Some academic institutions are finally facing a long-overdue reckoning after refusing to enforce the law (and their own policies) in the face of systemic abuses and lawlessness from pro-Hamas mobs. Jewish students have been threatened, attacked, harassed, and even prevented from attending classes or walking freely on their own campuses. Many of these episodes arguably or incontrovertibly constitute civil rights violations, on top of all the other chaos and dysfunction. One of the worst hotbeds of this disgraceful lawlessness has been Columbia University of the Ivy League, which now stands to lose hundreds of millions in taxpayer-funded grants.
That bitter, richly-deserved reality is reportedly starting to set in:
NEW: Columbia has begun notifying faculty of cancelled grants.
From an internal source there:
“Grant cancellation notices flowing in now. Labs shutting down. Layoffs imminent. Faculty apoplectic at Katrina Armstrong for letting it get to this point. She has to fix this fast.”
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) March 11, 2025
The funding cuts at Columbia are stoking a civil war among the faculty.
On one side: scientists who are losing their grants and just want to do their research.
On the other: scholar-activists in the humanities who have little grant money to lose and support the protests.
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) March 12, 2025
NEW: Many at Columbia want to sue over the cancelled NIH grants, but an internal source says it’s possible the university will “take the L to stop the bleeding.”
Reports are that the administration is preparing a “plan forward” that will respond to the government’s concerns.
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) March 12, 2025
One wonders if Columbia ‘leadership’ regrets taking this advice from Chuck Schumer:
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) reportedly told Columbia University administrators to ignore the backlash they were receiving over the school’s handling of antisemitism on campus earlier this year, according to a new report from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Text messages included in the 300-page report reveal Schumer told then-university president Minouche Shafik that the school’s “political problems are really only among Republicans” and advised that its leaders should just “keep heads down” until the controversy came to an end.
Oops. Now the Trump administration is in charge and that plan has worked out very, very badly for Columbia. Other schools seem to be frantically trying to adjust to the new status quo, in which rampant anti-Semitism and pro-Hamas mobs won’t be indulged by the federal government any longer:
FINALLY – UCLA suspends Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine (GSJP)!
What pursued the Chancellor to act after years of antisemitic activity by both groups?
The targeted harassment of UC Regent Jay Surse at his home last week. pic.twitter.com/InziQ5WcfS
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) February 12, 2025
NEW: Cornell University says Students for Justice in Palestine “faces suspension” and several students and staff will be disciplined for disrupting a “Pathways to Peace” panel last night:
“Cornell University Police identified 17 people responsible for this unacceptable… pic.twitter.com/ecwsGgTn5t
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) March 11, 2025
The Harvard librarian caught tearing down posters of Israeli hostages is no longer a Harvard employee.
— @thecrimson pic.twitter.com/YOibTaAuyB
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) March 10, 2025
It’s amazing what threatened funding can do to light a fire under craven, gutless college administrators, who have previously feared their student and faculty mobs more than anything else. Amid some overdue accountability, Politico served up this pathetic headline:
The “anti-war” “protests” are in fact explicitly pro-terrorism, Jew-hating, law-breaking mobs. Hope this helps. https://t.co/SdBsa2WGoy
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) March 12, 2025
The Twitter/X ‘Community Note’ is helpful here:
The groups at issue are not “anti-war,”as this post claims. They call for violence explicitly — “violence is the only path forward.” Their most common phrase is: “We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance.”
As I pointed out, these are neither “anti-war” nor “protests.” They are law-breaking mobs of Jew haters and terrorist supporters. They are not against war. They actively support violence and are rooting for Hamas in the war Hamas started. Put another way, they are very pro-war, so long as the Jews die and the Jewish state does not successfully defend itself. As for the deportation controversy involving a former Columbia grad student, I’ll leave you with this juxtaposition:
Outrage gap.
Right: US citizen Edan Alexander, who was forcibly abducted during the 10/7 bloodbath. He’s been held hostage by Hamas for more than 500 days.
Left: A Syrian national & non-US citizen who’s spent the last 18 months in America loudly supporting Edan’s kidnappers. pic.twitter.com/j5lOWDmN11
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) March 12, 2025
Many of those expressing outrage that this Hamas supporter may be deported have said nothing in defense of the Americans butchered and kidnapped by Hamas. Indeed, many of these same people tacitly or expressly supported the butchery and hostage-taking. I’m open to reasoned legal arguments about the case, which is why I’d recommend this piece by longtime federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy, who examines the facts and the law — and argues in favor of deportation.
