Cobb is telling them the truth: he can’t protect them with this administration in power. Might as well tell Anne Frank she should speak up and go public🤷🏻♂️
I’m sympathetic to Cobb here but I also think the right stance is to be honest about what the risks are and what the school can and will, can’t and won’t do… but I do think that’s different from telling people what their own risk calculus should be
…my partner, who was part of an immigrant-led labor org. All of the actions were risky for the immigrant members. The group always tried to be realistic about risks but never told anyone what to do. Sometimes, for some fights, some people thought risks were worth it. To me, that’s respecting dignity
He's not stopping the international students from doing anything, he's making sure that they know what the consequences are very likely to be. Just like you make sure that people understand that they may be arrested and incarcerated if they do civil disobedience.
The answer to this is for every one of us who are not at deportation risk to overwhelmingly plaster our “forbidden” opinions everywhere all the time. It is not incumbent on international students to risk deportation mid-education to protest our government’s policies.
It is important he is making the statement that the institution paying his salary will not protect foreign/marginalized students. The real question is, where is the new line.
What can be covered?
My guess is only propaganda is now appropriate output for any mass market information channel.
Honestly, I don’t know. Realistically, they probably can’t. But voicing support for students free speech rights even when they disagree with them would be a start.
Then I agree! The university should absolutely (probably*) be doing more to support its students! But also, this is good advice for students at imminent risk of harm.
* It's possible that Columbia is doing things, but doing them quietly so they don't attract attention. 1/
Of course, based on its past behavior, I can't say--even as an alum--that I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt on that. But it's not entirely unthinkable. 2/2
Black people have spent centuries being taught that if we want to survive in this country, "we can't do what they do." Doesn't mean we didn't fight back but we learned to pick our spots. This is practical advice.
As opposed to ... wait, what are their other options? Wait to be disappeared by the ICE thugs, and spend their life savings in legal battles as they rot in a private prison somewhere?
Alternatively, students who are not US citizens should take the hint that there's plenty of very excellent schools outside the US who will not assist in having them apprehended and disappeared into the gulag system because they spoke on an unapproved topic.
Your implied condemnation of Cobb is misplaced. This is advice for a specific group of non-American students. It's not a great situation and Cobb's remark is a reasonable and honest observation.
He recessed a journalism forum we went to last year when a pro-Palestinian protester tried to speak up. Kinda queasy-making... (I covered anti-Vietnam War protests for my college paper; we considered the cops with tear gas the bad guys.)
Disagree. Immigration is historically a constitution free zone. Absent literally Anne franking visa holders in Columbia steam tunnels, there’s very little a college can do
It is appropriate to tell students how to strategize, and not fed posting is one
Look at what's happening with Khalil (no phone calls?) and he's a green card holder. The dean isn't bowing down, he's giving those students a serious warning.
In this instance, he is just telling students what they need to do to avoid being disappeared. You can, of course, accuse the institution of cowardice (I’m from a different country, I don’t know their history) but the problem lies with one man and his enabling party.
He’s telling them to put themselves in harms way so he can feel better. People really need to think before they speak – – this poster first and foremost.
I don’t think this is “obeying in advance“ in the sense that Timothy Snyder warns against: this is more like James Joyce‘s advice, “silence, cunning, and exile.“ In other words, keep your head down, stay safe for now, husband your resources against the time when we’ll all take action to resist.
This is just really bad misrepresentation, and most importantly it is not international students job to defend democracy and freedom with their lives, it is instead our job to defend democracy.
Oh look Free Speech that Orange Jesus was bringing back to America is only for certain people but certainly not these people. Good to know. This is so FUCKED. Welcome to FASCISM and no they don't have any cookies.
Really strongly disagree with this interpretation. If he were telling students who are American citizens to censor themselves that would be one thing (and deserve condemnation), but here he is just accurately stating that the school can't protect these students from a lawless executive branch.
Also he is not the same as the university administration! He does not control the actions of the president or the board of trustees! I'm actually quite sure he vehemently disagrees with how they have handled themselves over the past week. This all feels very intellectually dishonest and/or lazy.
