Just off the top of my head and not even getting into the rest of it, banning masks is an ABSURD politicalization of a basic, simple disease prevention/protection and should NEVER be agreed to. Shame on @columbiauniversity.bsky.social @columbiaup.bsky.social.
How do they ban masks? They can’t ban my baseball hat or my earrings or my pants ffs. Of o wanna wear a mask, that’s my choice. It’s my body. Oh wait. Yep. I just heard myself.
Who’s ever going to enroll in this shithole moving forward? Disgusting. The day after dipshit signs an unlawful executive order to terminate dept. Of education. Fucking morons.
I understand these guys are proper assholes, but what's the issue with masks? Isn't that a personal choice/ public health thing? It seems a difficult behaviour to get annoyed with.
I saw this post as I was gonna reply to you.
It's good to be informed, but some breaks in between are needed. I'm heading to the beach soon to watch the sunset for that exact same reason.
Seriously, for all of these uber wealthy schools, what is the endowment for if not to safeguard the independence of your institution now? Do they think for one second this is the last of Herr Douchebag's demands? Now that he knows you'll capitulate, it's open season.
As I said, the transaction is nowhere near over for Trump.
And you keep thinking we operate in a country where laws apply. They do for the little people. Not for anyone who wants to circumvent them.
This is going to be remembered for all time as Columbia’s response to having a student protestor kidnapped and held prisoner by a budding authoritarian regime. It is unspeakable cowardice.
I wouldn’t want a degree from this university no matter its “previous” reputation its current reputation is now disgraceful and embarrassing. All involved with this university should be totally repulsed. Doesn’t Barron Trump attend this university or its business school?
Its not cowardice, it's worse: agreement.
The Columbia admin, and a lot of Americans, agrees A. There is waste and Elon is right. B. The Gaza protesters are terrorists. C. A return to segregation is natural and fair. Etc. All of it.
If I were a Columbia alum they would now be dead to me. No more donations ever. I'm an alum of three other universities...and I am watching how they deal with Trump.
with a mask ban, lots of people could die because of this, or at least end up living with new chronic illnesses forced on them by their alma mater/employer
The good news is that if they got into Columbia they probably also got into several other places, but if I were Columbia I would have a *long* waitlist this year
lol, yes (on the waitlist). But I have a high school senior and these kids really do all hope for that ONE really great school. Glad Columbia isn’t that for us.
We call it 'going into clearing' if you don't get your grades in the UK, which is a path to helping students to get into/onto a course they want. Seems like 'ooh, I have a place at Columbia for you' might be heard for the first time ever!
Will they care, or will they do what most students at other universities have done, namely, put their heads down, get their degree, and get out? A bad reputation won't stop this. The faculty (especially graduate students) MUST strike, and they have to do it immediately.
Good opportunity for some non-Ivy schools to poach some high-level talent. If I was in charge of like Wake Forest or Boston College or Wesleyan etc I'd be brainstorming ways to get offers into the hands of future Columbia students right now.
I mean it's got some nice buildings and everybody wants to live in New York City; if NYU can climb its way up to the top tier - as it has, over the last few decades - I'm pretty sure Columbia can too
It's the worst possible way to bring this future about, but if we end up in a place where, say, there's no longer a significant career benefit to attending Yale instead of UConn or Harvard instead of Northeastern, that might not be an entirely bad thing.
What do you expect a hedge fund like Columbia to do? Yeah, there's a university under there somewhere but that hardly matters. Gotta keep the board and investors happy.
The last president was a piece of work! That was the baroness who called cops on protesters in the first place, and then stepped down after the ensuing kerfuffle
although I heard a third hand thing about Penn capitulating on some shit-staff who've written about "woke" (eyeroll) subjects like historical racism can't list their Penn employment in media interviews, say
in a way it makes me slightly hopeful that this won't necessarily spread to ALL the other universities bc it depends who's running the show but I've been crushed by that sort of wistfulness before
also I'm sure there are plenty others like this in uni admin
Remember the fierce resistance to Hitler when he began & then accelerated his assault on academia & the rule of law? How ppl rose up knowing it wld soon be too late? How the opposition parties moved with alacrity & conviction to stem the fascist tide? Yeah, neither do I.
