Tag: Columbias

  • Columbia’s Katrina Armstrong Resigns Amid Trump’s Attacks

    Columbia’s Katrina Armstrong Resigns Amid Trump’s Attacks

    Katrina Armstrong took on the top position at Columbia after her predecessor, Minouche Shafik, stepped down amid backlash for her response to campus protests.

    Sirin Samman/Columbia University

    After agreeing to the Trump administration’s sweeping demands and then appearing to backtrack to faculty, Columbia’s interim president stepped down Friday night—a move that federal officials praised, though it may add to the upheaval at the Ivy League institution that’s facing criticism on multiple fronts, from the federal government to faculty to students.

    Katrina Armstrong, who has served as the interim president since last August, is returning to her previous post leading the institution’s Irving Medical Center, according to the Friday announcement.

    In a brief statement, she said it had been a “singular honor to lead Columbia University in this important and challenging time … But my heart is with science, and my passion is with healing. That is where I can best serve this University and our community moving forward.” Claire Shipman, a former broadcast journalist and a co-chair of Columbia’s Board of Trustees, will take over as acting president while the university begins a nationwide search for a permanent leader.

    The leadership shake-up comes after weeks of turmoil at Columbia as the Trump administration has waged war against the Ivy League institution, stripping it of $400 million in federal contracts for what it calls Columbia’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment” against Jewish students on campus. Trump’s antisemitism task force, which was formed by executive order in early February, then demanded the university implement a number of sweeping reforms, including restructuring its disciplinary process under the Office of the President, expanding the authority of its campus security force and placing its Middle East, South Asian and African Studies department into receivership.

    The university announced a week ago that it would comply with the demands, to the frustration of critics who argued that the demands may be unlawful and that giving in to them undermines academic freedom and free speech. On CNN, Education Secretary Linda McMahon praised Armstrong, saying she had had productive conversations with the then-interim president and that Columbia was “on the right track” to having its funding restored.

    But according to a transcript of a virtual meeting between Armstrong and faculty members obtained by Bari Weiss’s news outlet, The Free Press, Armstrong told faculty members that many of the changes the university had promised the antisemitism task force would not come to pass. She said there would be “no change” to masking and admissions policies, that the MESAAS department wouldn’t be placed into a receivership, and that the disciplinary process would not move under the Office of the President.

    Armstrong seemingly denied those claims in a statement Tuesday, writing, “Let there be no confusion: I commit to seeing these changes implemented, with the full support of Columbia’s senior leadership team and the Board of Trustees … Any suggestion that these measures are illusory, or lack my personal support, is unequivocally false.”

    Her sudden resignation was met with enthusiasm from the federal antisemitism task force, which appeared to imply in a statement released Friday night that her leadership would have impeded the task force’s ability to move toward a resolution with Columbia.

    “The action taken by Columbia’s trustees today, especially in light of this week’s concerning revelation, is an important step toward advancing negotiations as set forth in the pre-conditional understanding reached last Friday between the University and the Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism,” the statement read.

    While many faculty had strongly opposed Columbia’s choice to give in to the Trump administration’s demands, Armstrong appeared to be generally well-liked among the faculty; in a recent Inside Higher Ed article, Michael Thaddeus, vice president of the campus’s American Association of University Professors chapter, said she was one of the most open leaders he had worked with in his time at Columbia.

    Shipman, now the acting president, also praised Armstrong’s leadership in that article, calling her an “exceptional leader” who “came in to help us heal and get our campus in order” and who is skilled at working under “crisis conditions.”

    But one AAUP leader noted in an email to Inside Higher Ed that, though he was personally surprised that Armstrong stepped down, it will do little to change the AAUP’s ongoing work to oppose Trump’s crusade against higher education.

    “Katrina Armstrong’s resignation changes almost nothing,” wrote Marcel Agüeros, Columbia AAUP’s chapter secretary. “For the past two years, we have been advocating for a greater role for faculty in the decision-making processes of the university. That, and defending our university and all universities against unwanted and likely unlawful interference by the federal government, remains our North Star.”

    The AAUP chapter at Columbia last week sued the Trump administration in an effort to restore the $400 million in funding. The lawsuit argues that the funding freeze was a “coercive tactic” that’s already caused irreparable damage.

    Clare Shipman joined the Columbia board in 2013.

