Trump administration has axed $400m in federal funding to Columbia and detained student activist Mahmoud Khalil

The Trump administration said on Tuesday that Columbia University was “refusing to help” the Department of Homeland Security identify people for arrest on campus, after immigration authorities detained a prominent Palestinian activist and recent Columbia graduate over the weekend.

The Trump White House’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Tuesday the administration had given the university names of multiple individuals it accused of “pro-Hamas activity”, reiterating the administration’s intention to deport activists associated with pro-Palestinian protests.

“Columbia University has been given the names of other individuals who have engaged in pro-Hamas activity, and they are refusing to help DHS identify those individuals on campus,” Leavitt said in a press briefing. “And as the president said very strongly in his statement yesterday, he is not going to tolerate that.”

  • PhilipTheBucketA
    331·
    1 day ago
    1. Their “resistance” to Trump’s fascist bullshit is surely going to be temporary.
    2. You assholes had the option not to come out swinging for the bad guys last year, and you chose to deep throat the boot, and now that it’s literally come to the secret police asking to come to your campus and use your student body to get all their field training on unlawful detention in, you all of a sudden have a problem with it? Man, fuck you. I thought you guys were supposed to be smart, I thought you knew history. I’m genuinely confused if you’re now claiming that you didn’t see this coming and aren’t cool with it.

    I sort of suspect that they’ve realized, belatedly, that it might come back around on them in some way, and that’s what they are concerned about. Not about freedoms of speech and the civil society in which they have all their fancy buildings, or about Khalil or his wife and family.

    Edit: Their statement of support after the modern day Gestapo came to their campus and randomly snatched one of their students is still up as of right now:

    There have been reports of ICE around campus. Columbia has and will continue to follow the law. Consistent with our longstanding practice and the practice of cities and institutions throughout the country, law enforcement must have a judicial warrant to enter non-public University areas, including University buildings. Columbia is committed to complying with all legal obligations and supporting our student body and campus community.

    https://communications.news.columbia.edu/news/statement-ice-reports

    Then, they realized that wasn’t quite strong enough, and so they made an updated one:

    There have been reports of ICE in the streets around campus. Columbia has and will continue to follow the law. We want to again communicate to our campus community that we have a protocol in place, which includes phone numbers to call in case you are approached on or off campus. Consistent with this protocol, and consistent with our longstanding practice and the practice of cities and institutions throughout the country, law enforcement must have a judicial warrant to enter non-public University areas, including residential University buildings. Columbia is committed to complying with all legal obligations and supporting our student body and campus community. We are also committed to the legal rights of our students and urge all members of the community to be respectful of those rights.

    https://communications.news.columbia.edu/news/further-statement-ice-reports

    The last one is probably the most tragically hilarious, but too long to politely include in full here:

    https://president.columbia.edu/news/leading-through-challenging-time

    An excerpt:

    We will support our community. I understand the distress that many of you are feeling about the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the streets around campus. I feel it too and am working with our team to manage the response. Resources for students are listed below.

    They include contact information for a religious life advisor, in case your university’s absolutely abject lack of giving a shit about your physical safety has caused you to give up entirely on the physical realm.

    • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
      11·
      14 hours ago

      I feel like you’re reading their posts as boot licking, when actually they’re pretty clearly stating, “we follow the law, and the law says you can’t do this”.

      I don’t know what you expect, an open statement of their intent to break the law? As though that’s going to go better for the school/students?

      • PhilipTheBucketA
        6·
        14 hours ago

        I don’t know what you expect, an open statement of their intent to break the law? As though that’s going to go better for the school/students?

        You’re using a curious definition of “break the law.”

        Nothing that is happening to their students is legal. They have the option to say “As of today, we will not cooperate in any form with these particular federal authorities, because they are clearly breaking American law and endangering the safety of people who are in our care.” That would be kind of a bare minimum. If they wanted to use some of that staggering pile of money at their disposal to hire armed security, backed by high-paid lawyers to make sure that they had some legal backing for their use of force against warrantless intrusions, that would be nice too. And also, to sic those same lawyers on the authorities that have Khalil imprisoned, at least try to put some pressure on so he doesn’t just slip away.

        There are a lot of municipalities that have that kind of policy against cooperating with ICE, for exactly that reason. Some of their leaders were just summoned to congress to explain themselves, and apparently did so in a pretty vigorous fashion. Is that safe for them? Not really, in the current climate. They did it anyway.

        Sometimes shit hits the fan, man. If someone comes in your house and starts snatching your family members, what are you supposed to do? “Oh I can’t stop him, that would be violent”?

        Starting to resist illegal violence against you is necessary, even if it’s not safe. Failing to resist is infinitely less safe.

        Yes, I know it’s easy for me to sit here at my computer and type all bravely about how they should take a stand when they have a bunch of stuff to lose. Typing is more than they did. They couldn’t even muster the stones to type out a direct statement about how it’s wrong to snatch students and put them in indefinite detention when they haven’t done anything. So, like I said, fuck 'em.

        Khalil had some stuff to lose too, and he still tried to fight for the rights of vulnerable people. Go tell his pregnant wife that it would be better for the school/student that they don’t try to make too many waves about what happened / what is happening to him.