Columbia University agreed to modify its campus policies, curriculum and other practices (including activation of a “new internal security force” tasked with ejecting protestors) after the Trump administration withheld $400 million in federal funds. Troy Closson at The New York Times reports:
The agreement, which stunned and dismayed many members of the faculty, could signal a new stage in the administration’s escalating clash with elite colleges and universities. Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan and dozens of other schools face federal inquiries and fear similar penalties, and college administrators have said Columbia’s response to the White House’s demands may set a dangerous precedent.
Simultaneous to demands brought to bear on Columbia and other institutions, Trump also threatened University of Pennsylvania with similar demands “at least partly,” New York Times added, “because the university let a transgender woman participate on a women’s swim team.”
The ongoing operation to bring hammers down on higher education comes after J.D. Vance promised in late 2021 that he would “aggressively attack universities“—sentiments shared by many right-wing, anti-education agitators.
AUTHOR FOOTNOTE
For hooligans who are openly hostile to learning or education (even mild enlightenment for that matter), they sure do care an awful lot about how major colleges and universities run their institutions. If this feels like a targeted hit fueled by Trump’s transnational-mob partners, that’s because it probably is, ya know, that.
Bibi Netanyahu has been demanding harsher punishment for student protests for some time now, and the transactional “bond” between Trump and Bibi regimes is already a matter of record. That math kind of does itself.
And since I’m all about dot-connecting, The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University (my alma mater, btw) recently denied tenure to Medill professor Steven Thrasher. Thrasher participated in an April 2024 pro-Palestine encampment in which he and several other teachers and students “formed a line between police and protestors.”
Despite the misdemeanor charges getting dismissed—not to mention Thrasher being a highly respected and decorated journalist and educator who was cleared by an internal investigation—Medill dean Charles Whitaker decided not to renew his position in August 2026.
Thrasher, in a press released published to social media, took Medill’s administration to task for bowing to external forces.
This has nothing to do with my scholarship or teaching. It is a political hit job over my support for Palestine and for trying to protect our student protesters last year from physical attack, by nonviolently subjecting my own body to assault by the Northwestern Police. In trying to punish me, Medill and Dean Whitaker are not just trying to silence me. Their bullying may intimidate students, journalists, faculty, staff and activists across campus and throughout the country into silencing themselves.