That's not a reasonable criticism. They can be harassed and deported, unlike citizens. Those that aren't at risk should stand up for them, not expect them to jump into a trap.
I know what you mean and where you are coming from but the administration is telling the students that they cannot stop armed men from running up on an apartment and snatching someone up in the middle of the night. Or even in broad daylight. In this regard, the dean is correct.
We are no long in the advance stage, I'm afraid. We are well and truly here, the fascism has arrived. Now the people who should not obey in advance are the ones with institutional powers, legal powers, resources - not insisting the most vulnerable make themselves targets.
I know that you certainly didn't intend to mean that - you're right that the university has a moral and ethical obligation to fight and should make it clear that they will. That's their role in this. But the students are the targets. They're the ones who need to be protected and I hope we can do it.
He does.
The ones who don't understand it are trump and his organized crime syndicate.
What they are saying is that the school cannot protect their student visas. So for those with a few months left to graduate, it's practical advice. Not an imposition.
What Cobb should have done is say: You still have free-speech rights as far as we are concerned. If you get targeted for protected speech, we will do our best to support you. We will put up a fight. We will protest. And if you get deported, you can Zoom into your classes and still get your degree.
Cobb obviously can’t make the University protect them, even as he has advocated they should. In the face of that, he is giving them sound legal advice. Your attacks on him are unfair.
A student literally got arrested and is facing deportation for his speech, his school is making zero effort to protect him and in fact likely instigated his arrest, and this guy is like "you should tell them their school has their back and will protect them!" Like. My god.
This guy's responses are so stupid lmao, he followed it up with "he should have warned them, not told them what to do!!" That's literally what he WAS doing, you're only framing it that way now bc your response revealed how out of touch and naive you are and ppl are calling you on it, buddy.
Seriously. The professor was showing care for his vulnerable students. They’re adults and can decide if they want to take the very real risks that they are facing with an authoritarian administration!
Also the ppl most likely to be arrested, deported, disappeared etc are gonna be students on visas or second gen immigrant kids, not the white kids born here. Wild to act like they have the same protections the young (many rich) white kids (or white men like himself) do, especially now.
Exactly. And students need to hear the truth. I hope this will prompt the citizen student editors to allow anonymous articles and editorials so the speech still gets out there but vulnerable students are protected.
But Columbia can't promise to support them. What is "do our best" if the government is slashing funding? And what good is "Zooming into classes" if, say, you're in a country with even less respect for free speech? This is not capitulation, this is honesty.
They can sue. Last I checked they have an entire law school they could unleash. Defamation, 1A violations leading to a chilling on new applications and loss of consequent funding and standing, bill of attainder, harassment.
If you won't defend the law why are you teaching it?
Do you mean hire immigration lawyers? I don't know if they can or can't afford that, but if their budgets have been slashed that may not be high on the priority list
Are you serious. "You can still zoom into classes after you've been snatched off the street and disappeared for awhile. Columbia won't lift a finger for you, but some students and faculty will protest."
Practically every prominent east coast uni is failing to defend student's academic & 1A rights. Why? Because the leaders of these institutions are only considering their own butts & the econ costs of standing up to a tyrant. It's a craven & feckless abdication of authority & social responsibility.
The problem is that "You still have free-speech rights as far as we are concerned" doesn't mean much of anything when they don't have free-speech rights as far as the federal government is concerned.
Maybe consider contacting Jelani directly — instead of spring-boarding off of an NYT report into assumptions? Fun Fact: the NYT on this topic has Decontextualized a LOT of facts about what’s happening on campuses, Dan.
Honestly, I’d have to think about it; I’m not suggesting that there are any great answers. But “nobody can protect you” strikes a tone (from my vantage) of total defeat. But I hear what you’re saying; you don’t want to be emboldening when you can’t back it up.
Jelani Cobb isn't going to lie to these kids. If the university and the federal government is committed to abducting people for free speech violations, and he has no power over it, it's Cobb's responsibility to warn the students, to help them protect themselves.
Cobb is sadly right. Its a dark reality right now but they can't do much against a fascist dictator and a bunch of leaders that want to disappear anyone they can that speaks against their interests.
