Posted on 03/30/2025 10:50:25 AM PDT by John Semmens
With President Trump threatening to withhold $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University, president Katrina Armstrong agreed to dial back the antisemitism that has been allowed to disrupt the education of the school's Jewish students. The targeted antisemitic actions include masked protesters intimidating and blocking Jews from attending classes and professors from the school's Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS) Department spouting anti-Semitic propaganda--one of whom, Dr. Joseph Massad, described the Hamas October 7, 2023 massacre of over 1,000 Israeli men, women, and children as "awesome."
This weekend, Armstrong conducted a Zoom call to 75 faculty members in an attempt to reassure them that "I lied to Trump. There will be no changes. Masks will continue to be allowed for health reasons. Protesters' freedom of speech and assembly will remain protected. The MESAAS Department will remain totally independent." These remarks were not intended to be made public, but because one of the 75 participants chose the transcribe option despite being asked to turn it off a transcription made its way to the media.
Many of the participating faculty members expressed anger over Armstrong's "surrender to tyranny." One called Trump's demanded actions against antisemitism "the most significant assault on academic culture in my lifetime." Others urged "suing Trump for over-stepping his authority."
Armstrong argued that "suing would take time and money with no guarantee of success. Appearing to agree seemed the best option. I've already issued a statement that we are taking a series of decisive actions we have been taking and will take to combat antisemitism and all forms of discrimination and harassment, including immediately strengthening our processes for enforcement of rules on demonstrations, identification and masking. Trump has to give us time to implement the changes he wants. Meanwhile, we could be signing contracts committing us to spend the $400 million. Trump would have to sue to get it back and, as we have seen in 100 other cases, a district court judge will rule that he can't."
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