What the assault on Columbia University is really about

Al Jazeera

23-03-2025

The Trump administration's war on campus dissent has reached a new, disturbing milestone. On March 8, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers detained Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate and prominent organiser of the Gaza solidarity encampment on campus. Days later, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it had revoked the visa of Ranjani Srinivasan, a Columbia graduate student, and arrested Leqaa Kordia, a former Columbia student.
In parallel, President Donald Trump's administration cancelled federal grants and contracts worth $400m that the university was receiving and demanded that it place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under 'academic receivership for a minimum of five years'.
Columbia, for its part, announced it was expelling students and revoking the degrees of participants in the April 2024 occupation of one of its buildings, Hamilton Hall, renamed by the protesters Hind's Hall, after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl killed by the Israeli army in Gaza.
The university ultimately capitulated to the Trump administration's sweeping demands — banning masks, overhauling its disciplinary procedures, appointing an approved academic overseer, and expanding police powers on campus — despite widespread condemnation from scholars and legal experts.
This unprecedented assault on freedom of expression and dissent on campus represents a new phase in the weaponisation of anti-Semitism accusations. What started as speech restrictions and campus disciplinary actions has now evolved into arrests, deportations, surveillance and outright interference in university affairs.
The ultimate endgame is not just suppressing pro-Palestinian activism but taking ideological control over higher education in the United States. The assault on universities is part of a broader right-wing effort to reshape academia into an ideological stronghold of conservative nationalism.
Trump made that clear during his campaign, saying that he aims 'to reclaim our once great educational institutions from the radical left and Marxist maniacs'. The targeting of Palestinian activism is merely an excuse — the lead chariot in the procession to dismantle academic independence and enforce ideological conformity.
It is important to remember that the assault on US higher education, which Trump is now escalating, began years ago with pressure on universities in the US, as well as in Canada and Europe, to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.
IHRA introduced a working definition of anti-Semitism in 2016, providing examples of it – two of which involved criticism of Israel. Initially, the definition was intended to assist law enforcement and provide a research tool to track anti-Semitic incidents. But over time, persistent lobbying efforts led to its adoption by various governments and institutions.
The pressure on universities to apply the definition in their internal affairs came as attitudes towards Israel started shifting, especially among young Americans. This change threatened the longstanding bipartisan consensus in the US on unconditional support for Israel, making it urgent for pro-Israel advocates to establish new lines of defence.
On campuses, the IHRA definition started being used primarily for smear tactics, leading to harassment, doxxing, and reputational damage for those who criticised Israel. Professors, students, and activists were labelled as anti-Semitic and subjected to campaigns designed to intimidate them into silence.
But after the October 7 attacks, the attack on pro-Palestinian views and activism escalated dramatically: professors were fired, student groups were banned, speakers were disinvited, and now, even arrests and deportations are taking place.
The unprecedented campaign of suppression has even ensnared progressive Jewish communities. Universities have started suspending organisations like Jewish Voice for Peace and targeting Jewish academics critical of Israel.
For example, Maura Finkelstein, a Jewish tenured professor, was fired from Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania after being accused of anti-Semitism for supporting Palestinian liberation. 'If I can be fired for criticizing a foreign government, calling attention to a genocide, and using my academic expertise as an anthropologist to highlight how power operates, then no one is safe,' she said in a statement after her dismissal last year.
The campaign to silence Jewish voices critical of Israel led University of Haifa scholars Itamar Mann and Lihi Yona to warn, in an article for UCLA Law Review, that legal frameworks like the IHRA definition are being used to 'discipline Jewish identity' and stifle pro-Palestinian activism. Their analysis highlights how the IHRA definition narrows the scope of Jewish identity, punishing Jewish individuals who reject Zionism or criticise Israel. As a result, Jews who align with anti-Zionist traditions — including many religious and progressive voices — find themselves marginalised within their own communities.
This suppression underscores a fundamental reality: the weaponisation of the IHRA definition and accusations of anti-Semitism wielded by politicians and institutions have nothing to do with protecting Jewish people. Rather, they serve as a pretext to advance a political agenda aimed at reshaping higher education into an ideological stronghold that censors inconvenient political perspectives.
And this is not solely a Republican effort. Many Democrats have embraced these authoritarian measures as well. Senator John Fetterman openly praised Trump's funding cuts to Columbia, stating, 'Columbia let anti-Semitism run amok to cater to lunatic fringe and paid provocateurs.'
Representatives Josh Gottheimer, Ritchie Torres and scores of others have also pushed for harsher measures against student protesters, aligning themselves with Trump's broader crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism.
Even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, while calling for the release of Mahmoud Khalil, framed the pro-Palestinian campus protests as 'anti-Semitic', reinforcing the false narrative that equates Palestinian activism with bigotry.
Democrats' complicity in this assault on academic freedom has to do not only with concerns about donors and influential interest groups, but also with their own insecurity about challenges to the establishment's authority. Many Democrats support suppressing dissent on college campuses as part of a broader strategy to maintain control over the next generation of activists and intellectuals.
This campaign against US universities reflects historical patterns of state repression. During the 1950s, McCarthyism weaponised accusations of communism to silence political opponents and purge left-wing thinkers from universities, Hollywood, and government institutions. The era saw blacklists, loyalty oaths, mass firings, and even imprisonment of those suspected of left-wing affiliations.
Despite its intensity, McCarthyism ultimately failed to erase left-wing ideas from public spaces or universities. Over time, the excesses of the Red Scare were exposed, and its main proponents were discredited.
Similarly, today's repression of pro-Palestinian activism and broader academic freedom may succeed in intimidating academic institutions and individuals in the short term, but it will fail to erase ideas rooted in justice and liberation. How far this new McCarthyism will go will depend on Americans' will to fight back and protect their freedoms.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.