Douglas Belkin, Tarini Parti and Alyssa Lukpet
WSJ, Mar. 10, 2025
“Citing national security does not give the Trump administration a blank check to violate Americans’ First Amendment rights.”
Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil was the first to be arrested by Homeland Security agents for his participation in pro-Palestininan demonstrations on campus, but President Trump vowed he wouldn’t be the last.
“We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it,” Trump said in a social-media post Monday as the crackdown spread.
The Education Department said Monday it sent letters to 60 schools warning of potential enforcement actions if they don’t fulfill obligations to protect Jewish students. The list included Ivy League, state and small liberal-arts colleges.
Columbia has become ground zero in the Trump administration’s campaign to dismantle what it calls extreme leftist ideology on U.S. campuses. Encampments that sprung up on the school’s lawn last year sparked similar protests nationwide and set the stage for a series of graduation-ceremony cancellations. Trump has criticized the university for its alleged failure to protect Jewish students. Federal agencies said Friday they would cancel roughly $400 million of Columbia’s grants and contracts.
Columbia Interim President Katrina Armstrong said the Ivy League institution is focused on addressing “the multitude of challenges ahead of us” and remains “deeply committed to freedom of speech.” In a letter to the university community Monday, she said the university is working with federal agencies to re-establish federal funding.
Khalil played a prominent role in organizing protests last year against the war in Gaza, often addressing crowds on Columbia’s lawn and giving interviews to national media. He was also inside the Barnard library during an occupation last week to protest the expulsion of two students for earlier demonstrations, according to photographs posted on social media. ….SOURCE