How about that: Columbia University is at least pretending to cave to Trump administration demands to address its antisemitic cancers — prodded by threats to its vast taxpayer subsidies.
In what was nominally a note from the school’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, the administration linked to a memo stating it will crack down on mask-wearing by “protesters,” let campus police actually arrest students who flaunt its rules and even set up new oversight of both its Center for Palestine Studies and the Middle East, South Asian and African Studies department.
Remarkably, Armstrong’s announcement managed to avoid mentioning the word “antisemitism.”
Also not mentioned: That these were the central demands of the Trump team after the school requested “clarification” in the wake of the feds cancelling $400 million in grants and contracts — demands that came with a deadline that the announcement just coincidentally met.
Only time will tell if Columbia makes good on any of it; Armstrong and her colleagues are plainly walking a fine line between appeasing the feds and heading off the fury of all the internal special interests that want antisemitism to prosper.
Let’s be clear: Decades ago, Columbia opted to feast on foreign Arab donations by embracing and promoting anti-Israel “studies,” and so played a leading role in convincing the global left that blaming the Jews for the world’s woes is cutting-edge thinking.
That’s why the school saw some of the nation’s most vociferous and largest “pro-Palestinian” activism in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 atrocities and Israel’s ensuing war of self-defense.
And why Columbia did its best to overlook the harassment and intimidation of its Jewish community, and to barely slap anyone who broke its rules in the name of the Palestinian cause.
Cheers for Team Trump for calling out this disgrace, and threatening the only thing Columbia really cares about, its income, to bring change.
We’ll even cheer Columbia — if it actually delivers on Friday’s promises.
