Columbia University: Principles Principally Absent

As of the time of writing, Columbia University administrators have just agreed to a set of substantial demands foisted upon them by the Trump administration aimed at purportedly alleviating "a systemic failure to protect students and faculty members from antisemitic violence and harassment” as a measure to maintain their federal funding and grants. Setting aside for the moment the heartfelt concerns about the proliferation of campus antisemitism coming from the party of Jewish space lasers, we must first examine the concessions that this administration has extracted from one of the top universities in the country, seemingly for the treasonous crimes of undesired speech occurring on its campus.

Before we get into that, however, we must address the flashpoint. On March 8, Mahmoud Khalil, a former student at Columbia who led campus protests in support of Palestine, was detained by plainclothes DHS officials at his New York City home. They claimed his student visa had been revoked by the State Department, and when presented with Khalil’s green card, they claimed that had been revoked too. A document alleged to be a warrant for such was briefly flashed on one agent’s cell phone in response to Khalil’s attorney, who was frantically demanding to see it via speakerphone. Ignoring these pleas, the agents brought him into custody and quickly flew him down to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana. No charges had been filed — Khalil was not even accused of a crime. He was simply extralegally remanded to federal custody for…undesirable speech?

“It remains unclear what exactly Mr. Khalil is believed to have done.” — The New York Times

At the time of writing, the US government has still not filed any charges. Secretary of State Marco Rubio cited an obscure legal provision of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act that reads: “[Any] alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.” This is apparently the legal basis cited by Trump administration officials for the government’s actions. Setting aside for the moment the extraordinarily shaky ground on which this very extreme response has been based, the First Amendment implications of this case alone are nightmarish. Khalil, a lawful permanent resident, can be taken into custody in New York City, the biggest city in the country, remanded to Louisiana for unknown reasons, and threatened with deportation to his native Palestine before being charged with or even accused of a crime. This is far beyond First Amendment concerns now — we’re trampling right over amendments five through eight.

If the Trump administration believes they can get away with this, they can come for you too, reader. Remember that.

The last thing we have to mention before discussing this controversy more intimately is the Trump administration’s threat towards Columbia: accede to a list of numerous demands put forth by the most honest and good-faith actors this administration has, or have nearly $400 million in federal funds pulled back or revoked. These are the stakes of today’s discussion — an ideological and practical quandary one would expect to find in a philosophy class at the school itself. What comes first? Academic principles, honesty, and freedom of ideas, or maintaining state funding and grants? Which is more important, the student body, or the board?

Campus Gestapo and "Combating Antisemitism"

The first and in my view easily the most alarming concession was the university agreeing to hire an internal security force of 36 "special officers" who will be empowered to remove people from campus or even make arrests. This is a ludicrous thing for any university to agree to, much less one with foreign students making up nearly half of their undergraduate student body. A campus-based secret police force that is empowered to arrest people or evict them from campus should immediately read as the current administration leveraging the powers of the state, often in extraconstitutional ways, to chill speech on college campuses, long believed to be hotbeds of political opposition by the organized right across the globe. Beyond that, there is credible reporting that alleges that Khalil was appealing to Columbia for protection from harassment — and possibly ICE agents — merely a single day before his detainment by the DHS. In an email obtained by Zeteo to Columbia interim president Katrina Armstrong, Khalil writes:

“Since yesterday, I have been subjected to a vicious, coordinated, and dehumanizing doxxing campaign led by Columbia affiliates Shai Davidai and David Lederer who, among others, have labeled me a security threat and called for my deportation. Their attacks have incited a wave of hate, including calls for my deportation and death threats. I have outlined the wider context below, yet Columbia has not provided any meaningful support or resources in response to this escalating threat…I haven’t been able to sleep, fearing that ICE or a dangerous individual might come to my home. I urgently need legal support, and I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protections to prevent further harm.”

SCOOP: Emails Show Mahmoud Khalil Asked Columbia for Protection a Day Before He Was Detained

“I haven’t been able to sleep, fearing that ICE or a dangerous individual might come to my home. I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protections to prevent further harm.”

ZeteoPrem Thakker

The piece linked above discusses these emails in more detail. My sincere thanks to Zeteo for their excellent reporting on this issue, without which we'd be lacking crucial information about this situation.

