized group.
Peter Woit, actually, I am not saying “protests=Fascist government shutdown of the university.” The Trump administration is saying that. All I am doing is repeating their reasoning. You may not agree that those things should be linked, but that is how the government frames it, and they control the money. And unfortunately the Supreme Court has agreed that the government controls the money and can wield it (mostly) however they like: https://www.ems1.com/legislation-funding/nih-research-funding-slashed-as-supreme-court-approves-trump-administration-cuts
Anonymous2,
I understand very well the Fascist system we now live under and the story of the Trustee’s decision not to join Harvard and other institutions in an attempt to fight it (and why they might have lost if they did).
Yes, it is a fact that if Columbia allows anyone to publicly protest what is happening in Gaza they would be in danger of having the dictatorship defunding and trying to destroy the institution. It’s a rational decision for the trustees to do everything they can to keep Steven Miller happy, and for people here to support them to keep their funding and stay out of war with the dictatorship.
But, when you’re forced to do something by a dictatorship, at least have the self-respect to acknowledge to yourself what you’re doing, and not join the Fascists in blaming whatever relatively powerless group they are demonizing.
Any news on what is happening at other universities (Harvard, UCLA, etc.), particularly with respect to hiring freezes, elimination of tenure, etc.?
on the academic job market this cycle,
Maybe people who know what is happening elsewhere can comment. At Columbia we can’t replace an important staff member. No talk of elimination of tenure.
My impression is that there’s huge uncertainty. No one knows what federal science funding will look like, what will happen with foreign students, etc. Here there’s some sort of process going on to debate what the university priorities should be in whatever the new environment is.
Peter Woit, when you say “have the self-respect to acknowledge to yourself what you’re doing”, what do you exactly expect Shipman and the senior administration to do? Flagellate themselves in public? Put on sackcloth and ashes? Atone at the sundial?
Hi Peter,
Thomas Friedman is, in fact, an “antisemitic piece of shit.” Just look at his wikipedia page. From there:
Friedman sparked criticism for writing that congressional ovations for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”
“Bought and paid for by the Israel lobby” is an obvious dogwhistle for “the Jewish/Zionist conspiracy controls the world through their money.” At this point, it has the character of a blood libel. It alludes to antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Friedman also said Israel should give up all the territories acquired in 1967. That would mean hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers forced from their homes, and it would give the antisemitic terrorists a new base (the west bank) to launch their future October 7ths.
Please, don’t repeat this guy’s lies and call him some moderate on Israel Palestine. Couldn’t be further from the truth.
Anonymous2,
Most of the senior administration seem to be trying to make the best of a bad situation. An exception is those in the provost’s office who had students expelled for protesting the Gaza genocide. They should be ashamed of themselves and resign.
Maybe it was necessary to negotiate a settlement with the dictator. Shipman and the trustees decided to adopt a posture of agreeing with the dictator that he was behaving legally and that those protesting the Gaza genocide were antisemites. This was not necessary. I think they should resign and be replaced by people with some moral values and self-respect.
Jewish software engineer,
Friedman’s views have always been pretty typical for Jewish New Yorkers and for American Jews in general. If you despise him and thus most American Jews, perhaps it’s you who is an “antisemitic piece of shit”, no?
Peter Woit,
I think I understand your position now. You admit that the settlement with the dictator was “necessary”, but you still find it morally repugnant. Therefore, you think those who made the deal should sacrifice themselves to atone for their sins, however necessary they were, because they were morally repugnant.
Putting aside the thought that perhaps “agreeing with the dictator that he was behaving legally and that those protesting the Gaza genocide were antisemites” was a part of the deal, isn’t that exactly what Claire is planning to do? She’s “Acting President” for two reasons: 1– she knows she cannot be the real president as she’s not an academic, and 2– she knows that as “Acting President” she can make unpleasant choices without getting tied up in knots like her unworthy and unlamented predecessors. Last I recall, the plan was to replace her by the end of the fall semester.
