What the assault on Columbia University is really about

A disturbing new milestone has been reached by the Trump administration’s campaign against campus dissent. Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate from Columbia University and well-known organizer of the campus-wide Gaza solidarity encampment, was detained by immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) agents on March 8. Leqaa Kordia, a former Columbia student, was detained and Ranjani Srinivasan, a Columbia graduate student, was detained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) days later.

The university’s Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department was placed under “academic receivership for a minimum of five years” by President Donald Trump’s administration, which also demanded that it canceled federal grants and contracts worth $400 million.

Columbia, for its part, announced it was expelled students and changing the degrees of those who participated in the protests that led to the renaming of Hamilton Hall, one of its buildings, Hind’s Hall, after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl, was killed by the Israeli army in Gaza.

In spite of widespread criticism from academicians and legal experts, the university ultimately accepted the Trump administration’s broad demands, including banning masks, updating its disciplinary policies, appointing an approved academic overseer, and expanding police powers on campus.

This unprecedented assault on a campus’ right to free speech and dissident expression marks a brand-new use of anti-Semitism accusations. What started as disciplinary measures for on-campus speech have since been replaced with arrests, deportations, surveillance, and direct interference in university affairs.

The ultimate goal is to overthrow pro-Palestinian activism and assume ideological dominance of American higher education. The assault on universities is a part of a wider right-wing effort to transform academia into a conservative nationalism’s ideological stoke.

Trump made it clear during his campaign by stating that he wants to “reclaim our once great educational institutions from the radical left and Marxist maniacs.” The Palestinian activism movement is the main force behind the struggle to erode academic independence and impose ideological conformity, using its targeting as an excuse.

Remember that the assault on US higher education, which Trump is currently escalating, started years ago when universities in the US, as well as in Canada and Europe, were urged to adhere to the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.

In 2016, IHRA released a working definition of anti-Semitism, including two instances where Israel was criticized. Initial goals of the definition were to aid law enforcement and serve as a research tool for tracing anti-Semitic incidents. However, it was eventually adopted by a number of governments and institutions as a result of persistent lobbying efforts.

As attitudes toward Israel began to change, particularly among young Americans, pressure was put on universities to implement the definition in their internal affairs. This change made it imperative for pro-Israel advocates to find new lines of defense in the wake of the long-standing bipartisan consensus in the US regarding Israel’s unconditional support.

The IHRA definition began to be used primarily for smear tactics on campuses, leading to harassment, doxxing, and reputational damage for those who criticized Israel. The anti-Semitic rhetoric of intimidation against professors, students, and activists was used against them.

However, after the attacks on October 7, pro-Palestinian activism and beliefs began to seriously escalate: speakers were detained, professors were fired, and even more arrests and deportations are taking place.

Progressive Jewish communities have been impacted by the unprecedented campaign of suppression. Jewish Voice for Peace and other academic organizations that criticize Israel have begun to be suspended by universities.

For instance, Maura Finkelstein, a tenured Jewish professor, was fired from Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania after being accused of anti-Semitism for her support for Palestinian liberation. No one is safe in a statement she made after her dismissal last year, praising the foreign government, calling for a genocide, and using my academic expertise as an anthropologist to illustrate how power operates.

In an article for the UCLA Law Review, University of Haifa scholars Itamar Mann and Lihi Yona warned that legal frameworks like the IHRA definition are being used to “discipline Jewish identity” and stifle pro-Palestinian activism. Their analysis demonstrates how the IHRA definition limits the rights of Jews who reject Zionism or criticize Israel. In consequence, Jews who adhere to anti-Zionist traditions, as well as many progressive and religious voices, find themselves isolated within their own communities.

This suppression highlights a fundamental truth: the IHRA definition’s use of weaponry and anti-Semitism accusations by politicians and institutions have no bearing in terms of defending Jews. Instead, they serve as a pretext to advance a political stance that favors censorship of awkward political viewpoints in higher education.

This is not just a Republican initiative. These authoritarian measures are also being supported by many Democrats. Senator John Fetterman openly praised Trump’s funding cuts to Columbia, saying that “Columbia allowed anti-Semitism to cater to lunatic fringe and paid provocateurs.”

In keeping with Trump’s wider crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism, representatives Josh Gottheimer, Ritchie Torres, and countless others have pushed for harsher sanctions against student protesters.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer endorsed the release of Mahmoud Khalil, furthering the myth that Palestinian activism is equated to bigotry by calling for the release of the Palestinian campus protests.

Democrats’ involvement in this assault on academic freedom is fueled by both their own insecurities regarding challenges to the authority of the establishment and concerns about donors and powerful interest groups. As part of a wider plan to control the next generation of activists and intellectuals, many Democrats support preventing dissent on college campuses.

This attack on US universities is a continuation of past state-sponsored oppression. McCarthyism used communist accusations to silence political opponents and purge left-wing thinkers from universities, Hollywood, and other government institutions in the 1950s. Blacklists, loyalty oaths, mass firings, and even imprisonment for those who purportedly had left-wing beliefs were prevalent during this time.

McCarthyism ultimately failed to sever left-wing ideas from public spaces or universities, despite its intensity. The Red Scare’s excesses were exposed over time, and its main supporters lost credibility.

In the long run, the repression of pro-Palestinian activism and broader academic freedom may succeed, but it won’t completely erase ideas that are rooted in justice and liberation. Americans’ willingness to fight back and defend their freedoms will determine how far this new McCarthyism will go.

Source: Aljazeera