Like I said before, #Trump will use ANY excuse to withhold funding. And he has NOT restored #ColumbiaUniversity's funding yet, despite their caving to the #BullyInChief's demands! Today, it's #TransgenderAthletes and #FreePalestine #Protestors. Tomorrow it will be...? The capitulation has to stop NOW!
#Academia Confronts a Watershed Moment at Columbia, and the Right Revels
Threatened with losing $400 million in federal funding, the university agreed to overhaul its protest policies and security practices.
"The end is not clear. Columbia’s moves on Friday — 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 $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 scrutinize since taking power on Jan. 20."
by Troy Closson, Alan Blinder and Katherine Rosman, March 22, 2025
"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 Friday to a roster of government demands as it sought to restore about $400 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,' Christopher Rufo, an activist and senior fellow at the #ManhattanInstitute, a conservative think tank, wrote on social media after the university’s announcement on Friday."
[...]
"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 Wednesday, the administration seemed to bring another test case, saying it would withhold about $175 million from Penn because the university had allowed an openly transgender woman on its women’s swim team in 2022."
Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/nyregion/columbia-trump-concessions-watershed.html
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/xQeLn
#CharacteristicsOfFascism #USPol #HigherEducation #DumbingUsDown
