Late last week I did a “live” Substack video with Clarence Schwab, a Harvard Business School graduate who has been deeply engaged as a behind-the-scenes activist on the campus antisemitism issue. The video is here for those who missed the live opportunity or who enjoyed it so much that they want to replay it. It was a timely episode, as just hours after we talked, the General Services Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Education sent Columbia a letter outlining “immediate next steps that we regard as a precondition for formal negotiations regarding Columbia University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government.”
“Please ensure and document compliance with the following no later than the close of business on Wednesday, March 20, 2025,” the letter says.
● Enforce existing disciplinary policies. The University must complete disciplinary proceedings for Hamilton Hall and encampments. Meaningful discipline means expulsion or multi-year suspension.
● Primacy of the president in disciplinary matters. Abolish the University Judicial Board (UJB) and centralize all disciplinary processes under the Office of the President. And empower the Office of the President to suspend or expel students with an appeal process through the Office of the President.
● Time, place, and manner rules. Implement permanent, comprehensive time, place, and manner rules to prevent disruption of teaching, research, and campus life.
● Mask ban. Ban masks that are intended to conceal identity or intimidate others, with exceptions for religious and health reasons. Any masked individual must wear their Columbia ID on the outside of their clothing (this is already the policy at Columbia’s Irving Medical Center).
● Deliver plan to hold all student groups accountable. Recognized student groups and individuals operating as constituent members of, or providing support for, unrecognized groups engaged in violations of University policy must be held accountable through formal investigations, disciplinary proceedings, and expulsion as appropriate.
● Formalize, adopt, and promulgate a definition of antisemitism. President Trump’s Executive Order 13899 uses the IHRA definition. Anti-“Zionist” discrimination against Jews in areas unrelated to Israel or Middle East must be addressed.
● Empower internal law enforcement. The University must ensure that Columbia security has full law enforcement authority, including arrest and removal of agitators who foster an unsafe or hostile work or study environment, or otherwise interfere with classroom instruction or the functioning of the university.
● MESAAS Department – Academic Receivership. Begin the process of placing the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department under academic receivership for a minimum of five years. The University must provide a full plan, with date certain deliverables, by the March 20, 2025, deadline.
● Deliver a plan for comprehensive admissions reform. The plan must include a strategy to reform undergraduate admissions, international recruiting, and graduate admissions practices to conform with federal law and policy.
The letter goes on, “We expect your immediate compliance with these critical next steps, after which we hope to open a conversation about immediate and long-term structural reforms that will return Columbia to its original mission of innovative research and academic excellence.”
I asked Schwab, “people see that as a danger, like, oh, it's the new McCarthyism of, you know, the Washington involvement is going to ruin the universities. So is this involvement of Washington a healthy development?”
Anyway, my conversation with Schwab anticipates a lot of these issues at Columbia and elsewhere. My favorite part of it was when it got a bit beyond the antisemitism issue to the positive role that higher education has traditionally played in America.
Schwab: And we just have to make sure that we're focused on trying to help build a strong, healthy, vibrant American society where we can participate fully.
Stoll: Yeah, well, that education, the higher education system has been traditionally really part of the fabric of that. And it’s been an engine of upward mobility and opportunity, not just for the Jewish community, although probably especially for the Jewish community, but for all immigrants. And originally the Puritans, but, I mean, the higher education has been core to American culture.
And so I think that's one reason it’s so important to improve and make sure the quality and standards are high, because if it’s operating in the other direction where it ends up—You get people coming in who love America and they end up getting taught to hate America or to hate countries like Israel—that’s really a dangerous thing. And especially if it’s all happening with federal money or donor money.
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