In a very short time, Mahmúd Khalil, a former student of postgraduate student Columbia University and a pro-Palestinian activist, who was doubtedly detained to the disputed immigration officials, became a symbol of existing antagonism of Trump’s administration towards elite universities. Columbia finds himself against the impression that whatever he did to fight what he perceived as anti -Semitism – he suppresses protests against the campus in Gaza with the help of the police; the eviction and exclusion of students; Removing custody with Professor of Pravo, who was a voice supporter of Palestin Cause – it wasn’t repressive enough.
However, these measures might seem that these measures may seem to civil freedom champions, hit people like Jeffrey Lichtman as cowardly and inadequate. Last year, Mr. Lichtman, a lawyer, a student of Columbia and a former member of Israel’s defensive forces in a suit against the university after he was suspended for showering protesters with a nasty funny spray that made some of them impossible. Columbia settled for nearly $ 400,000. Yet Mr. Lichtman believes that the university is so full of hatred and disrespect for the Jewish interests that “should be taken over by the federal government” – at least in the short term, he told me recently.
Just before Mr. Khalil was detained, Trump’s administration made a relatively modest step of abolishing $ 400 million federal grants from Columbia. A few days later, 60 universities warned that they could expect a similar fate. Among these schools were Harvard, Cornell and Johns Hopkins, where Michael Bloomberg, who once called President Trump “Carnival Barking Clown”, made a present of $ 1 billion in July.
The aim of the current White House to dismantle university education – while running to the Senate, JD Vance clearly called the universities the enemy – has caused many quarters alarm, but it is affected how little we heard from the Megadonor class. Their contributions of billions of dollars to the main universities would indicate a significant investment in the mission (or at least in vain interest in maintaining alive buildings and centers and divisions for which they purchased names).
The silence was pierced this week when Bill Ackman, the Hedge Fund manager, who was helpful in getting Claudine gay from the Presidency of Harvard last year, weighed at X. Rather, he wanted to say that only “financial and legal pressure” will get them back to a point where “common sense” can win.
Under another set of conditions, it would be easy to imagine that the rich democratic donors of Iva League are rising to fill in the gaps that left an unwelcome government. In the current environment, however, complaints of these donors – against initiatives in diversity and rude agitators – in accurate alignment with the agenda in Washington.
Even before the cuts were announced, Stand Columbia Society, The consortium of graduates and contemporary and former faculties committed themselves to dissecting Winkier aspects of campus operations, spread out in its newsletter, what would be at stake if the university lost hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grant money. The company pushed for Columbia to take the position of institutional neutrality, as the University of Chicago has been doing for decades, and working harder to fight the campus anti -Semitism (so that the university “dispersed because of the violent and nihilistic marginal crowd”). He also made a convincing argument that the disappearance of so much money would be catastrophic.
In a review of the University’s financial statement, the writers pointed out that Federal agencies receive Columbia annually of $ 1.3 billion, the volume – $ 747 million – comes from national health institutions. About half of the money goes to the direction of which the cap has now decreased. Any “directorial” visions are triggered by BoondogGle trips to a conference in Prague, a large part of money that does not apply directly to research on expenses such as salaries, laboratory reconstruction, students’ support and administrative work needed to comply with federal regulations.
The prestigious universities came to find opponents in many worlds, between the working class, among the rich graduates, among the highly educated progressive, who consider them independent. “Universities are a good goal for indignation,” said Michael Roth, President Wesleyan University, who wrote about modern campus policy. “They take such great pride in how many people refuse.”
“We have not done enough over the years to pay attention to those groups – conservative groups, religious groups – across the country that are essential parts of democratic culture. The isolation makes us very vulnerable. ”
In the story of the current moment, it became a common comparison of the embedded area with a disturbance of the late 60s. But the feeling of vengeance and disgust focused on the academy may now seem completely different order. In 1968, Richard Nixon – was great hostile to the Campus radicals and was soon president – The interviewer asked about the public pressure “to be difficult and take action on student rebels.”
What was the interviewer to know was his view of the role of disagreement on the university campus? “I’m for it,” Nixon replied. “I am in favor of disagreement, because when I look back at the 190 -year history of this country, I find that disagreement is a big tool of change.”
