The administration’s actions are about protecting free speech, a duty Columbia has abdicated.
For the past year, intermittent anarchy has reigned at Columbia University. Anti-Israel protesters—students, faculty, staff, and outsiders—have occupied buildings, disrupted classes, assaulted staff, and defaced property. Law-abiding Columbians have been forced off campus, while Jewish students have been threatened on campus and assaulted in the surrounding neighborhood.
Against this backdrop, it is hard to take seriously those who see the Trump administration’s recent actions at Columbia—including the stripping of $400 million in federal funds and its ongoing attempt to deport activist and erstwhile student Mahmoud Khalil—and conclude that it’s the White House that is threatening free speech.
Rather, it is Columbia that has been denying many of its students their academic freedom, and coddling those who violate others’ rights. The Trump administration’s actions—which are prudent, careful, and look to be on solid legal ground—are simply an attempt to force Columbia to uphold the values that it professes and the law requires.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Dispatch (paywall)
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Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal
Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
