Negotiation or capitulation?: How Columbia got off Trump's hot seat

Straits Times

5 hours ago

Columbia's approach stood in stark contrast to the tack taken by Harvard University, which turned to the courts to fight Mr Trump. PHOTO: REUTERS
NEW YORK - It was a turning point in the Trump administration's efforts to bring elite academia to heel. The White House had made an example of Columbia University by axing US$400 million (S$512 million) in federal grants, and now it was saying that the Ivy League school would have to acquiesce to a bill of demands if it were to have any hope of recouping the money.
One of the dictates handed down in March involved the university's Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department. The White House, which said Columbia had failed to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment, wanted the school to strip the department of its autonomy, a rare administrative step that was viewed as a serious blow to academic freedom. The university, which was the first high-profile target in the administration's war on higher education, had a different idea.
Quietly, university officials were trying to navigate a narrower path, appeasing President Donald Trump by cracking down on protests and making changes to student discipline. But the measures adopted by Columbia were not as drastic as what the White House had wanted. The university's leaders sought to shape Mr Trump's demands through negotiation instead of fighting them through litigation, and to do that while maintaining core ideals that had defined the university for nearly 275 years.
Columbia's approach stood in stark contrast to the tack taken by Harvard University, which turned to the courts to fight Mr Trump.
While many in the academic world have accused Columbia of caving to Mr Trump's pressure, the university's strategy – so far – has limited the bleeding, even as Harvard has absorbed cut after cut, stretching into billions of dollars. While opponents of the Trump administration's crackdown have lauded Harvard for standing its ground, it is far from clear which school will be better off in the long run. And the question remains whether Columbia's path can offer a road map for other universities attacked by the president.
'Following the law and attempting to resolve a complaint is not capitulation,' Ms Claire Shipman, Columbia's acting president, said last week in a statement. 'We must maintain our autonomy and independent governance.'
The university's actions have taken it out of the 'hot seat,' Mr Trump said in an Oval Office news conference in late May. Columbia, he said, had been 'very, very bad, very anti-Semitic and lots of other things, but they are working with us on finding a solution'.
The demands imposed on the Middle Eastern studies department were among nine conditions proposed by the Trump administration to consider restoring the severed funding. The White House also insisted that Columbia give its campus security department the authority to make arrests and that it ban masks at campus protests.
The school largely acceded to the demands. But it tweaked the wording and the content of each request, agreeing to changes that university leaders felt would allow them to exercise greater oversight over academics and to strengthen student discipline, aims it shared with the Trump administration.
The Middle Eastern studies department presents a textured example of how Columbia sought to handle the federal government's directives while pushing to maintain academic freedom.
But it would not be easy. And there is no guarantee that the approach will succeed.
A history of controversy
This was not the first time Columbia's Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department had landed in an uncomfortable spotlight.
It is a small humanities department, focusing on the intellectual history of its regions, with only six tenured professors specialising in the Middle East. Many courses on the Middle East at Columbia are in other departments. But despite its size, the department has become shorthand for critics who say that Middle East studies at Columbia are dominated by an anti-Israel bent. This has been the case at least since 2004, when a documentary film, 'Columbia Unbecoming,' accused three professors in the department, which had a different name at the time, of being anti-Semitic and of intimidating pro-Israel students.
A university inquiry largely exonerated the professors, though it found some of the students' complaints about intimidating remarks credible. All of the professors continued teaching, though one has since retired. In the following years, the department was broadened, with additional professors hired, particularly in South Asian and African studies.
Still, it remains true that some of the department's professors are fierce critics of Israel and Zionism, and none of its tenured professors who specialise in the Middle East are supporters of Israeli policies toward Palestinians.
The Israeli-born chair of the department, Ms Gil Hochberg, along with other professors – including Mr Mahmood Mamdani, the father of the New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani – are among thousands across academia who have signed statements supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Backers of BDS call it a non-violent way to pressure Israel over its treatment of Palestinians. Its opponents call it anti-Semitic.
Ms Hochberg rejected any suggestion that she or her department is anti-Semitic. 'The only thing I promote is the right for all people to have rights,' she said.
The lack of pro-Israel voices in the department has upset critics seeking ideological balance on the issue. They accuse the department of fostering views that single out the Jewish state.