Because, in truth, many of us despise Dem leaders (like Schumer & Jeffries) & Dem avatars (like Fetterman) more than GQP, even if we know GQP fascists are far more dangerous. Viscerally, the loathsome Dems make us cringe bc of their stinking hypocrisy, the thing that cost them last election too.
Pretty sure Columbia’s admin count as fools. Just cause they have degrees doesn’t mean they can’t be fuckwits. And I say that as someone with 3 of them.
Students at Columbia University are unsafe, it is an unsafe place to exist, all students at Columbia remain mere human sacrifices in waiting, with the servile, anti-liberty CU administration just waiting for the next insane demand for blood from MAGA. Any student could be next.
Columbia faced an existential choice. Remain a university or be reduced to a lap dog for a fascist government. It failed the test. Yes resisting might well have required radical changes and restructuring. Loss of money and programs. But it would have survived as a university. Now it’s garbage.
No one will have any faith in the organization or feel like they are safe while at the school except for white supremacists and other near fascist sympathizers.
I do question how much of this is cowardice, and how much of this is rich and conservative board members of Columbia being 100% on board with the agenda of the authoritarian regime.
Not give into fascism. And you’re Canadian too, and asking this? I doubt you would say that Canada should give up its sovereignty and become the 51st state because of monetary losses from tariffs.
On top of doing what’s ethical and what’s humane, they could make $400mm on their endowment annually assuming a 2.5% return. That isn’t a hard target to hit. Plus… they get to keep their integrity
Power is with the consumer
Don't go to Columbia,(there are 100s of over priced schools)
Don't buy a tesla
Don't buy eggs for a few weeks
Don't watch fox news
Etc
Protest takes many forms
I've been part of a working response group for nonprofit arts in Chi for the past month and every meeting I go to I can just see that when he comes for the nonprofits they're all going to just fucking cave.
Why do we forget at the time of the main protest, Lady Shafik a member of the House of lords was president of the Uni. Why was someone like that in charge of one of our institutions? Of course she called the police and lied about the protesters. Evicted students without cause. upper class shit.
Not her only job title and I never said she was a spy. Do I think she's an agent in the manner that once one, always one? Yep, I suspect she is cause I also don't buy going from Military to UN to Columbia University 6yrs ago and what's been happening. Have a read around, draw your own conclusions.
I posted the piece in reply, a piece I read, I didn’t write it, I read it and others and I have an opinion. I’m not promoting a conspiracy theory, if you disagree and feel she wasn’t involved at all in his arrest, that the school is in no way complicit with what’s happening there then that’s yours.
Don't get me wrong, Columbia deserves all the blowback it's getting for their cowardly caving to the administration and utterly failing to protect their students. But conspiracy theories don't help.
What do “elite institutions” have beyond their reputations? Maybe some land and buildings, an endowment, some professor contracts, library books. Reputation is the goose that lays the golden eggs. You don’t eat the goose.
Real estate. Lots and lots of real estate. And sports gambling. Many universities now are real estate investment schemes first, maybe sports gambling enterprises second, and education a distant third.
I actually think it's a pretty good deal and I think most of us would have taken it had we been the President of Columbia. It's all meaningless, manageable "concessions," like Canada's fentanyl "czar."
My kids are still young but yeah, you couldn't pay me to have them go there in a decade. Sorry I don't willingly give money to fascist enabling places.
What I can’t get past is NY Times understanding they’re complicit in the whole affair. These protests were happening all over the country, but Columbia is the target due to NY Times breathless coverage of them.
I wonder how they can “ban masks.” Prior to the pandemic, it was not at all unusual to see people wearing masks in cities like NYC. So Columbia is saying that if a doctor orders a cancer patient to mask up in public, they will be forced to risk their health on Columbia’s campus? Utterly ludicrous.
Think of it like jaywalking or how cannabis use to be treated: lots of people do it every day without incident, but it’s one more easy pretext for a cop acting on an agenda to stop someone
I've known two people with multiple myeloma who have to wear masks all the time in public spaces.
What has always flummoxed me about the mask ban people is why they so object to OTHERS wearing masks. It's like objecting to someone wearing a reflector vest while riding a bike.
