The Trump administration brushed aside decades of precedent when it ordered Columbia University to oust the leadership of an academic department, a demand seen as a direct attack on academic freedom and a warning of what’s to come for other colleges facing federal scrutiny.
Dr Shafiq’s case was a great example of how one should (not) to deal with MAGA. She literally did everything the GOP demanded of her. Then Mike Johnson still went on to demand her resignation. She called cops on students (HUGE mistake), fueled the flames of nationwide protests… Yet she ended up resigning. In contrast Dr Claudine Gay did not budge so she was academically assassinated and then they made her resign. UPenn’s president Dr Liz Magill was pressured to resign too. Which is telling how the free speech absolutist party suddenly uniformly got 3 ivy league university presidents resign/removed regardless of them doing what was demanded or not.
And this is what will lead to the demise of trumpism: they make resistance way more worthwhile than compliance.
Great job by leadership who thought that not standing up for student protestors would somehow protect them from reprisals.
For being literally Academia, you would think they would be more familiar with history of all fucking things.
Anyone with a brain knows that a bully you try to please will just demand more. Trump’s hate cannot be satiated.
I mean… It kinda shows how bullshit and soulless it has become. It’s like when regular Americans that aren’t on the right act like our entire American culture isn’t to blame for where we are today.
Individualism and exceptionalism in a society that can’t be supported without the efforts of countless others and subsidized by the poorer living conditions of people who don’t even live there sounds kind of silly to me.
Because most of those institutions aren’t about teaching any more, it’s about soliciting donations from wealthy people, building fancy buildings named after billionaires, and managing all that money.
BDS threatens all of that.
The leadership of these colleges are a part of the oligarchy. They proved that when they chose to crush their students civil rights and bend the knee.
Calling most of these corporate whores “academics” is like calling Musk an “engineer”. It’s complete bullshit. They are the leadership of a for-profit corporation. Their actions sully all of their credentials and authority.
It’s usually vapid, amoral MBAs that handle the admin side that push this shit not the academics doing the actual work.
https://library.columbia.edu/libraries/cuarchives/presidents.html
That’s a nice thing to tell ourselves, but the three most recent Presidents at Columbia were a Law Professor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Bollinger), a woman with a Masters of Science in Economics and a Doctorate of Philosophy of Economics, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minouche_Shafik), and a literal fucking doctor (Masters of Science in clinical epidemiology) with a background in genetics testing for cancer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katrina_Armstrong).
Bollinger, for example, was literally named as a defendant in Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger. The school was on the side of Affirmative Action and Grutter was just a pissed off white bitch who couldn’t handle the fact that maybe there were minority students more capable and worthy than her.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grutter_v._Bollinger
The board of trustees is mostly Juris Doctors (Lawyers), a Master of International Relations, a bunch of Masters of Science, and yes, some MBAs in there too (7 MBAs out of 22 people on the board, literally slightly less than a third of the board).
https://secretary.columbia.edu/directory
We don’t have to exaggerate and make shit up to justify how we feel. That’s what the MAGA fucktards do.
A ton or CEO’s have STEM degrees. A ton of prominent academics in history were terrible assholes. Being an “academic” doesn’t guarantee that someone is not a dangerous, selfish narcissist, or a fascist.
Why are you defending leaders who attack student protesters civil rights, and bend the knee to fascists? That should hold more weight than their credentials ever should.
I think you read that wrong.
Nazis behave in comparatively mild Nazi ways to hurt enemies of Nazism. Experts shocked.
Strap the fuck in. It’s going to get so, so much worse. Palestine is fucked. The ability to protest Palestine being fucked in the US is also going to be fucked soon. Not that the protests mattered anyway. The genocide still happened and will soon be ramped up to make real estate deals for billionaires.
Trump doesn’t care about Palestinian protests. He cares about people not being able to protest HIM. This is the trial run.
First they came for Columbia, but it wasn’t my football team.
It’s no one’s football team. Even the alumni 😅
How are you guys not marching on Washington yet?
Bro I can’t even physically get to my state’s capital. It’d be like a four hour train ride, and a few hundred dollars. Maybe if there was funding for busses there could be higher turnout, but the only people who want to resist are the ones who are already poor and desperate. Things are still fine for the people who’ve always been comfortable.
There’s been hundreds of protests. The national media isn’t covering them but there have been protests in every state capital and major city. Republicans have stopped doing town halls. France is the size of Texas and Paris is a few hours (by train) from Marseille. Los Angeles is like a 6 hour flight from DC. It’s a lot harder to have one big protest here than in geographically smaller countries.
It’s 1200 miles away…
Even if I could afford it it’s not exactly a day trip.
Seattle, WA to DC is over 2750mi (~4425km).
Europeans really don’t understand how spread out we are over here. And then there’s the whole “I could lose my job and housing if I take a day off work” thing that most people have going on.
Easier said than done when the possibility of a bullet is on the other end of that protest.
Now there’s no possibility of a bullet. Wait too long however and you’ll have to contend with that possibility before you protest anything.
Enough people and they can’t shoot you all. Revolutions are never easy and it requires some victims. Your fascist government doesn’t give up peacefully. If you just decide to sit on your hands, things will never change.
Because they thrive on the attention and it is expensive, dangerous, and a complete waste of time.
Didn’t we hear about this 5 days ago or something? And Columbia capitulated? I could’ve sworn I got updates from reputable (ish) sources.
Capitulating to fascists doesn’t get you off the hook. It just shows them you’re weak and easily duped.
Fascists must be fought, not appeased.
After they capitulated to Trump, Trump cut funding anyways.
Now Trump is here stating that they need to do such and such to regain funding (that Trump cut despite Columbia University capitulating to Trump).
Trump: Do it or I’ll fire you… revoke your… sue you… investi… pull your funding! Wait, who is this again?
