4mo ago

Trump demands unprecedented control at Columbia, alarming scholars and speech groups

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.

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4mo ago

apnews.com /article/columbia-university-mahmoud-khalil-ice-arrests-1921e26f6b5a8585ad5cbda790846324

38 comments

Great job by leadership who thought that not standing up for student protestors would somehow protect them from reprisals.
- For being literally Academia, you would think they would be more familiar with history of all fucking things.
  Anyone with a brain knows that a bully you try to please will just demand more. Trump's hate cannot be satiated.
  
  Because most of those institutions aren't about teaching any more, it's about soliciting donations from wealthy people, building fancy buildings named after billionaires, and managing all that money.
  BDS threatens all of that.
  
  I mean... It kinda shows how bullshit and soulless it has become. It's like when regular Americans that aren't on the right act like our entire American culture isn't to blame for where we are today.
  
  It's usually vapid, amoral MBAs that handle the admin side that push this shit not the academics doing the actual work.
- I hope other universities are paying attention
Dr Shafiq's case was a great example of how one should (not) to deal with MAGA. She literally did everything the GOP demanded of her. Then Mike Johnson still went on to demand her resignation. She called cops on students (HUGE mistake), fueled the flames of nationwide protests... Yet she ended up resigning. In contrast Dr Claudine Gay did not budge so she was academically assassinated and then they made her resign. UPenn's president Dr Liz Magill was pressured to resign too. Which is telling how the free speech absolutist party suddenly uniformly got 3 ivy league university presidents resign/removed regardless of them doing what was demanded or not.
And this is what will lead to the demise of trumpism: they make resistance way more worthwhile than compliance.
First they came for Columbia, but it wasn’t my football team.
- It's no one's football team. Even the alumni 😅
Nazis behave in comparatively mild Nazi ways to hurt enemies of Nazism. Experts shocked.
Strap the fuck in. It’s going to get so, so much worse. Palestine is fucked. The ability to protest Palestine being fucked in the US is also going to be fucked soon. Not that the protests mattered anyway. The genocide still happened and will soon be ramped up to make real estate deals for billionaires.
- Trump doesn’t care about Palestinian protests. He cares about people not being able to protest HIM. This is the trial run.
- Are the people who abstained from voting because of the war in Palestine happy now?
How are you guys not marching on Washington yet?
- There’s been hundreds of protests. The national media isn’t covering them but there have been protests in every state capital and major city. Republicans have stopped doing town halls. France is the size of Texas and Paris is a few hours (by train) from Marseille. Los Angeles is like a 6 hour flight from DC. It’s a lot harder to have one big protest here than in geographically smaller countries.
- It’s 1200 miles away…
  Even if I could afford it it’s not exactly a day trip.
  
  Seattle, WA to DC is over 2750mi (~4425km).
- Easier said than done when the possibility of a bullet is on the other end of that protest.
  
  Now there's no possibility of a bullet. Wait too long however and you'll have to contend with that possibility before you protest anything.
  
  Enough people and they can’t shoot you all. Revolutions are never easy and it requires some victims. Your fascist government doesn’t give up peacefully. If you just decide to sit on your hands, things will never change.
- Bro I can't even physically get to my state's capital. It'd be like a four hour train ride, and a few hundred dollars. Maybe if there was funding for busses there could be higher turnout, but the only people who want to resist are the ones who are already poor and desperate. Things are still fine for the people who've always been comfortable.
- Because they thrive on the attention and it is expensive, dangerous, and a complete waste of time.
I demand Trump be punished for all his crimes
Didn't we hear about this 5 days ago or something? And Columbia capitulated? I could've sworn I got updates from reputable (ish) sources.
- Capitulating to fascists doesn't get you off the hook. It just shows them you're weak and easily duped.
  Fascists must be fought, not appeased.
- After they capitulated to Trump, Trump cut funding anyways.
  Now Trump is here stating that they need to do such and such to regain funding (that Trump cut despite Columbia University capitulating to Trump).
  
  Trump: Do it or I'll fire you... revoke your... sue you... investi... pull your funding! Wait, who is this again?
They already begun expelling 22 students

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