I get IVIG as my MM treatment leaves me neutropenic, leukopenic, and thrombocytopenic. Let them arrest me for wearing a mask. So tired of this "administration" which is actually a dictatorship.
I’m about to apply for IVIG after 13 years of being bedridden from Lyme. I have immunoglobulin deficiency. I can barely leave the house without help. If I come into contact with germs it will be the end for me. I need masks so I can get to Dr appointments. This govt. is trying to kill all of us.
Nothing flummoxing about it: it's a group signifier. Anti-maskers have built an identity around not wearing masks (for bullshit reasons) and thus see anyone wearing a mask as an attack on their in-group. They're not trying to ban masks, they're trying to ban people hurting their feelings.
(I'm asthmatic and a filtering mask helps me breath amongst vapes and car fumes etc. without my lungs shutting down. I guess if I studied there I'd need to sue for my tuition back since they were making it physically impossible to attend...)
Which is honestly everyone. We still have Covid wreaking havoc (as much as everyone likes to pretend it’s over), and now Bird Flu, Measles, RSV, and Tuberculosis have entered the chat.
Banning masks in a city/school as tight as NYC/Columbia is INSANE.
I wonder if they expect people to carry a doctor’s note. If they forget the note and get stopped, do they get a ticket or something? This is insane. Land of the free no more.
There are so many students still there, anxious to learn, getting support. We all want the same thing. Intellectual freedom and mutual respect. If you aren’t there, you don’t know.
wait, they're banning masks? like, the masks that some people elect to wear to lessen chances of illness? I don't personally mask up in 2025 but it is absolutely insane that wouldn't be allowed to at Columbia.
They want the Ivies and near Ivies to return to what they exclusively were until mid 20th Century.
White male elite finishing and networking schools, protected from the world and any challenges to the myth of white supremacy to which they owe their privilege and status.
I'm sorry at what point in history did they stop doing that? They got a trickle of upwards mobility while remaining mostly finishing schools for the elite, Harvard faculty was infamously full of eugenicists this decade
I hope every student considering going to Columbia decides to go elsewhere. Government funding be damned. Make sure they don’t receive your tuition dollars. They have shown they don’t care about their students and their students’ rights. They’ve been bought.
Another example of moral cowardice. Shame on you Columbia. With your endowment you should use your top economics professors and business school faculty to come up with a plan. So lame
Ban masks!!! Are they crazy? I wore a mask in public during my breast cancer treatment. Others are in treatment or lower immune systems. I guess they should go to college somewhere else then!
Yet more evidence that the “values” American organizations and corporations claim to hold are utter bullshit; the only value that matters is their bottom line.
I wonder if USNWR will take this into consideration in next years rankings.
It will take a generation for @columbiauniversity.bsky.social to erase the stain of this capitulation to fascism. What a disgrace for the entire American academia.
Why anyone would ever send their kid there - or anyone would ever want to go there - is beyond me after this (and their endowment is $14.8 BILLION) … my God …
These idiots bent the knee to the right when Trump was a candidate, got destroyed, and now are doing it AGAIN. Pathetic, and this is only the beginning for them. Once you pay a ransom, you'll have to keep paying it.
@columbiauniversity.bsky.social could have freed itself from the terms attached to $400M federal funds by using other assets,diversifying donors & appealing to @columbiaalumni.bsky.social for pro bono help to recover the $400M,interest & applicable penalties. Maybe Columbia U likes USA govt’s terms?
They should see if capitulation has worked out well for anyone else. You know that thing about those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Yeah, that.
There will be damage especially among foreign students. There will be contractions and cutbacks. Lots of working people work there - not just tenured professors
There are PHDs waiting to be handing out to the first person who can explain how a country obsessed with "leadership", rugged individualism and going your own way came to be run by cowardly, inept middle managers.
Looks like fucking collaboration to me. What the regime is doing is all broadly illegal. Instead of standing up and saying, “what you are doing is illegal and by the way give back the student you kidnapped,” the administration is fending to kiss the feet of this charlatan.
Comments
They could sue, they have the resources to sue. But they capitulate like cowards
Won't be seeing us hire any of their students ever again.
