But seriously, I suspect blackmail is an underrated force of history. It was almost certainly Epstein's real live of business, and it was Robert Moses' ace up the sleeve.
Might I suggest the podcast Exposed? Columbia let a know sexual predator continue as an obgyn knowingly and has yet to apologize to the thousands of women he violated.
@umich.edu is also the one that abruptly ended all financial aid programs that had anything to do with diversity or equity, and pulled current students' funding IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SCHOOL YEAR. No university has caved to Trump worse than them that I know of. Discourage everyone from applying there.
Oh, it gets you a lot less applications and a lower acceptance rate with a terrible reputation. May they suffer their earned shunning of budding intellectuals and become known as the Ivy that actively chose to lose its leaves.
The poor kid who called me from Michigan telefund, the other day! I’m a Michigan grad but used to run that office for the Annual Fund at GW & have worked in development @ other schools, as well. I told him why I wasn’t giving @ gave him a message for his boss. He acquitted himself very well, tbh.
i share my undergrad alma mater with howard lutnick, after whom the library has been named for some years now. the poor kid who texted me for $ this year got an earful about renaming the library.
Absolutely! It's a simple concept that every HS school principal knows (and the world wished that Neville Chamberlain knew) The bully sets-up a series of escalating conditions that are impossible to meet, because in his head his objective is to bully everyone in the school building, ending with you!
The problem is, Columbia is the principal who REALLY wants the donations from the bully’s parents, thinking that if they get the kid glove treatment they’ll get money pouring in.
Cowards. The fact Wiley is not mayor is another shot. Abrams should be in jail. NYAG should bring him down. Never thought my city would be bowing down to this shitshow
Historically a loud anti authoritarian campus has been neutered by its administration and the current US regime. Time for other schools to step up and the last 24 hours have been promising.
Yes. But I wonder if this current pushback was in the works or if these universities saw what happened to Columbia and realized that that was the best possible deal.
How is it that even after all these years before it people, corporations and institutions still don't get that if you bow to trump he takes that as permission to abuse you even more? It's been 5 decades of this prick, how does this still catch anyone out?
I have read too much history and understand that giving into a bully does nothing but emboldened and encourage the bully for their next confrontation!
Giving up is exactly what they want and need! DO NOT JUST GIVE UP!
Every elite university being targeted by Trmp has billionaire alumni. They should commit to making up the lost federal $$ if their school refuses to be blackmailed.
Along with all those lawyers, social media companies and media companies.
We will remember who bent the knee, when none were needed. Trump is weak and the people around him are mediocre and incompetent. They got malice, but they're blunt objects, not geniuses.
Yep. Whereas Harvard’s decision last year to throw Claudine Gay under the RW bus set *some* of its oversight board members on a determined *Resistance* path. Let’s see if it sustains 🤷🏽♀️
Just like the law firms falling like dominos. Time for other universities to stand up as well. And corporations. Costco has never been more successful. Others need to follow.
“Nor any other private university” wasn’t courage—it was cover. Free speech is vital, but when death chants echo through campus halls, silence isn’t neutrality—it’s moral collapse in ivy-covered wrapping.
They’re $50 billion endowment is what is providing them the luxury to fight back. I am glad they are choosing to leverage this privilege, but let’s not pretend they are poor.
“Going to drown”? Their endowment exceeds 50 billion. I believe they’re already very much at the bottom of that ocean.
They had to stand up to the grift—which by their standards is peanuts. Let’s see what they do now. Will they protect students and faculty? Stand up to donors? Will they fight?
And they'll never regain their reputation. Who would want to attend a school that actively supports anti free speech initiatives and Nazis while turning jackbooted thugs on their students for protesting peacefully?
At the top are too many white men out of touch with the needs of the people below them. Their decisions are myopic and power centered. Many aren't even leaders but followers. Columbia is now reaping the harvest of its cowardice.
