The full details are not yet available, but the capitulation includes agreeing to turn control of several departments over to a senior administrator--a move demanded for purely ideological reasons by the Trumpistas. Academic freedom is dead at Columbia, and the university has damaged all of higher education. It remains to be determined why capitulation instead of litigation was the response to these unlawful actions by the Trump Administration.
It would be hard to overstate how appalling a development this is. A federal administration in Washington DC has extorted a major research university to throw disfavored programs and departments under the bus, thus violating core principles of academic freedom. Columbia University might be better off "destroyed" at this point, given this abdication of its responsibilities as a university. Perhaps they'll recover some courage and integrity when they still fail to get the federal monies they seek.
When I noted last fall that the "weaponization" of Title VI was part of the armory Trump would bring to bear on higher education, I did not anticipate that Trump would do so in a way that does not even pretend to comply with Title VI or the Constitution. The current events are simply unprecedented. In the McCarthy era in the 1950s, the target was alleged communists, not supporters of the Palestinians, but even then the destruction was visited upon individuals, not entire institutions and departments.
I would urge current PhD students at Columbia to consider transferring, and current faculty to retire or seek employment elsewhere, if they can. Columbia has betrayed all of higher education in the United States.
ADDENDUM: Part of what is shocking about Columbia's capitulation is that the states that sued over the unlawful changes to NIH funding were succesful in court and the funding has resumed. Unless there is some very important fact not in the public record, I cannot see how Columbia would have failed to secure an injunction in the federal court for the Southern District of New York putting a stop to the obviously illegal actions by Trump vis-a-vis Columbia. What is going on???
UPDATE: Here's the full text of Columbia's capitulation. A couple of quick observations, more to come: (1) many of the students expelled, suspended or who had their degrees revoked on orders of the Trumpistas will sue and will, I expect, prevail; (2) "Appointment of a New Senior Vice Provost" contains Columbia's complete capitulation on academic freedom at the behest of an authoritarian government. I am told by a New York academic (not at Columbia) that this was motivated by the fear of impact on NIH-related research. The Interim President is a medical school professor. A court injunction would have staved off the immediate threat. It is true that Trump can do legally what he did illegally regarding NIH funding, but that will take time: and this will happen regardless of Columbia's capitulation. Columbia decided to throw academic freedom under the bus today for its biological sciences, so the world should know it's not a university, but a medical school and life sciences school with dispensable appendages.
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