On Thursday a letter was sent to the Interim President and Board of Columbia University by a cabal of federal agencies spelling out what changes they demand "as a precondition for formal negotiations regarding Columbia University's continued financial relationship with the United States government." (Last week, $400 million in government grants was suspended, with the promise that more was to come.) The demanded changes included draconian reforms in disciplinary policies, restrictive rules on student gatherings, a mask ban, investigations of students and student groups, adoption of a definition of antisemitism like that used in Executive Orders, and greater empowerment of campus law enforcement - all to ensure nothing like last year's protests recur. More, the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department was to be placed in "academic receivership for a minimum of five years" and a "plan for comprehensive admissions reform" was to be delivered. If these "critical next steps" were completed within seven days, "we hope to open a conversation about immediate and long-term structural reforms that will return Columbia to its original mission of innovative research and academic excellence."
Unsaid here is that Columbia should publicly consent to the extralegal detention and deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, one of the organizers of last year's campus encampments, and assist in the persecution of others involved - or lose even more federal support.
Where to begin? Perhaps the most obvious thing is that none of the changes mandated in the letter - which it isn't the business of the government to demand in the first place, certainly not for a private university - could possibly be accomplished on such short notice. Seven days? The senders have no knowledge of or respect for the way universities work. No "conversation" is envisioned. Instead this Diktat is of a piece with the bullying - explicitly designed to generate "trauma" and "existential terror" - the president has unleashed on government employees, allies, and all those he claims a divine mandate to abuse.
Universities are part of "the enemy within."
