Columbia’s capitulation is so disappointing. No statute authorized the Trump administration to make these demands, and many of them implicate or encroach on the constitutional freedoms of students, faculty, and the University itself. 1/ www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/n... - ThreadSky

jameeljaffer.bsky.social • 1 day ago

Columbia’s capitulation is so disappointing. No statute authorized the Trump administration to make these demands, and many of them implicate or encroach on the constitutional freedoms of students, faculty, and the University itself. 1/ https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/nyregion/columbia-response-trump-demands.html?searchResultPosition=1

Comments

incauda.bsky.social•1 day ago

“We’re seeing a kind of effort to transform all parts of the government and all major parts of civil society to bring those into a partisan ideological conformity that is characteristic of emergent authoritarian regimes.” Lee C Bollinger

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/03/21/us/university-leaders-columbia-trump-cuts

jfgibson.bsky.social•1 day ago

So disgusted. Can’t imagine what students & faculty who oppose this are going though.

lsagssmith.bsky.social•1 day ago

No one can back down from leagal fights against Donald Trump. All must stand firm and force the judicial system to do their job and stop the tyranny!

davidkleeman.bsky.social•1 day ago

davidmouritsen.bsky.social•1 day ago

Enos & Levitsky: “If Columbia or another university confronts the administration on its own, it will lose. If America’s nearly 6,000 universities and colleges launch a campaign in defense of higher education, odds are that Trump will lose.”

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/3/14/enos-levitsky-harvard-columbia-trump/

peebsy0.bsky.social•1 day ago

Harvard cranks out all the cranks, and even they get it.

Hawley, Cruz, Dershowitz...

ricediver.bsky.social•1 day ago

Cowards.

kenauer.bsky.social•22 hours ago

No university should be so dependent on government funds that it gives up its independence as an educational institution.

pppatticake.bsky.social•16 hours ago

Oh Columbia isn’t so dependent, it’s the addiction to closeness to power they caved to maintain

laustia.bsky.social•1 day ago

Oh, that 400m he wanted to buy them for and they said No Thanks?

That 400 mil?

loadupthejoy.bsky.social•1 day ago

Everyone (i.e., citizens, universities, lawyers, judges, media) has to stop obeying. The more we obey, the more they demand. The regime will keep pushing — it’s up to us to push back. We’re getting nowhere if we keep giving into their demands. Universities have so much power. Use it!

kfanyo.bsky.social•1 day ago

This is Trump's rape of Columbia. If the university had been on high alert for decades for just this sort of thing, this outcome would have been different. After decades of peace, it's understandable the first reaction might be to try to preserve the peace.

OTOH, Europe has no such inhibition.

kfanyo.bsky.social•1 day ago

We can fault the victim, sure. After all it is a completely well established institution. But let's not blame the victim. This was a blindside, doubly so because it's made clear how "blindsided" Trump felt when they declined to do what he wanted all those years ago.

denisesf5.bsky.social•14 hours ago

garygifford.bsky.social•1 day ago

I guess it's time to add Columbia University to the list of entities to start boycotting.

lifeinfullstride.bsky.social•1 day ago

How would people do that? I’m trying to imagine an effective way to boycott a private university…. Because this will keep happening, probably.

garygifford.bsky.social•1 day ago

Don't attend the school. Don't go to their football games. Don't buy their swag.

lifeinfullstride.bsky.social•1 day ago

Oh, okay. 🙂

universalcurrent.bsky.social•1 day ago

Hate that we’ll have to miss Columbia football

lifeinfullstride.bsky.social•1 day ago

I’m not boycotting a university. To do what; shut it down? Seems like a peculiar thing to even advocate or hope for. Who wants fewer universities, ya know?

garygifford.bsky.social•1 day ago

To send a message that obeying in advance in the face of a fascist authoritarian takeover of our democracy is unacceptable.

universalcurrent.bsky.social•1 day ago

My comment was about the Columbia Lions football team, which would need fans for a boycott to work. To your point, what we'll see is top faculty members and top students choosing schools that consider academic freedom worth fighting for.

ponies3.bsky.social•1 day ago

Cowardice in higher ed - unsurprising. Higher ed, where curricula are designed for systems maintenance and revenue.

theparamecium.bsky.social•1 day ago

Anything to keep them from having to dip into their $14.8 billion dollar endowment..

angelspiritme.bsky.social•1 day ago

So the important truth here is this: a degree from Columbia is now as prestigious as a degree from Trump University!

lainekate.bsky.social•1 day ago

The biggest mistake is continued focus on trump. Remember, he is just the useful idiot. Once people direct Tesla Takedown energy toward the SOURCE of this assault on American institutions, we will see results. The Billionaire Cabal and monopolistic corporate stranglehold are behind all of this.