The school can't stop the government from just whisking away students in the middle of the night.
This is the advice you give to foreign tourists in a country that had a coup. Keep your head down, don’t stick your nose in anything, complete whatever business you need to & get out. It’s great, realistic advise and is exactly what’s needed.
That mealy mouthed response you think Jelani Cobb should have said is not truthful nor helpful. Cobb's response was better because it was direct and frank. He has marching orders, too, and he gave them the students the info they need to make an informed decision.
It would be a massive failure of his responsibility to these students to say that when the university has made it clear that it will capitulate to even the slightest hint of government intervention.
If he can't offer them the protection of the university, I'm glad he says so clearly.
Even if the university had not capitulated, there's very little they can do. They can try to warn the students when ICE shows up. Refuse permission to enter campus. File legal challenges. But at the end of the day, they're not equipped to fight off armed government agents.
I don’t read it that way - they are being honest - we are in dangerous times and they will disappear the next person without due process. It is cautionary guidance
It's what you would want administrators to do -- be honest and straight with you.
There are no magic powers that the Dean of Columbia Journalism has to well-protect his students from a motivated, bend & break rules, state actor like the U.S.
But if colleges and educators, particularly if journalism’s and law, do not stand against this blatant violation of freedom of speech, then who? It’s giving up the fundamental their professions are built upon. I know it’s sketchy but, we just give in to autocracy?
They need to do the standing up with their privilege while also protecting their students who lack those privileges. Those who are the least at risk are the most obligated to fight for those at risk. Those students are those most at risk.
You seen to miss the idea that privilege is relative. He's a citizen those students aren't. You also seem to not understand the difference between singular and plural pronouns. The they in this case being the faculty and admin who have the privilege of citizenship not just him.
The Dean's responsibility is to be straight with students. He & his department can not assure students of their status.
So he is advising vulnerable people of reality. All he can do is tell green card or visa students of the risks & what protection they have (i.e., not as much as they might think).
I think there's still a lot of room for nuance in between, "give in to autocracy" and, "tell your vulnerable international students who are at risk of being disappeared by the U.S. government that the university can protect them from the combined power of the DHS, ICE, FBI, CIA and the White House".
"Nobody can protect you" what a crock of shit. They want everyone to THINK no one can protect you, but we vastly outnumber these shitstains and they all cave to even the slightest showing of backbone. Make them work for every fucking millimeter.
He says no one can protect these students. He could offer to anonymize what they say and refuse to hand over info. He could say make sure speech remains speech and doesn’t cross into possible criminal conduct. Instead he’s helping to silence them. No posts on the Middle East? Even benign ones?
I also don’t see this as a “obey in advance” case? That’s about not changing your behavior to appease what you *think* the authoritarian wants before they announce or do anything (which saves them the trouble of actually having to announce/do the thing—they get free obedience).
Here, the authoritarian *has* announced and started enforcing the repressive policy, which creates a different conversation for those who would be targeted.
Maybe you think they still should just defy the policy, but that’s less “don’t obey in advance” than “don’t obey”, period—different thing.
That is absolutely better. This is the Dean telling his most vulnerable students what to do to avoid deportation. There is nothing better he can do as a Dean in terms of guiding his students.
I don't read any part of that as a normative statement; I read it all as a descriptive one. If you're on a student visa, it appears the current administration wants to take a run at you. Don't give them any attack surface.
Which is better than no telling your students anything. Giving students the tools to avoid deportation is better, at the normative level, than doing nothing.
The dean's intent is beside the point. To have a dean of a prestigious journalism school advising students that they should avoid writing on globally significant events for fear of retribution by the government is a complete failure of leadership. They should be vowing to defend students who do.
I hope people mad at this advice and saying Cobb should encourage foreign students to fight the admin are willing to get between students and ICE and dearrest them, pay for lawyers, etc. Even if Columbia as an *institution* had students' backs, they are still up against a fascist and vengeful DHS.
This posture would be easier to defend if Columbia was *also* using its institutional muscle to push back against the abusive forces targeting their students (instead of, you know, actively collaborating).
