The move comes after Trump demanded several changes to be instituted at the university in return for federal funding

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/27192542

By Syma Mohammed Published date: 14 March 2025 19:58 GMT

"Columbia University leadership made a series of concessions to the Trump administration on Thursday following an extraordinary letter that listed nine demands it expected the university to make if it did not want its federal funding to be pulled.

On Thursday, the university announced it was expelling, suspending and revoking the degrees of 22 students following last year’s Hamilton Hall protest, fulfilling one of the nine demands issued in a letter from the Trump administration to Columbia."

  • Suite404@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 months ago

    This is a great way to create people who have nothing to lose. Bonus, these were already people who were activists and doing something. Kicking the hornets nest might be an apt comparison.

    • meyotch@slrpnk.net
      1·
      1 month ago

      My new ice-breaker at parties is: “So, how were you radicalized?”

      This frequently leads to an invitation to an after-party, so 🤷‍♂️

  • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 months ago

    Imagine paying out the bum, bury yourself in student loans to get a degree, and the uni just revokes it retroactively.

    Absolute insanity. Do the students get a full refund on their education?

  • Zombiepirate@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    These dumbasses really think capitulation will make the fascists go away? That’s never how it works. Now you’ve emboldened them to go further, you utter idiots.

    • futatorius@lemm.ee
      1·
      2 months ago

      The administration has chosen to join the fascists rather than stand up for principles. When we get to de-MAGAfication, they’ll get purged too. And we will have to get to that, since the system is too compromised to fix itself.

      And while we’re at it: roll back every Trump appointment, executive order and law to January 1, 2016. Roll back any judicial decision made by a Trump-appointed judge. Review the convictions of anyone prosecuted under Trump’s DOJ or MAGA-run state AG’s and exonerate any who didn’t commit a crime. Ban every appointee from ever holding public office again. Remove the law license of any lawyer who joined or supported MAGA. Remove the executives of any corporation or non-profit that openly aligned itself with Trump. Investigate any media outlet suspected of channeling hostile foreign propaganda, and if culpable, shut it down and try its executives for treason. Ban any foreign fascist politicians aligned with MAGA or with Russia from ever entering the US.

      That’s the start of a manifesto.

  • rusticus@lemm.ee
    0·
    2 months ago

    If you can’t see that this is the end of the First Amendment you need a cane and dog.

    • dryfter@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      Wait…what if I can see it as the end? Do I get to ditch my cane? Or do I need to get a dog to go with the cane now?

  • foggy@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    If I were a Columbia student right now I’d be leaving next semester and seeing I could get refunds for this semester.

    Your prestige means nothing.

    • nickiwest@lemmy.world
      1·
      2 months ago

      I hope there are enough students who are willing to take such a bold step together to make their point.

  • treadful@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    These demands are wild.

    This included placing the distinguished Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department under an “academic receivership” for a minimum of five years and installing a new department chair. This would involve the university ceding control of the department and an outsider chair that could be appointed by the government to run it, potentially overseeing everything from curriculum design to the hiring and firing of faculty.