The Trump administration has delivered an extraordinary ultimatum to Columbia University, threatening to permanently end federal funding to the school unless it cedes control of an international studies department and implements sweeping changes to other policies.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26861143

The Trump administration brushed aside decades of precedent when it ordered Columbia University to oust the leadership of an academic department, a demand seen as a direct attack on academic freedom and a warning of what’s to come for other colleges facing federal scrutiny.

  • thanks AV@lemmy.world
    17·
    7 hours ago

    The university said it’s reviewing the Trump administration’s letter. “We are committed at all times to advancing our mission, supporting our students, and addressing all forms of discrimination and hatred on our campus,” it said in a statement.

    Yep, it’s done. We’re already right here: “The new Nazi commissar wasted no time on the amenities. He immediately announced that Jews would be forbidden to enter university premises and would be dismissed without salary on March 15; this was something that no one had thought possible despite the Nazis’ loud antisemitism. Then he launched into a tirade of abuse, filth, and four-letter words such as had been heard rarely even in the barracks and never before in academia. . . . [He] pointed his finger at one department chairman after another and said, “You either do what I tell you or we’ll put you into a concentration camp.” There was silence when he finished; everybody waited for the distinguished biochemist-physiologist. The great liberal got up, cleared his throat, and said, “Very interesting, Mr. Commissar, and in some respects very illuminating: but one point I didn’t get too clearly. Will there be more money for research in physiology?”" https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/controlling-universities#%3A%7E%3Atext=The+new+Nazi%2Cresearch+in+physiology%3F%22

    • Zombiepirate@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      7 hours ago

      From They Thought They Were Free, the Germans 1933 - 1945

      […] "I gave them French and English literature, more so than before, although to do so was one of those vague betrayals of the ‘new spirit’; still, it had not been specifically forbidden. Of course, I always said, to protect myself (but I said it in such a way that I hoped the students would see through it), that the foreign works we read were only a reflection of German literature. So, you see, Herr Professor, a man could show some—some independence, even, so to say, secretly.” “I understand,” I said. “Many of the students—the best of them—understood what was going on in all this. It was a sort of dumb-show game that we were all playing, I with them. The worst effect, I think, was that it made them cynical, the best ones. But, then, it made the teachers cynical, too. I think the classroom in those years was one of the causes of the cynicism you see in the best young men and women in Germany today.”

      […]

      "Tell me, Herr Hildebrandt, what about [Shakespeare’s]Julius Caesar?”

      He smiled very, very wryly. “Julius Caesar? No … no.”

      “Was it forbidden?”

      “Not that I remember. But that is not the way it was. Everything was not regulated specifically, ever. It was not like that at all. Choices were left to the teacher’s discretion, within the ‘German spirit.’ That was all that was necessary; the teacher had only to be discreet. If he himself wondered at all whether anyone would object to a given book, he would be wise not to use it. This was a much more powerful form of intimidation, you see, than any fixed list of acceptable or unacceptable writings. The way it was done was, from the point of view of the regime, remarkably clever and effective. The teacher had to make the choices and risk the consequences; this made him all the more cautious.”