    Shipman will be the third leader of Columbia in nine months; Armstrong took over the role when Minouche Shafik, who had led the New York institution for a little over a year, stepped down in August. Shafik resigned after backlash from both pro-Palestinian students and faculty and Republican lawmakers for how she handled pro-Palestinian encampments at Columbia. Shipman testified before Congress with Shafik last April at a hearing about antisemitism at Columbia.

    “I assume this role with a clear understanding of the serious challenges before us and a steadfast commitment to act with urgency, integrity, and work with our faculty to advance our mission, implement needed reforms, protect our students, and uphold academic freedom and open inquiry,” Shipman said in a news release. “Columbia’s new permanent president, when that individual is selected, will conduct an appropriate review of the University’s leadership team and structure to ensure we are best positioned for the future.”

    In a statement, Rep. Tim Walberg, the Michigan Republican who chairs the House Education and the Workforce Committee, warned, “Ms. Shipman, while we wish you all good success, we will be watching closely.”



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  • Why Every American Has a Stake in Columbia’s Fate (opinion)

    Why Every American Has a Stake in Columbia’s Fate (opinion)

    March 13 was a watershed day in the annals of American higher education and the history of America’s commitment to freedom and limited government. On that day, the Trump administration issued an edict telling Columbia University, a private institution, how to function.

    The people who founded the American republic must be turning over in their graves.

    Such a bold assertion of government power would be more familiar to people in many other nations. But in the United States, this is a shocking development and a warning of what is in store, not just for higher education, but for the entire country.

    What is happening at Columbia is an initial test of the Trump administration’s ambition to curb institutional autonomy, limit and punish dissent, and make life miserable for anyone who does not toe their line. That’s why each of us, whether or not we work in higher education, has a stake in Columbia University’s fate.

    Let’s face it: Universities are what people in the Departments of Defense or Homeland Security might call “soft targets.” Soft targets are easily accessible, relatively unprotected and therefore vulnerable to attack.

    A concerted, decades-long campaign against higher education by conservative critics, combined with excesses in universities’ quests to make themselves more inclusive and just, have eroded public support for and trust in America’s colleges and universities, which are now at historic lows.

    Public disdain for private, prestigious institutions like Columbia is high and growing. Critics call them snobbish, arrogant and out of touch.

    Some have even laid the blame for the rise of the MAGA movement on their doorstep.

    Like the successful, decades-long right-wing campaign to take over the courts in this country, which has wreaked havoc in the lives of ordinary Americans, the campaign against Columbia will, if similarly successful, prove costly well beyond that New York City campus.

    What is unfolding there is a testing ground for efforts in other sectors of American life.

    Acting in a high-handed and arbitrary manner in its dealings with Columbia paves the way for the government to carry out similar abuses of power elsewhere. Attacking academic freedom is a stalking horse for attacking freedom of speech and other freedoms.

    It is important to recall that Trump’s campaign against Columbia didn’t start on March 13. It began earlier with the cancellation of $400 million in federal grants and contracts and the move by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest and detain Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and recent graduate who helped lead pro-Palestinian protests on campus.

    But the March 13 letter took it to new levels.

    The first thing to note about that letter was that it came from officials in the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services and the General Services Administration. They joined not only in asserting their right to intervene at Columbia under Titles VI and VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act but to remind the university of the Trump administration’s power to cripple it financially.

    Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance. Title VII makes it unlawful for employers to discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

    Since the act’s passage, it has been clear that alleged violators of Title VI must be afforded due process before federal funds can be withheld. That guarantees fairness and impartiality in investigations and ensures that enforcement actions will not be precipitous.

    The March 13 letter, with its demand for “immediate next steps that we regard as a precondition for formal negotiations regarding Columbia University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government,” is a chilling reminder of what happens when a government seeks to wield its formidable power without respecting the due process rights of those it targets.

    And if it gets away with practicing what one commentator calls “regulation by intimidation” at Columbia, the administration will be emboldened to do more of the same, and not just in higher education.

    The March 13 letter touches on matters colleges and universities routinely determine for themselves. For example, it demands that the university complete disciplinary proceedings against students who were involved in taking over a campus building last year and who participated in encampments in support of Palestinians. And it specifies that penalties of “expulsion or multi-year suspension” should be imposed.

    The same day it received the Trump administration’s letter, the university announced that it was expelling or suspending some students involved in the Hamilton Hall takeover and temporarily revoking the diplomas of other students who had since graduated.

    In addition, the March 13 letter directs Columbia to “Abolish the University Judicial Board (UJB) and … empower the Office of the President to suspend or expel students.”

