{"id":15113,"date":"2025-07-26T14:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T18:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/?p=15113"},"modified":"2025-07-28T17:28:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T21:28:21","slug":"the-situation-at-columbia-xxx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/?p=15113","title":{"rendered":"The Situation at Columbia XXX"},"content":{"rendered":"

The trustees on Friday changed the Charters and Statutes of the university<\/a>, something it seems they can just do when they feel like it, without consulting with anyone or telling the community what they’ve done. Stand Columbia (Tao Tan) is pleased they’ve done this, so has checked the new version against the old, you can see his analysis here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This has all been done as part of the capitulation to Trump and those forces inside and outside the university that want to make sure that any anti-Israeli protests are punished as severely as possible. The changes to the statutes remove control of the discipline process from the Senate and put it completely under the control of the trustees. The Senate no longer has any say in the Rules of University Conduct, these will be set by the trustees (with the help of the provost’s office). The disciplinary process will be managed purely by the provost’s office, which vets anyone involved to be sure that they will follow trustee policy. If you’re wondering how Columbia could now be expelling students for participating in a library reading room non-violent protest against genocide (a sort of harsh penalty for non-violent protest unheard of in the institution’s history) this is how it’s being done. <\/p>\n

Of course the reason that they’re doing it is that Stephen Miller has demanded it. If they don’t expel students who protest the Gaza genocide, Columbia’s federal funding will again be removed. No matter how awful the Gaza situation gets, if you try and protest it on the Columbia campus this fall, you will face expulsion. I doubt we’ll see many cases of this actually happening, the threat alone will do an excellent job of keeping everyone quiet. <\/p>\n

Bari Weiss has spent 25 years fighting for punishment of anti-Israeli sentiment at Columbia. Her Free Press<\/a> yesterday explains how this will now work:<\/p>\n

A senior Trump administration official familiar with the negotiations said that \u201cthis is just step one.\u201d The official added: \u201cIn late August, the kids and faculty come back to campus, and many of them believe they\u2014and not the board or administration\u2014are in charge of Columbia. . . . The substantive challenge is resetting the balance of power and reasserting the leadership of the school and letting the students and faculty know that for the first time in many decades, there will be order on campus and consequences for breaking the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

If that doesn\u2019t happen, \u201cthe administration is not going to let Columbia embarrass us,\u201d the senior Trump administration official added. \u201cWe\u2019ll be watching you.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Among the many messages from Shipman and others announcing the new cave-in, I didn’t see any discussion of these changes. There were a lot of claims that Columbia was not giving up its independence, and it remains true that it is not Stephen Miller who is deciding to expel students. Instead he’ll be calling up the trustees and telling them they have to do it, since he “is not going to let Columbia embarrass us.” Actually, since everyone involved knows he can do this if displeased, he won’t have to do anything: they’ll be sure not to make any decisions Stephen Miller would not approve of.<\/p>\n

The FAQ here<\/a> asks everyone to<\/p>\n

Please use this form<\/a> to report violations stemming from demonstrations and protests under the Rules of University Conduct<\/a>. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There, if you see anyone protesting the genocide in Gaza, you can file an “Alleged Protest\/Demonstration Violation”.<\/p>\n

Update<\/strong>: People are wondering who gets the \\$21 million for being a victim of “antisemitism”. James Schamus has questions about this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

it\u2019s quite possible that those of my fellow Jews who \u201cmay experience antisemitism\u201d the most when encountering campus protests against Israel\u2019s genocidal mania may end up getting the biggest bucks. Like maybe there will be different categories, ranging from the small-change hand-wringing \u201cI\u2019m-uncomfortable-with-what-Israel-is-doing-but-Hamas-tunnels-something-something-your-keffiyeh-makes-me-nervous\u201d category; through the Bret Stephens\/New York Times mid-tier \u201cGenocide? What genocide?\u201d bunch; and ending with the Megabucks Jackpot we\u2019re-in-the-money Shai Davidai \u201cWe are not ok!\u201d crowd. Maybe there can be a special bonus for the Columbia OU-JLIC director who WhatsApp\u2019d hundreds of Jewish students last year urging them to flee campus for their lives.<\/p>\n

As you can see, under this possible scenario, the more you go all-out weaponizing antisemitism in the context of Israel\u2019s mass murder spree, the more Columbia \\$$$ you earn. Nice work if you can get it!<\/p>\n

In any case, I\u2019m standing by for further instructions, with just one last favor to ask: please don\u2019t hire some outside consulting group, such as, say, the Boston Consulting Group, Orbis Operations, or Safe Reach Solutions, to administer distribution of the fund. We wouldn\u2019t want the giveaway to turn into some sort of Hunger Games now, would we?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Israeli human rights organizations are now agreeing<\/a> that the students were right, the Gaza war is genocide. Latest news today<\/a> is that Netanyahu is promising to annex Gaza in order to appease the part of his government which wants to starve the Palestinians to death. If you are at Columbia and all this seems to be worth protesting, better you stay quiet or you might face expulsion. On the other hand, if what upsets you is anti-genocide protest, maybe Columbia is going to write you a large check (if you’re the right ethnicity).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The trustees on Friday changed the Charters and Statutes of the university, something it seems they can just do when they feel like it, without consulting with anyone or telling the community what they’ve done. Stand Columbia (Tao Tan) is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-situation-at-columbia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15113"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15128,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15113\/revisions\/15128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}