It seems like you will both get what you want. The dictator will get his deal. And you will get your sackcloth-and-ashes atonement of a leader resigning. Congratulations. Or perhaps that isn’t even enough and you want her to demonstrate some sort of public contrition?
“. That would mean hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers forced from their homes,”
is this satire ?
Anonymous2,
You’re not quite understanding. While I believe a deal with the dictator may have been necessary, I strongly disagree with the way this deal was made, and I think the people involved should resign. On the issue of the legality of the dictator governing by decree, the trustees should have joined Harvard in challenging this in court, not publicly accepting this illegality and refusing to challenge it. On the issue of the ongoing mass murder in Gaza, they did not need to go along with the characterization of protest against it as antisemitic and they did not need to expel students involved in anti-genocide non-violent protests.
From conversations with people knowledgeable about the thinking of the trustees, their decisions were based on a combination of unwillingness to challenge the dictatorship or its pro-genocide allies (some of whom are trustees). What I often heard was “why should we fight over this, we wanted to do most of these things anyway?” This kind of deeply immoral behavior going beyond what was necessary to preserve the institution is why I think they should resign. What these people did has, rightly, given Columbia the worldwide reputation as “Vichy-on-the-Hudson”. I don’t think the rest of the community should accept this without trying to do something about it.
As for Shipman, she’s just a figurehead with conveniently loose moral values. At a faculty meeting earlier this year she made clear her point of view. When asked why the university was not telling the truth about “antisemitism” and the protests, her response was that she believed “different people have their own truths”. This appears to be the attitude of the trustees, that the current replacement of truth by lies backed by power is something they won’t complain about.
Going forward, the big question is the new president the trustees will choose. Will this also be someone who shares Shipman’s view of truth?
zzz,
I agree there’s a non-zero chance “Jewish software engineer” is satire. These days it’s extremely hard to tell.
Peter Woit,
Thank you for clarifying. You are saying Columbia should have sued anyway even if it was a near-certainty they would lose based on recent rulings to establish its moral stance. What if doing so would have extended the timeline and reduced the favorability of a deal, which Columbia, unlike Harvard, is less financially equipped to bear the consequences of? Does that matter at all to you? Or are you saying the moral stance outweighs the real-world consequences to research, which, I will note, you don’t bear the direct impact of?
Anonymous2,
To reiterate, my main points since you are ignoring them:
1. In the context of war crimes and mass slaughter of innocent civilians, the trustees should not have and did not need to aggressively characterize protest as “antisemitism” and expel protesters.
2. In the context of an ongoing assault on democracy, the trustees could have shown some resistance. They should not have and did not need to do things like issue (via Shipman) the statement
“The government has the ability to regulate us, and we are committed to following the law.”
see
https://president.columbia.edu/news/update-our-commitment-columbias-future
They should have issued statements criticizing Fascist dictatorial rule by decree, not supporting it.
Yes, this is about morality, but more specifically about not doing extremely immoral things if you don’t absolutely have to.
About litigation, the trustees had many options. I’ve asked many people well-informed about this why the decision was made to not simultaneously litigate and try to negotiate a settlement. The responses I’ve gotten vary from “the trustees have given no plausible answer to this question” to something like “we don’t want to fight with the government, we just want to get the money back and many of us want to do what the dictator wants anyway”.
One obvious different choice would have been to join the Harvard lawsuit while trying to settle. Quite possibly Harvard and Columbia could have reached a settlement with Stephen Miller more advantageous to both of them than what Columbia has gotten, and where Harvard will end up. I don’t see how not litigating got Columbia anything, and by supporting dictatorial illegality, the settlement Columbia negotiated emboldened the dictator. Things like the billion-dollar demand on UCLA are the fruit of Columbia’s behavior.
Peter Woit, two points.
(1) Claire said, “The government has the ability to regulate us, and we are committed to following the law.” Is this statement factually untrue? I could have picked other statements, but this one seems to be simply stating a fact.
(2) You think there is no cost, and in fact some upside to litigating. The counter to your assertion is that litigating would have made it worse. The dictator was very clear that the Harvard settlement is priced at $500 million **because** Harvard sued. Harvard can afford it. We cannot.
