by Susan Van Gelder

Protest around Columbia University in support of Palestine and against Israel government genocide, April 2024. Photo: SWinxy, CC BY-SA 4.0

Since Oct. 7, 2023, Columbia’s anti-Israel-genocide student movement brought out thousands in support. Majorities of students who voted in nonbinding referendums supported divestment from Israel, whose bombs were raining down on Gaza. But some Jewish students felt increasingly isolated and afraid. Chants such as “we don’t want no Zionists here” they felt were directed at them personally.

As The New York Times reported: “On March 7, [2025] the federal government canceled or froze more than $400 million in research funding, saying Columbia no longer qualified for the support because of alleged tolerance of antisemitic harassment on campus…Columbia’s 21-member board of trustees decided to negotiate.”

On July 23, Columbia University and the Trump administration reached a deal that restores federal funding and research grant money to the university. But Columbia will have to pay $200 million to the federal government over three years and an additional $21 million to resolve alleged civil rights violations against Jewish employees.

Worse, Columbia agreed to suspend, expel, or revoke degrees from some 70 students who participated in pro-Palestinian/anti-genocide demonstrations, that is, practiced their free speech, and must issue a report to a monitor to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion is not promoted on campus.

“WIN-WIN” OR PROTECTION RACKET?

Claire Shipman, Acting President of Columbia University, seems to believe that the agreement with the Trump Administration “doesn’t cross the red lines that we laid out. It protects our academic integrity.” Todd Wolfson, National President of the American Association of University Presidents (AAUP), sharply disagrees:

“The Columbia settlement is a disaster for higher education…never in the history of this country has the federal government had more control over an independent institution of higher education than this agreement creates…It’s an act of cowardice by the leadership of Columbia and bullying and weaponization of antisemitism for nefarious purposes by the Trump administration…Harvard is in advanced negotiations with the Trump administration, but my message to Harvard is that they must hold the line. This is about more than Columbia and Harvard—it’s about the future of higher education. And frankly, as higher ed goes, so goes democracy.”

On one important point President Shipman is correct: “it does reset our relationship with the federal government in terms of research funding.” However, Wesleyan University President Michael Roth, interviewed by Amna Nawaz on “the PBS News Hour,” likened Columbia’s settlement to paying ransom for the safe return of kidnap victims, but not their true liberation.

In responding to Nawaz’s questions Roth said: “Well, it’s very clear that if you annoy the White House, you could get sucked into a process of litigation or fines that bear no relation to the facts of the matter, but just become a way of expressing loyalty, of conforming to the wishes of the government.

“We saw it at the University of Virginia just a week or two ago. You see it now at George Mason. This is an effort to tell universities, as they have told law firms, newspapers and TV stations, ‘You are not independent. If you contract with the federal government, we, the government, has the right to tell you what to do….’

“This agreement does protect many things at Columbia. I don’t criticize the parent for paying a ransom to get their kids back. They’re getting their science back. But they’re also telling the federal government, you can tell us how to run our Middle East studies program, you can tell us how many police officers we should have at a minimum on campus.

“The White House has determined how students should be disciplined at a private university. This is massive overreach; an assault on the independence of civil society in America. And conservatives, liberals, moderates should all be concerned when a White House tells you how to run your private associations….

“How does paying the government $220 million to do basic science make Jews safer? As a Jew, I find this horrific. I know antisemitism is real… But the idea that you pay off the government in order to get them off your back so you can do cancer research, and that’s good for the Jews, I think it’s ridiculous.

“We don’t need the White House to tell us antisemitism is real two weeks after the Defense Department contracts with Grok, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence entity after it praised Hitler. This is an administration that is not concerned with Jewish welfare.”

WHAT HAPPENED TO ANTI-DISCRIMINATION

Meanwhile, all trace of the legitimate cause of student (and faculty) protests against Israel’s genocidal war on Palestinians has vanished from Columbia’s discourse. So have any expressed concerns about Islamophobia and the well-being and safety of Palestinians and their supporters. The very nature of the movement: students peacefully engaged in First-Amendment protests, including anti-Zionist Jewish students collaborating with their Muslim classmates across religious and cultural division, is disappearing as well.