White House tells Columbia to sack academic staff over Israel criticism: Report
The Trump administration is threatening to pull government funding from Columbia University and demanding it sack the leadership of an academic department responsible for scholarship that has been critical of Israel.
The Associated Press news agency reports that Columbia was ordered to place its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department under “academic receivership for a minimum of five years”.
Academic receivership is a rarely used practice that puts an academic department under the oversight of a professor or administrator outside the department. It is sometimes used to reset a department in financial or political turmoil.
The Trump administration has already announced it would pull $400m in contracts from Columbia and has threatened further cuts, with another $5bn in grants under review.
The university was also told to ban masks on campus, adopt a new definition of anti-Semitism, abolish its current process of disciplining students and “reform undergraduate admissions, international recruiting, and graduate admissions practices”, AP reports.
Education institutions, academics and lawyers say the demands violate academic freedom and free speech while some Jewish groups and Trump supporters have argued the government should be free to place conditions on funding to universities.
Existing User Log In
New User Registration
Register for a free account to gain full access to the VGChartz Network and join our thriving community.
Essay Pro