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You’d be forgiven for thinking the Trump administration letter to Columbia University that dropped out of nowhere last Friday night was a fake, some sort of clout-chasing exercise designed to whip liberals into a frenzy.
In reality, the letter is extremely real, extremely bad, and just the latest salvo in the administration’s “war on woke.” It’s also par for the course for Donald Trump, who sees government as a patronage system where he can withhold funding unless someone shows him sufficient fealty.
Earlier this month, the administration pulled back a staggering $400 million in grants already awarded to the school over Columbia’s alleged failure to address antisemitism on campus. Now, Columbia can only have those funds if they agree to let the administration dictate how the school handles everything from student discipline to curriculum to admissions. It’s an unheard-of attack on the autonomy and free speech of a private university.
Conservatives began pretending they cared about antisemitism during the Israel-Hamas war, even while Trump and other GOP elected officials trafficked in age-old antisemitic tropes. What they really cared about was bringing the hammer down on universities, particularly elite ones.
As Columbia was the site of some of the biggest anti-war protests, it came in for special scrutiny from the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. Last year, House Republicans dragged the university’s then-president, Minouche Shafik, before Congress to quiz her about Columbia’s response to the protests. Shafik bent the knee, agreeing with the GOP that the university violated Title VI, which protects students based on race, color, and national origin, by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students. She also cracked down on protests, calling in the cops to crush dissent. But none of this was enough, and conservatives celebrated when Shafik was forced out a few months later.
To be fair, there’s probably nothing that Columbia could have done to stave off the unhinged and unconstitutional demands of the administration. Notably, neither Trump nor any of the GOP howler monkeys who insist the school remains a hotbed for antisemitism have provided any evidence of ongoing issues at Columbia. Instead, they continue to reference last year’s protests, a thing that the school arguably addressed by letting NYPD riot cops violently subdue protesters.
Which brings us to last week’s letter, which dangled restoration of the $400 million, but only if Columbia agrees to, basically, let the administration run the school.
The letter demands that the school discipline everyone who participated in taking over Hamilton Hall and the encampments. Per the letter, “discipline” means only expelling students or imposing a multi-year suspension.
Columbia is already doing this, but expulsions are evaluated based on the “severity of behaviors.” The administration would eliminate that discretion. The school would also be required to revamp its disciplinary process, placing all disciplinary actions under the school president. The president would have the sole authority to suspend or expel students. The letter’s requirement that the school “hold all student groups accountable” doesn’t explain why the school’s existing detailed process for adjudicating student group complaints isn’t sufficient.
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Besides controlling the disciplinary process, the administration would dictate how law enforcement functions on campus. University security personnel would have complete law enforcement authority to arrest and remove “agitators.” Columbia was already considering this after last year’s protests. Research has shown that students of color, transgender students, and nonbinary students are not comfortable with an armed police presence on campus, so much so that it can cause psychological harm. But for the administration, that’s likely a feature, not a bug.
The letter also requires the university to adopt “time, place, and manner” requirements to prevent disruption on campus. That might sound benign, but this gives the administration authority over how Columbia treats free speech on campus. Columbia already has a lengthy policy addressing free speech and protests, but it explicitly does not regulate speech based on the content of the message — a thing required by the First Amendment. But the administration doesn’t believe that should be allowed. Despite pretending to be a free speech champion, Trump has comprehensively weaponized the government to punish those who engage in speech he doesn’t like.
Related, the letter also would require Columbia to adopt a definition of antisemitism that conforms to one from an executive order Trump issued in his first term. That definition has come under scrutiny for being used to label any criticism of Israel as antisemitic. Adopting that definition would allow for any pro-Palestinian speech on campus to be deemed antisemitic and suppressed.
Columbia’s Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department would be placed under academic receivership for at least five years. There’s no explanation as to why, but it’s likely because the department faculty members spoke out about Israel’s aggression. It’s rare to put a department in academic receivership, which is usually reserved for when internal tensions among faculty reach a point where the department is not functioning. It’s an internal issue, not something the government can demand.
Finally, Columbia would have to adopt a plan for admissions reform. This is nothing but the tired GOP assertion that schools continue to engage in affirmative action in admissions despite that being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The administration’s letter to Columbia provides no evidence that the school is doing affirmative action on the down low. The school already has a race-neutral admissions policy, which has resulted in a significant decrease in Black students, though apparently not enough for the administration.
