The shame of Columbia University
The shame of Columbia University In surrendering to Trump, it's opening all universities to Trump's tyranny Robert Reich Mar 22 Friends, If you give in to extortionists, they’ll extort you and others for more. If you let bullies get their way, those bullies will bully you and others even more menacingly. Which brings me to Columbia University’s president and trustees, who today surrendered the university’s academic freedom to the Trump regime. Trump threatened to cancel $400 million in federal funding if Columbia didn’t put its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department in “academic receivership.” Columbia has now agreed to appoint a senior vice provost to oversee the department. A cornerstone of academic freedom is that professors can research and teach what they want. Not even during the communist witch hunts of the early 1950s did a university agree to put an entire academic department under special oversight because of what its faculty researched or taught. ...