    The intrusiveness of the letter extends to telling Columbia that it must ban the wearing of masks on campus and “formalize, adopt, and promulgate a definition of antisemitism” (it specifically cites the definition used in Trump’s Executive Order 13899). It even demands that Columbia’s Department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies be put into “academic receivership” so that its faculty can no longer make hiring and curriculum decisions.

    That is the administration’s way of forcing the university to punish the department, some of whose faculty supported the encampment movement. Receivership means someone from outside the department would be appointed to make decisions for its faculty. It is a rarely used and nuclear response to departmental dysfunction.

    If Columbia were to do what the March 13 letter asks, it would be waving the white flag of surrender to any pretense that it will respect and protect academic freedom, the most prized and essential aspect of teaching and research in higher education. That would send a powerful and chilling signal about the administration’s ability to ensure freedom means the freedom to say and do what it prescribes.

    Taken together, the provisions in the March 13 letter amount to an effort to put the entire university into a kind of receivership. Beyond the world of higher education, receivership involves a court appointing “an independent ‘receiver’ or trustee to manage all aspects of a troubled company’s business. The company’s principals remain in place, but they have little authority over the company for the duration of the receivership.”

    The March 13 letter signals that intention when it calls for the development of a plan of “long-term structural reforms that will return Columbia to its original mission of innovative research and academic excellence.”

    “Innovation” and “excellence” are the watchwords for colleges and universities, businesses, artistic enterprises and individuals seeking to lead a free life. But since the founding of the republic, this country has been guided by the belief that the government would not be in the business of saying what could count as innovative and excellent in private life.

    If Americans stay on the sidelines as the current administration tries to bring Columbia to its knees, we will not only be damaging higher education, we will also be turning the founders’ vision of the relationship between the government and the people on its head.

    Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.

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  • Navigating the Kafkaesque nightmare of Columbia’s Office of Institutional Equity

    Navigating the Kafkaesque nightmare of Columbia’s Office of Institutional Equity

    Franz Kafka’s masterpiece “The Trial” begins when Josef K discovers that “one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.”

    What follows is the story of his desperate attempt to navigate a nightmarishly opaque bureaucracy — and the bleak results. Like Josef K, Columbia students awoke one morning to find themselves at the mercy of the university’s new Office of Institutional Equity.

    In recent weeks, the OIE sent dozens of warnings to students telling them they were under investigation for alleged discriminatory harassment simply for engaging in pro-Palestinian advocacy on campus. Individual acts of protected political expression — social media posts, peaceful demonstrations, and op-eds in the student newspaper — were treated as creating a “hostile environment” for criticizing Israel, with accusations framed in expansive interpretations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

    FIRE has since heard from a number of students lost in the maze of Columbia’s cryptic dispatches and confusing accusations, and one thing is clear: the OIE has cast a late-winter chill across campus. 

    These investigations can take months or even years, and leave students in fear of what they can and cannot do or say while they await the results. 

    Take the two Columbia seniors who were notified just months before graduation that they were under investigation and subject to expulsion for allegedly writing a student newspaper article signed by a consortium of pro-Palestinian student groups urging divestment from Israel. One student described the situation as “dystopian” and said she is now reluctant to speak out on the issue again. Even worse, the two students were targeted not because there was any evidence they’d actually authored the article, much less created a hostile environment by doing so, but merely because of their involvement with the pro-Palestinian student group consortium.

    Another student contacted FIRE to report that they were afraid to return to campus because they feared the administration would retaliate against them for their previous advocacy with Students for Justice in Palestine. 

    Moreover, Columbia made national headlines this week when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained former student Mahmoud Khalil, who previously tried to fight the OIE. Though he had already successfully appealed the university’s disciplinary charges against him, federal agents showed up on his doorstep and hauled him off to an ICE detention center based on accusations that he led campus protest activities aligned with Hamas. 

    Trump administration’s reasons for detaining Mahmoud Khalil threaten free speech

    News

    The government arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil for deportation, and its explanation for doing so threatens the free speech of millions of people.


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    Khalil reported that just before he was due to graduate this past December, the OIE buried him in allegations relating to social media posts with which he was uninvolved. Furthermore, when he stood up for himself and refused to sign a nondisclosure agreement, the university put a hold on his transcript and threatened to block his graduation — until he hired counsel, and the OIE seemed to temporarily back off. The timing of the ICE raid and the OIE’s investigation into Khalil leaves students and faculty with more questions than answers, especially as he has still not yet been criminally charged for anything and is facing deportation.

