Alan Dershowitz
Gatestone, Apr. 1, 2025
“… there are appropriate limits to academic freedom by universities seeking federal funding.”
Many left-wing university faculty members (a redundancy if there ever was one) are rebelling against the Trump administration’s threat to cut federal funding to universities that tolerate antisemitic actions against their Jewish students. They condemned the acting president of Columbia University for accepting some of the administration’s conditions for restoring the $400 million that it threatened to cut, and she was forced to resign.
The faculty members are making the absolutist claim that it is always a denial of academic freedom for governments to pressure universities with a cut-off of funding. In making this broad claim, they ignore the lessons of history and the single standard of morality.
It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to hypothesize the following variation on the current situation: It’s the 1950s and 1960s in the Deep South; a formerly segregated university is allowing masked Ku Klux Klan racists to harass black students, blocking some from attending classes; buildings are occupied by Klansmen demanding a return to segregation; the university is doing nothing to protect the students, citing academic freedom and freedom of speech.
The federal government threatens to cut off federal funding unless the university protects the black students and bans the use of face masks for the purpose of concealing identity. The university reluctantly complies, out of fear of being defunded.
Liberals and civil rights advocates would applaud the threats of the federal government and the compliance by the university. Many did so in the 1950s and 1960s….SOURCE