annbe54.bsky.social•1 day ago

I used to be impressed by job candidates who had a degree from Columbia on their resume. I won't be any more.

lifeinfullstride.bsky.social•1 day ago

Why wouldn’t you be after this? I don’t understand your reasoning.

annbe54.bsky.social•1 day ago

Because the university has compromised their integrity and are now following the whims of the trump administration. They're stifling freedom of speech and allowing illegal apprehension of students. I no longer trust what they teach since their actions show they can be bought and intimidated.

lifeinfullstride.bsky.social•1 day ago

Oh. Okay. I was wondering what your connection was between the admin’s shameful capitulation and the quality of the graduates. Because the students and grads are the ones protesting, along with many professors. The OP is a law professor there….

annbe54.bsky.social•1 day ago

Good point. It's really people who choose to start there after Columbia caved to trump that I will be dubious about. The folks caught up in this, and especially the ones resisting, sure aren't to blame. I feel bad for them. The university leadership failed them.

lifeinfullstride.bsky.social•1 day ago

Don’t worry,then. Most of the those starting after this agreement haven’t even started applying,yet. They’re 16/17 and finishing junior year of high school now. A bunch of kids who had a good tour, liked the campus and think they can be one of the 4% of applicants that get in. Smart kids, but kids.

elbowsarts.bsky.social•1 day ago

History will remember and sort institutions according to their actions in 2025.

jameeljaffer.bsky.social•1 day ago

Also, the University’s decision will embolden the Trump administration to target other universities and civic institutions—and, sooner or later, to come back to Columbia to insist that it cede even more of its autonomy. 2/

j-c11.bsky.social•1 day ago

This is exactly the frog and scorpion, only in this version the scorpion stings the frog while they are still on the beach.

fangorn04.bsky.social•1 day ago

Columbia gets the Neville Chamberlain Appeasement Award. You'd think profs in the History Dept. would have clued the Columbia administration that appeasing dictators never works.

jameeljaffer.bsky.social•1 day ago

Columbia’s capitulation is a serious tactical error as well as a betrayal of the University’s community and values. 3/3

zwirnm.bsky.social•1 day ago

And by picking universities off one by one, the Administration is keeping the academic sector from presenting a unified front. Each school is ducking its head, hoping someone else is targeted. Disastrous strategic error.

rogergathmann.bsky.social•23 hours ago

How is it tactical? This "error" is really about what the president and the donors think. The reality of this is that they weren't just goofs up in the President's office. They actually view this as a win - win - get rid of the protestors, the woke, the faculty the donors don't like. We see them.

cripdyke.bsky.social•1 day ago

Why don't we hear ppl saying, 'Their decision is a moral atrocity'?

I mean 'betrayal' hints at it, but the decision is just immoral. And we should say so.

stephenreed1131.bsky.social•1 day ago

Hundreds of thousands of vetrans gave up their lives defending our freedom, and a bunch of rich elites are willing to sell them out over a few dollars. Pathetic doesn't even begin to describe it.

stephenreed1131.bsky.social•1 day ago

Actual values one is willing to defend when suddenly there is a cost involved is in very short supply these days. Defending values is easy when there is no downside.

nathankalmoe.bsky.social•1 day ago

The problem is that the admins who agreed to it won't suffer the consequences. At all. We need to make sure admins will have immense gains if they resist and immense career harms if they capitulate.

morgan-2025.bsky.social•1 day ago

When the strong and powerful kneel to Trump, smaller and weaker colleges will be next.

ghostofeinstein.bsky.social•1 day ago

Big Brother demands it.

cameronlmitchell.bsky.social•1 day ago

Instead of taking a stand for academic freedom everywhere, Columbia University rolled over and chose to collaborate with their oppressors

They've lost the trust of their students, faculty, and staff
and will never recover

@columbiauniversity.bsky.social

carevillage.bsky.social•1 day ago

What’s wrong with our society when even our higher learning centers will sell their soul, and the souls if their students, to the devil?

pppatticake.bsky.social•16 hours ago

CAPITALISM is what’s wrong

boatwrite.bsky.social•1 day ago

It's because each individual feels they can protect their own position by not standing up or standing out. So the few who are willing to make a stand find themselves isolated. When the bully hits someone the rest are too afraid to notice they outnumber him.

universalcurrent.bsky.social•1 day ago

What’s fascinating is that they simply could have said no. They are sitting on a truly massive “rainy day” endowment. If saving the soul of their school isn’t worth tapping the endowment, what possibly could be?

supermanlover-56.bsky.social•1 day ago

alongcamejones.bsky.social•1 day ago

Where are the alums? Are university presidents discussing the situation to mobilize them?

gill0314.bsky.social•1 day ago

What keeps a university open? Students. No students, then what exactly is their purpose.

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