    While Columbia’s OIE is charged with addressing claims of unlawful discrimination and harassment, it cannot do so by employing an overly broad definition of harassment that stretches the meaning beyond recognition. Yet the OIE has done exactly that in interpreting Title VI harassment to include protected criticism of Israel, suppressing political activism under the guise of maintaining a “safe” environment by defining speech against another country as possible discriminatory harassment if “directed at or infused with discriminatory comments about persons from, or associated with, that country.” 

    Is it possible for such speech to be part of a pattern of discriminatory harassment? Yes. It’s also possible for it not to be harassment. The way Columbia is treating such speech, though, makes that impossible to discern. 

    The OIE’s needlessly murky investigatory process is also deeply troubling. Students report being left in the dark about the specifics of the charges against them, and being required to sign a nondisclosure agreement in order to see the evidence. In other words, they can’t talk to anyone about their case or get help until after it’s too late and the OIE has already decided their case and potentially sealed their fate. 

    These investigations can take months or even years, and leave students in fear of what they can and cannot do or say while they await the results. When students are forced to endure lengthy investigations that may result in serious sanctions such as suspension and expulsion, it’s obvious that the process, even if it results in a student’s favor, is the punishment. 

    The original title of “The Trial” was Der Prozess, or literally “The Process,” because the true horror Josef was forced to confront was that of a Byzantine and convoluted process custom-built to crush dissent. If nothing else, we can perhaps thank Columbia, like so many schools before it, for bringing classic literature to life.

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  • Trump administration cancels $400M of Columbia’s grants and contracts amid antisemitism probe

    Trump administration cancels $400M of Columbia’s grants and contracts amid antisemitism probe

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    Four federal agencies announced Friday they are immediately canceling $400 million of grants and contracts to Columbia University over what they described as the Ivy League institution’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” 

    The cancellation of the grants and contracts comes just four days after the Trump administration’s newly created Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced a probe into Columbia. 

    The four agencies — the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Education and U.S. General Services Administration — said more cancellations will follow. The university has over $5 billion in federal grant commitments, according to the announcement. 

    “Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding,” U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a Friday statement. “For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus. Today, we demonstrate to Columbia and other universities that we will not tolerate their appalling inaction any longer.”

    A Columbia spokesperson said Friday that officials are reviewing the announcement and plan to work with the federal government to restore the funding. 

    “We take Columbia’s legal obligations seriously and understand how serious this announcement is and are committed to combatting antisemitism and ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our students, faculty, and staff,” the spokesperson said.

    The four agencies threatened to take similar actions against other colleges. 

     “The decisive action by the DOJ, HHS, ED, and GSA to cancel Columbia’s grants and contracts serves as a notice to every school and university that receives federal dollars that this Administration will use all the tools at its disposal to protect Jewish students and end anti-Semitism on college campuses,” they said in Friday’s announcement. 

     The antisemitism task force is already poised to review several other high-profile colleges. Last week, the Justice Department said the group would visit 10 college campuses, including Columbia, where antisemitic incidents have been reported since October 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel. 

     The other campuses are George Washington University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Northwestern University, University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, Berkeley, University of Minnesota and University of Southern California. 

    Even more recently, the task force on Wednesday announced a probe into the University of California over allegations that it discriminated against employees by not doing enough to prevent an antisemitic and hostile work environment. 

    Groups raise concerns over free speech

    Columbia has drawn Republican policymakers’ ire for months over the way university administrators have responded to pro-Palestinian protests on its campus. Protesters erected an encampment on the university’s lawn in April, sparking similar demonstrations nationwide that led to hundreds of student arrests. 

    This past fall, many colleges tightened their protest rules to deter encampments. Since then, Columbia and other high-profile institutions largely haven’t seen the same long-running encampments that rocked their campuses last spring, though protesters have held sit-ins and other demonstrations. 

    Columbia itself has made several policy changes — including some that have attracted criticism from free speech scholars. 

    The university’s Office of Institutional Equity — a newly created committee — has recently been bringing disciplinary cases against students who have criticized Israel, the Associated Press reported earlier this week. 

    “Based on how these cases have proceeded, the university now appears to be responding to governmental pressure to suppress and chill protected speech,” Amy Greer, an attorney advising the students under review, told AP. 

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