We should all be talking about what the U.S. government/The People get out of these grants, etc. It is, of course complex, so would require extraordinary talent and work for
a) journalists
b) institutions
to boil it down, help Americans understand what 47's petty resentment will steal from them.
Can you imagine the Celebrations around the World when Satan calls Trump home. All that money he's stealing won't matter a damn where he's going. Please Charles Darwin, take him soon.
I heard somewhere that there are students rejecting their acceptance thanks to this, too. That old money will do the talking. Columbia is going to suffer greatly for their choice just like Target.
Columbia leaders were never up to the task. They were always focused on self survival and protecting their careers, not the integrity of the institution. I used to work there. What happened was predictable.
It's hang together or hang separately for universities, research orgs, law firms etc. trump picks easy victims, the defence and fight back has to be at sector level. Organise or die. Not a very American approach but the only way to resist tyrants..
Free speech? Always. Debate? Bring it on.
But chanting for death—of anyone, let alone America—isn’t protest, it’s poison.
You can’t fight hate by becoming hateful. We lose the moral high ground the second we cheer for collapse.
True story. Boston also sees itself in perpetually competition with NYC, the decision of Harvard and MIT is hard not to see as a direct indictment of Colombia.
It’s too bad Columbia Alumni are hanging Columbia out to dry. Harvard alumni rallied around their university even AFTER Harvard did this. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/3/29/harvard-cmes-director-departure/ As a parent of a current Columbia 1st year I’m disappointed in Columbia Alumni. Yes, the CU admin needs to step up. So do alum.
It is not OK for the rest of us to break laws, customs, norms, just b/c he has no understanding or respect for the same. If you were a grad student, post-doc, fellow, researcher whose life's work was dependent on those grants, you might feel differently.
The wishful thinking is that those who prove cowardly lose other private endowments that they rely upon as a response. Unfortunately the 1% are almost entirely on the wrong side of this and I wouldn’t hold my breath for that.
They should call the whole thing off. Their once tight assholes are going to be ripped to shreds by DonOld J Chump. Their reputation is ruined. Going forward, who will want to be associated with them?
Cowardice is more contagious than courage it seems. When universities, law firms and others, Trump is attacking cave, it feels like they are more concerned about their $$$ than their values.
Of course they are, because they can’t pay salaries with values. But the entire institution has to be OK with living with less. Harvard has the advantage of a massive endowment, so it can weather times until we impeach and convict him in two years.
Comments
JD Vance fumbled the trophy.
The Zionist aka Jews control Mayor Adams too. Even Netanyahu says so - on ISRAELI media
I have to add, the Washington Post fumbled the ball big time too. I don't know how they get their credibility back. I would leave.
IMPORTANT please share far and wide!
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5355896/doge-nlrb-elon-musk-spacex-security
Then under the bayh-dole law they patent the results (a medicine) and own it and can licence it to big pharmaceutical to sell.
They get royalties, pharma gets rich and we get charged.
Giving up is exactly what they want and need! DO NOT JUST GIVE UP!
#handsoff
We will remember who bent the knee, when none were needed. Trump is weak and the people around him are mediocre and incompetent. They got malice, but they're blunt objects, not geniuses.
Big fail for Columbia.
#ProgressNotPoison
#FreeSpeechNotFascism
#CarpeUmbra
#DoBetterBlue
They had to stand up to the grift—which by their standards is peanuts. Let’s see what they do now. Will they protect students and faculty? Stand up to donors? Will they fight?
a) journalists
b) institutions
to boil it down, help Americans understand what 47's petty resentment will steal from them.
But chanting for death—of anyone, let alone America—isn’t protest, it’s poison.
You can’t fight hate by becoming hateful. We lose the moral high ground the second we cheer for collapse.
#ProgressNotPoison
#CourageIsCalling
#CarpeUmbra
#FreeSpeechNotFascism
In truth, I think they actually thought capitulating would save them.
Boston will forever be strong.
https://www.marketplace.org/story/2025/03/26/university-endowments-cant-replace-federal-funding