Sure. Must have missed the part where the Dean publicly called on the administration to do more to specifically assist Mahmoud Khalil, and provide concrete support to other students facing the same threats, and investigate reports Columbia board members and faculty collaborated in his disappearance.
This is not protecting, if anything this would be saying that no one can protect these vulnerable students, that they do not have any first amendment rights and they must censor themselves
No. This is good advice. People who should be sticking our necks out are white natal citizens, not anyone from abroad and not anyone likely to have a brown skin.
We need to take up this burden for them. They're not safe.
He's telling them do it anonymously, because the Icestapo will disappear them and the school cant do anything about secret police with unlimited power.
This feels like a real talk situation. Just like Black families have the real talk with kids about cops in America that white families don’t have. Also use signal. Also take off biometrics from your phone. Know the risk of what you are doing.
And Jelani Cobb's way of responding to critique is going private on social media. Profiles in courage. A Columbia dean with a massive platform says: "just keep your head down and let the arrests play out."
Comments
They need to understand COMPLETELY & was responsible for dept. (and lawyers) to explain the situation. Then they decide.
Everyone needs to be aware and prepare
My perspective on this is heavily informed by…
Her job is to tell them the truth, frankly.
What can be covered?
My guess is only propaganda is now appropriate output for any mass market information channel.
* It's possible that Columbia is doing things, but doing them quietly so they don't attract attention. 1/
* Side effects include arrest and deportation."
There is nothing the school can do.
It is not the task of international students to resist. That's what we exist for.
But somebody sure needs to try.
It seems like wise advice.
I'm for protests.
Even ones on freeways if you have the numbers.
But I don't recommend loners wandering into that trap.
It is appropriate to tell students how to strategize, and not fed posting is one
They are trying to protect them as best as they can.
You are yelling at a Black man for telling his students the goddamn truth about where we are as a country?
What are YOU doing to protect these students?
Why don't YOU do something useful with your privilege (vs., oh, criticizing a Black dean)?
Journalists should return their Pulitzer Prizes if this crap is what it stands for.
Arrest us all.
This is just white privilege.
Especially leaders without a spine.
Sorry, folks. Nothing I can do!
The ones who don't understand it are trump and his organized crime syndicate.
What they are saying is that the school cannot protect their student visas. So for those with a few months left to graduate, it's practical advice. Not an imposition.
If you won't defend the law why are you teaching it?
Great idea.
The school can't stop the government from just whisking away students in the middle of the night.
Until such time passes, lay off the chest thumping ffs.
Good on Jelani for being real with these kids.
Starting w "free-speech rights as far we are concerned." Cobb can't even guarantee what his Columbia bosses will allow, let alone Trump's DOJ.
Do our best? What's that worth when you're in a detention ctr?
Zoom? Get your degree? That's not up to a Dean
If he can't offer them the protection of the university, I'm glad he says so clearly.
And if that's all they can do, I'm grateful that he's being up front and clear about the potential danger to his students.
There are no magic powers that the Dean of Columbia Journalism has to well-protect his students from a motivated, bend & break rules, state actor like the U.S.
Oh, that won't work either.
It usually takes a violent revolution to defeat autocracy. Even then, success is not close to being guaranteed.
People, autocracy being A Bad Thing does not mean that it is easy or even possible to defeat.
That’s the duty of all of us who can’t be deported.
So he is advising vulnerable people of reality. All he can do is tell green card or visa students of the risks & what protection they have (i.e., not as much as they might think).
No?
Then they need to make sure students understand that basic truth. It's the responsible thing to do.
And those of us citizens who have privilege these students do not, WE are the ones who need to stand up for their rights.
Maybe you think they still should just defy the policy, but that’s less “don’t obey in advance” than “don’t obey”, period—different thing.
*You mean other than literally informing them of an attorney's advice, which is what they did hear?
Likewise, Dean Jelani Cobb told the truth. I've learned that Black people understand how power is exercised in this land.
Also:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/may/01/columbia-university-student-protesters-arrested-faculty-reacts
We need to take up this burden for them. They're not safe.
Go yell at CNBC and MSNBC.