It's good to be informed, but some breaks in between are needed. I'm heading to the beach soon to watch the sunset for that exact same reason.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/columbia-yields-to-trump-in-battle-over-federal-funding/ar-AA1Bpq9o?ocid=BingNewsSerp
Should be “Lots of fun” when bird flu gets going among humans.
The difference is that that's usually negotiation, not capitulation.
It's amazing how we've come this far and y'all can't be bothered to understand what an endowment is.
Endowments aren't open bank accounts. They're heavily regulated earmarked donations.
And you keep thinking we operate in a country where laws apply. They do for the little people. Not for anyone who wants to circumvent them.
$hame on Columbia for cowering to these Donazis…..
COLUMBIA ALUMNI PULL UP!
https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1zLcF0lbxvnwIPE9buMuc7u9_Av_EWJwLl6h4F5h9U64/mobilebasic?urp=gmail_link
The schools leadership appears pretty sympathetic to the administration’s viewpoint.
The Columbia admin, and a lot of Americans, agrees A. There is waste and Elon is right. B. The Gaza protesters are terrorists. C. A return to segregation is natural and fair. Etc. All of it.
Maybe they'll make Marco Rubio the President after he's done with his country destroying run as Secretary of State?
Good kids face up on that thrash fire last spring when they started assaulting protestors fighting against genocide.
A lot depends on how many good people they lose from this event. Very hard to rebuild a world-class faculty.
Let's hope.
https://bsky.app/profile/nycsouthpaw.bsky.social/post/3lkw2rzfxm22v
Columbia students who aren't immigrants: your move, I guess.
hm.
although I heard a third hand thing about Penn capitulating on some shit-staff who've written about "woke" (eyeroll) subjects like historical racism can't list their Penn employment in media interviews, say
also only post on X, not Blue sky
in a way it makes me slightly hopeful that this won't necessarily spread to ALL the other universities bc it depends who's running the show but I've been crushed by that sort of wistfulness before
also I'm sure there are plenty others like this in uni admin
https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/outlawing-opposition
problem is, the Republicans don't have any opposition to begin with
Personally I’d prefer to be using “ragtag band of heroes defeat the Evil Empire” references right now. If I could.
It’s true everything Trump touches dies. He’s poison.
(My guess is maybe a bit of both)
So unfortunately, that’s still a $400M shortfall they’re staring at.
Harvard’s website is helpful to learn more: https://www.harvard.edu/about/endowment/
Don't go to Columbia,(there are 100s of over priced schools)
Don't buy a tesla
Don't buy eggs for a few weeks
Don't watch fox news
Etc
Protest takes many forms
https://www.mintpressnews.com/professor-columbia-university-scandal-former-israeli-spy/289231/
- Buy eggs
- Detain and deport innocents
- Collar BigLaw and universities
- Clean golf clubs
Now the dominos will fall bc Columbia's complicity will embolden the GOP to take them *all* down.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/political-enemy-retribution-efforts/682095/
-Berlin University of the Arts
What has always flummoxed me about the mask ban people is why they so object to OTHERS wearing masks. It's like objecting to someone wearing a reflector vest while riding a bike.
Banning masks in a city/school as tight as NYC/Columbia is INSANE.
https://chantalobrien.medium.com/university-of-dysfunction-3371a97a7dd7
"ban masks “intended to conceal identity or intimidate others,” and require any masked individuals to display their Columbia ID."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-administration-issues-list-of-demands-to-columbia-to-restore-funding/ar-AA1AWvVS?ocid=BingNewsSerp
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/columbia-yields-to-trump-in-battle-over-federal-funding/ar-AA1Bpq9o?ocid=BingNewsSerp
https://youtu.be/gVsXseZJPg0?si=RalXY8JmcSJNhd_S
Cowards.
It's entirely fair to consider Colombia an extension of the fascist regime.
White male elite finishing and networking schools, protected from the world and any challenges to the myth of white supremacy to which they owe their privilege and status.
So, students are just required to be exposed to covid or the measles now? Because...?
I wonder if USNWR will take this into consideration in next years rankings.
Lesson 2: Defend institutions.
You're 0 for 2 there Columbia.
🖕😡👎
Columbia’s reputation joins chat already in session with Paul, Weiss, Zuckerberg, Bezos, https://et.al.
How did that end?