Columbia University’s decision-makers had the good sense to yield to Trump administration demands this week, allowing the university to meet the preconditions necessary to restore $400 million in federal funding.
The university has agreed to several reforms, including banning masks at protests, enhanced discipline and expulsion of disruptive protesters, and ending unauthorized encampments on campus. The sticking point in negotiations came from Trump’s request that the school’s Department of Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies be placed under “academic receivership,” meaning it would no longer be controlled by faculty. In the end, Columbia conceded to a compromise that sidestepped the label but not the intent of the demand by appointing a new senior vice provost to oversee and review these departments, ensuring “balanced” offerings.
Columbia’s acquiescence is a significant blow against the radical liberal ideologues who have captured the broader American academy in recent decades. And for the many sincere and brilliant academics driven to the margins by these activists, the move signals hope of a new dawn rising.
And while Columbia deserves credit for succumbing to common sense, it need not have come at the barrel of a gun. Signs that the university and the rest of elite academia have been spiraling downward have long been clear.
Between 2000 and 2023, for instance, tuition at Columbia has skyrocketed from $26,000 to over $65,000 while the size of the administration has grown by 82%, including tens of millions spent on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Free speech and open inquiry at Columbia have been effectively eliminated — the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression gave Columbia a score of zero in its 2025 College Free Speech Rankings, tied for dead last with Harvard out of 251 evaluated colleges and universities. Rampant grade inflation has made it all but impossible to identify and reward the highest achievers, an essential societal function of the academy.
On top of it all, Columbia became a national laughingstock in 2024 when hundreds of students set up encampments on Columbia’s South Lawn to protest Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, culminating in the April 30 occupation of Hamilton Hall. The tantrum turned the once prestigious campus into a quasi-warzone in which woke mobs chanted genocidal slogans such as “from the river to the sea,” and human chains were formed to prevent “zionists” from entering their space.
One incident involving a protest leader named Johannah King-Slutzky blurred the lines between parody and reality. Speaking to reporters outside of the barricaded Hamilton Hall, King-Slutzky, whose dissertation focused on “fantasies of limitless energy in the trans-Atlantic Romantic imagination,” demanded that Columbia provide food and water to the protesters occupying the hall, which she described as “humanitarian aid.” Behind her stood a male student donning a keffiyeh and a bare-midriff shirt. In the fall, King-Slutzky taught a class called “Contemporary Western Civilization.”
Critics framed Columbia’s interim President Katrina Armstrong’s decision to agree to Trump’s demands as caving to an authoritarian, a dangerous capitulation that will strip the university of its academic freedom and moral authority, all in exchange for some cash. The American Association of University Professors President Todd Wolfson labeled Columbia’s move “arguably the greatest incursion into academic freedom, freedom of speech, and institutional autonomy since the McCarthy era.”
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But moral authority, academic freedom, and free speech must be present for them to be stripped. Clearly, Columbia has not possessed any of these qualities in abundance for many years.
We heartily applaud Columbia’s decision and encourage other universities to follow suit — for their own good and the country’s good. A thriving university system that prioritizes excellence and the pursuit of truth above political activism is in the nation’s best interest. Agreeing to Trump’s demands is a good first step in the right direction.