For the record, I'd like to include some of the tweets from Lederer and Davidai, as I feel they're important to our story. Khalil wasn't exaggerating about the harassment he was facing. Shai Davidai is an assistant professor at Columbia's business school with a considerable online following, and a polarizing presence on campus to say the least. Davidai has an affinity for the "gotcha" clips, following student protestors around with a camera shouting loaded questions at them, and posting contact info online of students and professors he deems insufficiently laudatory of Israel's efforts. He'd also been banned from campus in October after an incident where he followed the school's chief operating officer around for several minutes with a camera while yelling questions at him about allowing student protests. at people, which at times includes students. On top of all of that, an entirely separate group called Shirion Collective, claiming to "expose antisemitism," sent the DHS a legal memorandum advising the "detention and removal" of Mr. Khalil, seemingly having seen Lederer's tweet. Suffice to say these are not honest, good-faith actors seeking some form of government intervention.

Now, place the rest of Columbia's ~20,000 foreign students in Khalil's position – they're unsure what speech is sanctioned and what will get them "disappeared." Beyond that, confirming their fears that not only was their school not going to protect them, but that they were coordinating with police would make it extremely difficult for these students to speak out about anything. This is, of course, the intended effect of the administration's policy – chilling any further undesirable speech while making a flashy show of cruelty to perceived offenders.

Put Your Name On Your Work

Columbia outlined its plan to the administration in a four-page unsigned letter titled "Advancing Our Work to Combat Discrimination, Harassment, and Antisemitism at Columbia," which I've attached below.

Columbia will also agree to several other demands outlined below:

• Columbia will adopt a formal definition of antisemitism, which, in its current form, will include "certain double standards applied to Israel"
• Wearing face masks on campus, unless for religious or medical reasons, is no longer permitted
• Columbia will appoint a senior vice provost to oversee the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department, an extremely contentious move that mirrors the Trump administration's demand for academic receivership

Taken together, these demands represent a total capitulation of Columbia's leadership. Nearly all the Trump administration's demands were quickly realized, and, shockingly, the Trump administration has not yet restored the frozen funding. In the word of the New York Times' Troy Closson, "It was not immediately clear whether the university’s actions would be sufficient to reclaim the $400 million in federal money." This sets the precedent of appeasement; the Trump administration has now proven that this vector of attacking institutions perceived as "woke" or "liberal" is effective, and could very well use it to extract concessions from other organizations that so much as go near federal funding. Already, in the time it has taken to finish writing this post, they've gone after several large law firms and extracted nine-figure commitments for pro bono work on behalf of the administration – they're not stopping! Why would they?

I think the most important takeaway you all should have from this piece, aside from setting off your First Amendment fire alarms, should be that very few of the concerns that Congresspeople had about "antisemitism on college campuses" were claiming such in good faith – most were cynically exploiting this issue to damage higher education writ large for ideological reasons. There were a great many in the media who credulously carried water for dishonest actors like Elise Stefanik to advance their political careers through this, and that has made this topic quite difficult to address. I've yet to encounter any story citing legitimate, morally serious claims of campus antisemitism, and the more who try, the more I'm disappointed. I will also raise the audience the (numerous) cases over the past 5-6 years of various right-wing provocateurs finding their way onto a college campus and making a scene about something ideological. (Steven Crowder? Matt Walsh? Ben Shapiro?) These people, largely trying to farm outrage clips for their social media, seem to have been given a much longer leash by both campus administrators and politicians than actual students protesting a major global conflict, which is a notable detail. What exactly was easier to condone about non-students yelling provocative statements at passerby than this?

It's worth putting this all in perspective. I am not here to litigate the underlying multigenerational ethnic conflict between Israelis and Palestinians; I would not – cannot – do it justice. What I am here to say is that we as critical thinkers, as Americans, cannot condone any infringement upon free expression of ideas like this. One can spend their entire life quibbling about protest methods and effectiveness, but that does not change the reality of events. The point of modern peaceful protest is to draw attention to an issue that we believe deserves more; we cannot allow ourselves to be bogged down in unserious arguments over decorum. I will remind the reader that among the median voters of the time, major civil rights demonstrations – the March on Washington, the Selma bus boycott – they weren't exactly popular! Rights are inalienable by their very nature, they are not selective. The worst criminals in the country still deserve a fair and speedy trial – that's sort of why we have amendments seven through ten. The America I believe in is one that lives and dies by freedoms; freedom of expression, faith, commerce, opportunity, and most of all, freedom from this sort of political persecution.

There's much more to be said here, more than I can fit in one post. I'll be returning to this topic at some point, as there seems to be a never-ending stream of Rubicon-crossing moments. As always, be sure to stay subscribed to get my next newsletter.

Thank you for reading!