Trump’s forced Columbia to at least PRETEND to – Latest News
How about that: Columbia University is at least pretending to cave to Trump administration calls for to deal with its antisemitic cancers — prodded by threats to its huge taxpayer subsidies.
In what was nominally a notice from the varsity’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, the administration linked to a memo stating it would crack down on mask-wearing by “protesters,” let campus police truly arrest college students who flaunt its guidelines and even set up new oversight of each its Center for Palestine Studies and the Middle East, South Asian and African Studies division.
Remarkably, Armstrong’s announcement managed to keep away from mentioning the phrase “antisemitism.”
Also not talked about: That these had been the central calls for of the Trump crew after the varsity requested “clarification” within the wake of the feds cancelling $400 million in grants and contracts — calls for that got here with a deadline that the announcement simply coincidentally met.
Only time will inform if Columbia makes good on any of it; Armstrong and her colleagues are plainly strolling a superb line between appeasing the feds and heading off the fury of all the inner particular pursuits that need antisemitism to prosper.
Let’s be clear: Decades in the past, Columbia opted to feast on international Arab donations by embracing and selling anti-Israel “studies,” and so performed a main position in convincing the worldwide left that blaming the Jews for the world’s woes is cutting-edge pondering.
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That’s why the varsity noticed some of the nation’s most vociferous and largest “pro-Palestinian” activism within the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 atrocities and Israel’s ensuing conflict of self-defense.
And why Columbia did its best to overlook the harassment and intimidation of its Jewish group, and to barely slap anybody who broke its guidelines within the title of the Palestinian trigger.
Cheers for Team Trump for calling out this shame, and threatening the one factor Columbia actually cares about, its income, to convey change.
We’ll even cheer Columbia — if it truly delivers on Friday’s guarantees.