The tensions came to a head after the Oct 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, when one of the department's professors, Mr Joseph Massad, wrote an article for the Electronic Intifada, an online publication, that described the attack on Israel as the work of an 'innovative Palestinian resistance'. He also used the word 'awesome' to refer to scenes from the attack, and referred to Israelis who fled their homes in terror as 'colonists' abandoning their 'settlements'.
In response, nearly 80,000 people signed a petition calling for him to be removed from the faculty. Columbia's president at the time, Ms Minouche Shafik, was questioned before Congress in 2024 about why Mr Massad was still teaching and whether he would be disciplined. Ms Shafik responded that she had been 'appalled' by Mr Massad's article and said that he had been 'spoken to'.
About 200 people, many of them medical school faculty, signed another petition in February that called for the department to remove Mr Massad from the classroom and to 'hire at least three tenured pro-Israel faculty to allow ideological diversity and to combat indoctrination against the West and Israel'. The recommendations of that petition closely mirrored the demand letter sent by the Trump administration the next month. The White House wanted the department placed under receivership for at least five years.
In most cases, receivership, which effectively wrests control away from the academic leaders of a department, is imposed internally when a department descends into extended periods of strife and dysfunction. But this time, it was the White House calling for the imposition of receivership.
Columbia leaders knew they would have to do something. But how could they mollify Mr Trump while protecting academic freedom?
Settling on a strategy
When Columbia received the demand from the Trump administration to place the Middle Eastern studies department into receivership, the university modified it.
Instead of concentrating solely on that department, it agreed to review all programs at Columbia focused on the Middle East to ensure quality and better collaboration among them. That included its Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, which expressly supports the right of the state of Israel to exist, and the Center for Palestine Studies. It also pledged to hire several faculty members for joint positions in the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and other departments.
Ms Hochberg said in her first interview since the Trump administration leveled its demands that she believed Columbia had made a commitment not to interfere with the department's autonomy.
'There is false news that MESAAS is under receivership and that MESAAS is under review' alone, she said, using an acronym for the department. 'We are part of a broader review that is a legitimate review,' she added, 'that any other university would do' in the same situation.
Columbia has appointed a new vice provost, Mr Miguel Urquiola, an economist, to review the work of the department and the university's other Middle East programs, including those in Tel Aviv, Israel, and in Amman, Jordan. But Mr Urquiola, who is working with a committee, does not have operational control of the department and will only be making recommendations, unlike in a receivership. In the future, Mr Urquiola will also review programs dealing with other parts of the world.
Mr Timothy Mitchell, a British-born Columbia professor who studies how colonialism shapes the modern Middle East, said that despite the pressure of the review, he was confident that his scholarly work and that of his colleagues would go on.
'There is a basic principle of academic freedom that is under attack, but I still believe in it,' he said. 'And I think everybody in this department believes in it. And I think the students we teach believe in it.'
For now, the department continues its work. Mr Massad was not disciplined and is still teaching the course that he has taught for more than two decades, 'Palestinian and Israeli Politics and Societies.' Ms Hochberg said that despite a suggestion from Ms Shafik's office, she had decided not to postpone or limit enrollment in the course, because she had no evidence that there were problems with it.
In her five years as department chair, she said, 'I have not received a single complaint from a single student about any class in my department,' including Mr Massad's.
She noted that all courses at Columbia, including his, had passed a curriculum review conducted by the university, and that Mr Massad was also protected by tenure and norms of academic freedom. 'I will always support academic freedom, but I also support professionalism, and I believe there are ways to maintain both,' Ms Hochberg added.
For his part, Mr Massad vehemently denied any claim that he supported terrorism or had harassed Jewish students, he wrote in a letter to Ms Shafik after her congressional testimony, which he provided to The New York Times. He also provided the Times with Columbia's official student evaluation reports from his courses in the spring of 2024 and 2025, which overall rated the course a 4.8 out of 5.
While the Trump administration has not yet returned the US$400 million, Columbia does not plan to file a lawsuit as long as talks are continuing, Mr Keith Goggin, one of Columbia's 21 trustees, said at a university senate town hall this spring.
'If we can do something that we were going to do anyway without having to litigate, and restore the things that we care about here, that is, in our opinion – or in my opinion – our best path,' he said. 'And we might not be able to follow that path, but that is where we are today.' NYTIMES
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