On March 7, the American Joint Task Force to Combat Anti- Semitism – which includes members from the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Education (ED), and the General Services Administration (GSA) – effectively threatens to cancel 400 million USD in federal grants to Columbia University. This decision, the task force claimed, was a result of the university ’s alleged “inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”
As a hub for student activism in America, particularly regarding pro-Palestinian resistance on campus, Columbia University has been the first of many higher education institutions in the U.S. targeted by the Trump administration. For example, on March 20, Trump announced the suspension of 175 million USD in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania for allowing transgender women to participate in women’s sports. The Trump administration has also called for an investigation into the University of California (UC) system in the wake of allegations of antisemitism. As a result of these threats, the UC system has also banned ‘diversity statements’ from their faculty hiring process amidst a federal crackdown on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, showcasing how the Trump administration’s goals will leave lasting impacts on both students and staff.
The cuts in Columbia’s federal funding mark the first of many initiatives that the U.S. government is taking in stripping private and public institutions of their autonomy, in curriculum, admissions, and hiring processes. Critically, it has also created a shift in the exercise of First Amendment rights in spaces where free thought has traditionally been welcomed. As the number of campus protests
has exploded in the past year – with over 3,000 protests logged by Harvard University Ash Center’s
Nonviolent Action Lab – the Trump administration is adamant to control many of the country’s
leading universities. Trump has carefully crafted a route to justify restrictions on free speech, such
as by equating pro-Palestinian activism with anti-semitism, setting a dangerous precedent for
future leaders.
Amid the protests at Columbia, Trump dispatched federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) into two university residences, as revealed in an email sent out to students from the Interim President Katrina Armstrong on March 13. These agents, alongside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, had been assigned with arrest warrants, one for Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil, his detention being met with massive outcry across the country. Following his arrest, Trump vowed to deport pro-Palestinian activists, claiming that they support Hamas and are antisemitic. Despite the extreme circumstances that students across the country have been met with, protestors have refused to back down.
Universities across Canada and the U.S. have already been experiencing massive budget cuts, curtailing many PhD programs and even rescinding acceptances, as reported at the University of Pennsylvania. Now, with the threat of additional cuts looming over American universities, higher
education has become an instrument to Trump’s agenda to lead the country down a path of anti-intellectualism. As demonstrated earlier by the UC system’s banning of ‘diversity statements’ (despite California being a forerunner of readjusting to restore diversity in its admissions after the banning of affirmative action in the 90s), universities have preemptively changed their policies to align with the Trump administration’s values in order to protect themselves against retaliation. The many arguments that Trump has used to silence or control universities, such as punishing antisemitism due to anti-war protests, have been used as scapegoats for their broader mission of destroying “wokeness” in the U.S. In 2021, J.D. Vance declared that “the universities are the enemy.” This was not just an empty statement, as indicated by Trump’s recent executive order to shut down the Department of Education. Along the campaign trail, Trump and the Republican Party argued that the department should be under state control and that it has become dominated by liberal ideology. This anti-woke agenda is a symptom of the accelerating democratic backslide in the U.S., as well what many scholars deem to be an element of a developing fascist regime. In its self-declared war against “woke” culture, the Trump administration has actually been fighting against political opposition, resistant strains of thought, and values that do not directly align with its own.
On Friday, Columbia announced that it would concede to the requests from the federal government, which includes placing the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department under academic receivership, making protest rules on campus more strict, and increasing law enforcement authority. In the coming year, more and more universities will have to face a decision to either retain their institutional independence or to make concessions to the Trump administration and fundamentally restructure university policy.
Columbia University protests during its first encampment in April 2024.