NIH freezes all research grants to Columbia University

So to stamp that out, you need to get the kids to stop with the bad thinking. But you can't actually do that as the government because of the whole "shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech" thing.

So instead you hit their school instead. Make it so Columbia (in this case) knows that their funding depends on the grace of the government, and that if they want it back they need to start expelling or otherwise controlling the spreaders of the woke virus.

people keep trying to attribute a rationality beyond a selfish power/money grab... they are racist bullies looking to be the boot stomping on humanity's face forever while also looting the place six ways from Sunday along the way (just like Putin and his circle in Russia)

I see nobody talking on _why_ the egg crisis happened. Some incompetent folks at DOGE killed off the workers responsible for vaccinations against the bird flu. Guess what happened once they were fired: birds got the bird flu.

That's the point of right wing governments. Spin it around and point fingers at the fault of others who weren't even involved. As long as you can paint a picture of an enemy, you'll stay in power.

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/06/nx-s1-5319995/kingsley-wilson...

In a 2021 speech entitled ‘The Universities are the enemy,’ Vice President JD Vance laid out a plan for America’s universities saying in part “we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.”

from, https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7493272

Holding Israel to a double standard or denying Jews the right to self-determination is however broadly considered antisemitism[0][1]. "Today, it is used by over 1,000 other governments, universities, NGOs, and other key institutions, demonstrating a clear international consensus."[2]

[0] https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definitio... [1] https://www.ajc.org/use-of-the-working-definition-in-the-us [2] https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/about-ihra-workin...

No, I guess it was when government funding was cut ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[1] https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/fire-statement-use-di...

[2] https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2024/11/07/its-just-h...

[3] https://www.timesofisrael.com/dozens-arrested-at-yale-columb...

Edit: See also this account of the last four years: https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/the-last-four-years-wer...

Academic freedom has been dead at US universities for a while. The murderer is not the guy who was elected in 2024.

Combine with upcoming extra-judicial detentions of citizens (we are already detaining legal immigrants in El Salvador), it's required to create a culture of fear and submission.

That it happens to be against a specific group of people is irrelevant - this is the tip of the spear.

While criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic much of the antisemitic rhetoric of the past has shifted toward targeting the state of Israel instead of Jews as individuals (once the Jews were expelled/driven from those nations and no longer a convenient target). Israel is often held to higher political and moral standards than other nations under the guise of justified by its classification as a Western democracy. For many this uneven scrutiny mirrors historical patterns of discrimination, now aimed at the Jewish state instead of (often no longer existing/relevant) local Jewish populations. In some circles, classic antisemitic tropes have simply been reframed: accusations once directed at “the Jews” have been redirected toward “Israel” or “the Israeli lobby,” invoking ideas of secret influence or global manipulation that echo longstanding racist narratives.

Source: I'm not jewish but in any racist feeling conversation I invoke that I am in order to challenge fascists and more often than not invoking that surfaces that the conversation does in fact have anti-jewish sentiment. What I find especially uncomfortable is how little historical context or nuance is expected when discussing Israel, compared to nearly any other nation or group. Conversations that would normally require sensitivity, acknowledgment of trauma, and awareness of systemic patterns suddenly become blunt and ahistorical when they involve Israel. The level of deference people extend to other populations in terms of lived experience, historical persecution, and collective memory often disappears entirely in this context.

Probably not. I grew up with extreme left-wing parents deeply involved with the Palestinian cause (but don’t sympathize with their views myself). I’ve heard them and their friends express a vicarial, seemingly irrational distaste for the US and Israel infinitely many times. I’ve also heard a lot of terror romanticism, not just for Palestinian terrorists but also the IRA, etc. But I’ve never heard anyone express any animosity towards Jews as an ethnic or religious group.

I think I can understand where the misunderstanding comes from though: These are very ideological people with deep seated feelings (hate mostly) connected to those ideological views. Most people don’t think or feel that way, and the closest thing they can relate to is racial hatred. So that’s the inference they make. In Swedish there’s a saying that roughly translates to “as you understand yourself you understand others”. I think that’s mostly what we’re seeing here.

