Noah Rothman
National Review, Mar. 25, 2025
“Whether because of institutional capture or its lethargic leadership, it had become unavoidably clear that Columbia could not restore a climate of free inquiry to its campus on its own. So, the Trump administration gave it a push.”
By April of last year, it was clear that Columbia University needed help.
The cultural tide in America had turned against the permissive atmosphere on America’s campuses, which tolerated the roving bands of menacing, occasionally violent anti-Israel mobs that had transformed their institutions from centers of learning to gauntlets. That month, Columbia President Nemat Shafik abandoned the defiant posture that typified the stance Ivy League presidents had previously assumed. She confessed that conditions on her campus were “not acceptable” and would not be “tolerated,” and that the treatment to which Jewish students had been subjected violated her university’s code of conduct.
Democrats, including state Attorney General Letitia James, joined Republicans in calling on the institution to more vigorously protect students against harassment. Two weeks later, she invited New York City police onto her campus to roll up the bivouac populated by radical students and outsiders alike. The operation was violently resisted. One hundred arrests were made, graduation was canceled, and the academic year ended on a tense note.
The attempt to restore sanity did not take. In August, Shafik resigned. That fall, the encampments returned, which should have been expected. As GOP-led House report found, Columbia’s refusal to discipline violent demonstrators and its failed attempt to appease its radicals all but invited the disruptions that plagued the institution. By January, it was clear that the problem persisted in more or less its original form. Keffiyeh-clad students were still invading classrooms. They were still distributing inflammatory literature calling to “burn Zionism to the ground” and featuring images of the October 7 terrorists meant to terrorize their targets. Some demonstrators even bragged that they had “shut down business-as-usual” on their campus by cementing sewage lines. …SOURCE