Anonymous2,
The defunding, like much of what the dictator has done and is doing, was completely illegal. If you opposed dictatorial illegality, being “committed to following the law” would mean going to court to try and stop it (yes, this might fail and you would then have to do what a court ordered). In context, Shipman’s statement is an explicit endorsement of illegal exercise of dictatorial powers.
UCLA didn’t sue and the demand there is a billion. These numbers are bigger than 200 million because Columbia set a precedent.
In any possible legal fight, you have the choice of trying to settle amicably without going to court or going to court. Your opponent will try and intimidate you by saying “if you go to court this won’t be amicable”. You have to decide if you want amicability or conflict. The trustees went for amicability with the dictator.
One reason for this was that some of them like the dictatorship and what it is doing (Mendelson/Shendelman), others just don’t mind the dictatorship, think it’s not such a bad thing. Another is that they didn’t want conflict, they felt that their fiduciary duty was to get back as much money as possible as quickly as possible, that moral issues about genocide and fighting dictatorship were not their job.
Again, I think they should resign and be replaced by people who don’t like dictatorship and who think these moral issues are part of their responsibility.
Peter,
First, you say the “defunding… was completely illegal.” On what basis do you say it is “illegal”? The Supreme Court has said it is legal in NIH v. APHA: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/u-s-supreme-court-allows-trump-8868496. Under our constitution, the Supreme Court is the final authority and gets to define what is and is not legal. Not Peter Woit’s blog. So therefore, it is legal. What are you going to say next, that the Supreme Court is wrong, and something is illegal even if they say it is legal?
Second, you don’t like that Trustees feel that “moral issues about genocide and fighting dictatorship were not their job.” By definition and under the laws on fiduciary duties, that is *not* part of their job.
Hi Peter,
I would like to make a couple points.
1. First of all, please refrain from name-calling, which doesn’t help us have a constructive dialogue. I know you think everybody who disagrees with you about this is a “piece of shit,” but if you want people to respect your argument, you should refrain from saying that out loud.
2. Are you familiar with the archetype of the kaporegime? The Jew who, seeking comfort, security, and the shallow approval of blending in, betrays his/her people, by joining the chorus of anti-Jewish lies? There are so many examples throughout history. This man Thomas Friedman has, at this point, the character of a kapo, because he peddles thinly-disguised antisemitic tropes about an “Israel lobby” (read: the Elders of Zion?) which controls elected politicians like puppets through its monetary influence. As I said, it is an antisemitic dogwhistle. And he singles out Israel as the country which is not allowed to defend itself. According to the IHRA definition of anti-semitism, uniquely singling out Israel for criticism over other countries—i.e., a double-standard in condemning Israeli actions—is anti-semitic. Consider Friedman’s demands that Israel relinquish its territories of over fifty years: this is framed as a singular, urgent moral duty, and casts Israel as uniquely obligated to make maximal concessions regardless of the behavior of actors sworn to its destruction. No other country would be asked to give up lands of fifty years. This double standard variety of Israel criticism is antisemitism according to the IHRA definition.
3. The guy Friedman says he’s embarrassed to even speak Hebrew now. He attacks Israel’s war of self-defense as some unique atrocity while he says nothing about what Sudan and China and Syria are doing / have done, which seems to show he uniquely targets the only Jewish state for his attacks.
4. Israel is fighting an existential war for the survival of the Jewish people. You can disagree with some aspects of how it is fighting, but if you deny their absolute right to fight, you are verging on saying the Jews should be wiped out in another Holocaust.
5. Who made YOU the expert on what American Jews believe? All American Jews support Thomas Friedman’s ideas? You are making us out to be some monolith. I don’t know where you got that from, it seems like you pulled it out of thin air. But don’t presume to lecture me on what American Jews do and don’t believe. You are not the expert on the subject. 🙂
Lawyer,
From your link:
“a federal district court declared the government’s cancellation of the grants, and the NIH guidance documents on which it relied to cancel those grants, to be unlawful and the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit denied the government’s application to stay the district court’s rulings pending appeal.”
