Any idea why Columbia in particular? Dozens of universities had protests of varying kinds, and they fell over themselves trying to comply. Does something make Columbia stand out? Or was it an arbitrary pick to be an example?
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
I don't think this is the answer.
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.