Academia confronts a watershed moment at Columbia, and the right revels

NEW YORK – Many professors saw it as surrender, a reward to the Trump administration’s heavy hand. Conservative critics of academia celebrated it as an overdue, righteous reset by an Ivy League university.

Columbia University’s concession on March 21 to a roster of government demands as it sought to

restore about US$400 million (S$533 million) in federal funding

is being widely viewed as a watershed in Washington’s relationships with the nation’s colleges.

By design, the consequences will be felt immediately on Columbia’s campus, where, for example, some security personnel will soon have arrest powers and an academic department that had drawn conservative scrutiny is expected to face stringent oversight. But they also stand to shape colleges far from Manhattan.

“Columbia is folding and the other universities will follow suit,” Mr Christopher Rufo, an activist and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, wrote on social media after the university’s announcement on March 21.

“They must restore the pursuit of truth, rather than ideological activism, as their highest mission,” said Mr Rufo, who is close to the Trump administration and has helped make battles against diversity and equity into a conservative rallying cry.

He added: “This is only the beginning.”

The end is not clear. Columbia’s moves on March 21 – revealed in a letter to the campus from the interim president, Dr. Katrina A. Armstrong – were essentially an opening bid in negotiations with the federal government to let the US$400 million flow again. But the Trump administration has not publicly said what other concessions it might seek from Columbia or the dozens of other universities, from Hawaii to Harvard, that it has started to scrutinise since taking power Jan 20.

In a letter March 21, Columbia’s board of trustees said it had used talks with the government to “present Columbia-driven” plans for change. The board also insisted that it was “dedicated to protecting Columbia University’s bedrock principles of academic excellence, open inquiry and the deeply held value of free expression.”

Republicans have spent decades warring with the elite realms of higher education. But the Trump administration, despite being led by a president who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, has adopted an especially vitriolic and punitive approach.

Vice President JD Vance, who holds a degree from Yale University’s law school, has branded universities as “the enemy.” Mr Rufo said recently that it was his mission to master using federal financial support to make colleges feel “an existential terror”.

Mr Rufo’s comments came in a New York Times interview published the same day that the Trump administration struck at Columbia’s checkbook because, the administration said, the university had not protected students and faculty “from antisemitic violence and harassment”. The government later sent a letter of demands that leaders at other universities privately likened to a ransom note, especially because it effectively threatened a sustained funding freeze regardless of the school’s initial response.

Academia braced for a pressure campaign from President Donald Trump soon after he was elected in November. But Washington’s tactics against Columbia during the past month have shaken university leaders from coast to coast.

Many worry that the administration’s pursuit of Columbia was a test drive – a way to gauge public reaction, assess the prospects of legal pushback and develop a precedent. On March 19, the administration seemed to bring another test case, saying it would withhold about US$175 million from Penn because the university had allowed an openly transgender woman on its women’s swim team in 2022.

In response to the administration’s demands, Columbia, a private university with a storied history of campus activism, pledged to adopt a formal definition of antisemitism, hire an internal security force that will be empowered to make arrests, and place the university’s Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department under the oversight of a senior vice provost.

The fallout among students, faculty and liberal leaders was swift and severe.

A former Democratic candidate for New York governor, Ms Cynthia Nixon, said Columbia had abandoned the Constitution. Mr Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, a national faculty rights group, described the move as the greatest incursion into academic freedom and free speech since Senator Joseph McCarthy’s crusade against communism in the 1950s.

Yet it was still not clear March 22 whether the university’s acquiescence would be sufficient.

Mr Leo Terrell, a senior Justice Department lawyer and member of a federal task force to combat antisemitism, said in a radio interview on March 20 that the Trump administration was “hellbent on eradicating antisemitism” on campuses. Many colleges, including Columbia, saw rancorous pro-Palestinian protests last spring over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and grappled with subsequent debates about what is considered the meaning of antisemitism.

“I will tell you right now that Columbia has not in my opinion – and the opinion of the Department of Justice – has not cleaned up their act,” Mr Terrell said. “They’re not even close, not even close to having those funds unfrozen.”

A spokesperson for the Education Department, one of three federal agencies named in the ultimatum to Columbia, did not respond on March 22 to a request for comment, including to questions about the potential restoration of funding.

But the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce crowed on social media: “Columbia FOLDS.”

Columbia’s board did not mention the funding in its letter on March 21, instead saying it had a responsibility to address concerns over “antisemitism, discrimination, harassment and bias,” and was “committed to creating a better environment on campus”.

Even before Columbia responded, pervasive rumors swirled around campuses across the country and among alumni that one school or another would be the next to be targeted by the government.

But academic leaders have not universally embraced the notion of cutting deals with the White House.

“Academic freedom is a fundamental principle of universities – it has to be protected,” Mr Christopher L. Eisgruber, Princeton University’s president, told “PBS NewsHour” on March 21. “And so I have concerns if universities make concessions about that. And I think that once you make concessions once, it’s hard not to make them again.”

Mr Eisgruber, the board chair of the Association of American Universities, an influential group of heavyweight schools, said he was not second-guessing Columbia. He and others in academia, though, have noted that the government is well positioned to pressure major universities that have vast research programs.

Since World War II, the government has been the paramount supplier of research funding. Reductions in or eliminations of that money could cripple many universities. The administration has already sought – so far unsuccessfully – to curb one funding stream, which could cost universities that perform major scientific research at least US$100 million a year each.

Universities have sued over that proposal.

A group of Columbia law professors argued in a widely circulated article last weekend that the Trump administration had violated federal civil rights law and the Constitution.

But after Columbia declined to mount a legal fight, one of the authors, Mr David Pozen, was trying to look to the future.

“I think everyone appreciates that President Armstrong was in an impossible position, and I think everyone is dismayed that we’ve reached this point,” he said in an interview March 22, adding that his priority was to defend academic freedom and free speech at the school moving forward.

Others, including some members of the Jewish community who have described feeling unwelcome as demonstrations against the war in Gaza engulfed college campuses, embraced the university’s decision – or at least, understood it.

Mr Brent R. Stockwell, the chair of Columbia’s department of biological sciences, said that many people “simply do not understand that a modern research institution cannot exist without federal funding.” He pointed to the importance of research in the sciences and its potential to produce medical breakthroughs and improvements to the lives of everyday Americans.

“There is no scenario in which Columbia can exist in any way in its current form if the government funding is completely withdrawn,” he said. “Is having a dialogue a capitulation? I would say it is not.”

Mr Stockwell added: “It is frustrating to me that people at other academic institutions who are not subject to these pressures are saying, ‘Columbia should fight the good fight.’ They are happy to give up our funding for their values.” NY TIMES