The lower courts have ruled this is illegal and the Supreme Court has not ruled on the issue. The Supreme Court decision and the ongoing fight is about whether there’s any way for institutions like Columbia to get timely relief from the effects of this illegality. What the dictatorship is trying to do is to argue that this has to go through the Court of Claims, tying things up for so long that the relevant biomedical research projects are long dead and can’t be revived.
“Fiduciary” responsibilities go beyond financial ones, see for instance
https://www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2025/04/22/on-the-fiduciary-duties-of-the-board-of-trustees/
The trustees have wide latitude in how they interpret their responsibilities. They perfectly well can weigh getting money back against slaughtering tens of thousands of civilians, or against the destruction of US democracy if they feel like it.
Jewish software engineer,
The term “antisemitic piece of shit” is in quotes because it is not mine, but Scott Aaronson’s. If you don’t like it, take it up with him.
In any case, enough from you. I can’t decide whether you’re a crazed fanatic or a troll pretending to be one. The second seems more likely than the first, but who knows.
Peter,
the third option is that Jewish Software Engineer is actually Scott Aaronson – he makes the exact same points as Scott did in this post and many others, referring to the “Elders of Zion” and that people like Bernie Sanders are actually self-hating Jews
https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=8950#comment-2011848
Hi Peter,
Sorry to get a bit off-topic. I think “Lawyer” may also be a troll. The Supreme Court is the final arbiter of the law – so much for all that. But their majority uses fairly laughable sophistry (bending their arguments into highly convoluted knots) to explain why the fascist dictator is somehow making constitutional decisions.
Best,
P.O.
Peter, this person Jewish Software Engineer is not a troll. He has milder viewpoints than many of his ilk in the pro-genocide camp (such as Betar who have targeted and threatened students at Columbia), and his comments here are a representative of what the anti-genocide camp has been dealing with on a daily basis, for a long time now.
But we should let them express themselves freely. The more they speak, the more the under 40s of the American population turns against them. A day of reckoning and an end to their impunity will come. Because even if faculty members like Anonymous2 don’t have the moral courage to stand up against fascism and a genocide enabled by American tax dollars, the younger generation of Americans are overwhelmingly on the right side of the issue. And this younger generation will remember what happened. While we are engulfed in a shroud of darkness, this is the only streak of light that gives me hope.
Bob Sinclar,
I doubt it’s Scott, trolling like this would not be like him, and I doubt he’s so far gone as to rant about Thomas Friedman being a kapo. Similarities to Scott likely due to the fact that pro-genocide fanatics are all reading the same propaganda (hasbara) and rehearsing the same talking points. More incoming from him, but deleting since no point in engaging more, whether he’s a real fanatic or a troll posing as one.
Anonymous,
Yes, letting a commenter go on about Thomas Friedman being a kapo is helpful in discrediting the pro-genocide crowd. So much so that I can’t discount the real possibility this is someone faking it to make these people look bad.
Peter Orland,
Like the other guy, who knows what “Lawyer” really is: a troll, a fake lawyer, a real lawyer who is remarkably ignorant?
It’s a really important point though that, as far as I can tell, what’s going on is something more complicated than “the Supreme Court is ruling that Trump can do whatever he wants”. The US judicial system has a huge weakness: if Trump does something illegal, the usual process for litigating it can take years. In the meantime, the deportee is in a prison in Uganda, the medical research project is dismantled, etc., etc. What the Supreme Court seems to be doing when Trump does something completely illegal is not rule that illegal is now legal if he does it, but strike down lower court injunctions that temporarily stopped what Trump was doing. If the issue ever gets to them, maybe they would not rule that obviously illegal = legal.
In this situation, the idea that you shouldn’t litigate because in the end the Supreme Court will rule in his favor is dangerous, and behavior like Columbia’s (not litigating) is very damaging. When people do litigate (like Harvard is doing) they are often winning in the lower courts and sometimes stopping illegal dictatorial actions. We need as much of this as possible to put limits on the dictatorship as it continually tries to do more illegal things and take more and more illegitimate power.
My mistake about Scott. He has completely lost his mind.