While the letter purports to enforce Title VI, it actually, as Balkinization explains, violates Title VI standards, procedures, and remedies. Yanking funding from a school over an alleged Title VI violation is a lengthy process. The school is entitled to a hearing, and there must be findings on the record explaining the failure to comply with requirements. After that, a full written report goes to the House and Senate at least 30 days before funding is cut off. Even then, there can’t just be blanket withholding of funds. Instead, any cutoff is limited to the program where noncompliance was found.
None of this happened. Trump just decided unilaterally to take $400 million and will only restore it if Columbia agrees to demands that completely gut academic freedom and free speech. And while Columbia is the first to receive this treatment, it’s likely not the last. Especially because it appears likely that Columbia will cave to the White House’s demands, setting a disastrous precedent. In fact, the administration has now targeted the University of Pennsylvania over its policy on trans athletes, pulling back $175 million in funding.
The administration is also investigating 60 schools over Title VI violations related to antisemitism. That’s separate from the 45 schools the Department of Education is investigating over their partnership with the Ph.D Project, which works with students from underrepresented backgrounds. And let’s not forget the “Dear Colleague” letter, which gave all schools two weeks to eliminate all diversity initiatives.
None of this is permissible.
“I would like you to do us a favor, though”
Back in 1957, in Sweezy v. New Hampshire, the Supreme Court ruled that academic freedom means a school gets to determine “who may teach, what may be taught, how it should be taught, and who may be admitted to study.” This was reaffirmed a decade later in Keyishian v. Board of Regents, which said that the First Amendment “does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.”
Sweezy and Keyuishian aren’t just relevant because they offer a robust defense of academic freedom. Both involved professors who were disciplined over their suspected affiliation with communism. In both Sweezy and Keyishian, the Supreme Court overturned laws barring the employment of “subversive” people. Both decisions therefore rested on protecting disfavored speech and membership in disfavored groups. Trump’s letter functionally asks Columbia to eradicate academic freedom, to control what its professors teach and say, because Trump doesn’t like people who are pro-Palestine.
The Supreme Court has also aggressively protected student speech. In 1972’s Healy v. James, the Court held that a college could not deny official recognition to a student group allegedly associated with groups on other campuses where violence had occurred. Moreover, the Court said a group could not be banned just because the school found their speech “repugnant.” One year later, in Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri, the Court found that public universities cannot punish or expel students for indecent or offensive speech unless it disrupts campus order. In short, the letter’s demand that Columbia aggressively police what student groups can exist and what students can say regarding Israel flies in the face of well-established law.
The problem here is that Trump just doesn’t care. As long as he views federal funding as a treat he can give to those who comply and withhold from those who don’t, this will continue. It’s the same behavior behind Trump’s 2019 “perfect phone call” to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. There, he offered a specific quid pro quo: Ukraine would only receive aid if Zelenskyy would “do us a favor” and investigate Joe Biden and his family. This was impeachable behavior back in 2019, but now the GOP holds both the House and Senate and is eagerly ceding all of Congress’s power to Trump.
Here, the quid pro quo is that Columbia only gets federal funding if it agrees to violate the First Amendment rights of both faculty and students and allow the administration ongoing oversight of the school. Indeed, the letter makes that clear, saying it “outlines immediate next steps that we regard as a precondition for formal negotiations regarding Columbia University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government.”
To be clear, then, the administration said it would not even enter into discussions about the withheld funds until Columbia does everything the letter asks and even then, all these wild demands are only a “precondition” to further talks. Even if Columbia completely surrenders, there’s no certainty that their funding will be restored. They’ll still be at the whim of the administration, which is free to just ratchet up the pressure and make additional demands.
There’s only one way schools can be assured they receive federal funding: agreeing to any demands Trump makes, even when those demands are unconstitutional. And with Columbia likely taking that approach, Trump is emboldened to keep going after universities. Trump is running the government on favoritism, where everything is tied to his personal approval and being in his good graces. That’s antithetical to democracy, which explicitly eliminated the idea that one would have to grovel to a king. That sort of groveling, where people have to abase themselves before him, is exactly what Trump wants. And right now, there seems to be no path forward that doesn’t involve just that.
That’s it for today
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