But of course, Trump and his people don't care about truth, logic, hypocrisy, morality, justice, decency, or anything else. They support Israel and are thrilled to see Palestinians killed. They also hate "the left", people in universities, and anyone who disagrees with them.

So, they will use any rhetorical tactic no matter how brazen or outrageous to discredit the protestors and create the narrative they want. It is about fabricating their own reality.

In this specific case I imagine they also find some amusement in "using the the language and tactics of the left against them." I.e. pretend to be fighting against bigotry.

"recent studies have shown that a better predictor of antisemitism is not a right or left-wing perspective but a conspiratorial worldview and a penchant for authoritarian type of government"

I struggle to put my finger on who that reminds me of.

https://2021-2025.state.gov/from-right-to-left-and-in-betwee...

It's a rhetorical weapon to call people who are critical or people who have been harmed irrational. It switches the roles of abuser and victim by accusing the victim of irrational hatred towards their abuser.

The only reason that word isn't experienced the same as the other words that express an identical idea is because of the horrific history of violence against Jewish people carried out by Nazi Germany, legitimizing the word.

Times have changed and Israeli's find themselves in the position of power rather than on the receiving end of it, so they consume the legitimization of the word while abusing it in the same way all other authoritarian regimes abuse language. Worse, actual anti-semites are able to abuse the word to harm jewish people, their history, and damage the word/idea itself.

Here is a more eloquent explanation of the whole thing by Timothy Snyder: https://snyder.substack.com/p/antisemitism-and-antisemitism

Those enemies have long used European allies that descend from a long line of antisemitism, from both left and right wings. They often use "Israel" as a cover for their anti-Jewish beliefs. Several United Nations agencies seem to exist for the sole purpose of condemning Israel, while ignoring much worse issues elsewhere -- and that's not because Israel is uniquely bad.

Israel's right wing government has taken advantage of this. So much anti-Israel sentiment is antisemitic that they can lump in all of the many, many valid criticisms. They believe, with some justification, that they will never receive fair treatment so they might as well do what they are accused of.

I don't wish to "both sides" this. I'm just explaining that Jews have experienced so much bad faith argument that even Jews who are disgusted by the Israeli government expect outside criticism to come from a similar malfeasance. Maybe you specifically want to have a good faith discussion, but statistically the odds aren't great. So the arguments get shut down by the most expedient means, not the most correct ones.

If you're supporting the dismantlement of the only Jewish state, like Hamas is, then you are in a precarious situation: why do you argue uniquely against Jewish self-determination?

Do you routinely protest in support of tear down all nations without prejudice, or just focus your antinationalism on the one liberal, democratic Jewish state? If so, why do you feel that only the Jews lack the right to defend themselves as a nation? Is it because you prefer to see the Jews defenseless against harassment and attempts at their genocide?

I don't think the article is saying anti-Israel is antisemitism. My reading is there are antisemitic behaviors within the anti-Israel protestors.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/nyregion/trump-columbia-u...

But why was Columbia put first? It is in New York. More than twenty percent of its undergraduate students are Jewish. No matter the experiences or attitudes of these students, their university suddenly losing four hundred million dollars is unlikely to improve their education and life chances. Columbia students can speak for themselves. My guess is that Columbia was selected as the symbolic first target less because of the presence of antisemitism than because of the presence of Jews.

And I think that this is something that actual American antisemites will immediately have grasped. The city of New York is coded for antisemites as Jewish. The antisemites in America, seeing Columbia and New York punished, will see Jews being punished -- and they will be pleased by this. The same goes for universities as a whole. Universities are often understood by antisemites to be Jewish. The attempt to bring universities to heel will be met by antisemites with approval.

If that sounds wild, 4 prominent republicans have Sieg Heiled. Including musk, and Trump's first chief strategist Bannon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E9pXCuJnbc&t=10s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VfYjPzj1Xw&t=18s

A quarter-century ago, the university was looking to expand. It considered, and rejected, property owned by Donald Trump. He did not forget it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/nyregion/trump-columbia-u...

> Brown University and Princeton University have also had their NIH grants frozen, and the agency is reviewing its funding to Harvard University as part of a broader Trump administration review of some $9 billion in federal funding to the Massachusetts school.