Under the threat of the Trump administration, Columbia University agreed to implement a series of policy changes on Friday, including the revision of its rules for protests and the immediate review of its Middle East Studies Department.
The changes, detailed in a letter sent by the temporary president of the University of New York, Katrina Armstrong, came one week after the Trump administration ordered the Ivy League School to promulgate those and other reforms, or to lose all federal funding, an ultimatum widely criticized in Academy as an attack on academic freedom.
In his letter, Armstrong said that the University would immediately designate a Senior Vice President to perform a comprehensive review of the portfolio of its regional study programs, « starting immediately with the Middle East. »
Columbia will also renew its long -term disciplinary process and lawyers’ protests within academic buildings. Students will not be allowed to bring facial masks to the campus « with the purposes of hiding identity ». An exception would be made for people who brought them for health reasons.
In an effort to expand the « intellectual diversity » at the University, Columbia will also designate new members of the teaching staff at his Institute of Israel and Jewish Studies. It will also adopt a new definition of anti -Semitism and will expand the program at its Tel Aviv center, a research center based in Israel.
Policy changes were largely in line with the University’s demands by the Trump administration, which attracted US $ 400 million in research aids and other federal funding, and had threatened to reduce more, on the management of the University’s protests against the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.
Columbia University doctoral student, Ranjani Srinivasan, calls for allegations that he is an absurd « terrorist sympathizer », telling David Common of CBC that he feared his security after immigration officials and customs agents showed up at the door.
The White House has labeled anti -Semitic protests, a label rejected by those who participated in student -led demonstrations.
A message was left looking for a message with a spokesman for the Department of Education.
As a « precondition » to restore funding, federal officials demanded that the university place its Department of Studies in the Middle East, South -Seasatic and African studies under « academic reception for a minimum of five years ».
They also told the university to ban masks on the campus, adopt a new definition of anti -Semitism, abolish its current process by discipline students and offers a plan to « reform undergraduate admissions, international hiring and postgraduate admission practices. »
Historians had described the order as an unprecedented intrusion on the university rights treated for a long time treated by the United States Supreme Court as an extension of the first amendment.
On Friday, freedom of expression immediately decreed Columbia’s decision to achieve.
« A sad day for Columbia and our democracy, » Jameel Jach, the director of the Knight First -Esmena Institute at Columbia University, was in charge of social networks.
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