GUEST POST: Columbia deal leaves open free speech question

The Trump administration and Columbia university have settled their dispute over campus anti-Semitism. Linda McMahon, the secretary of education, described the deal  as a roadmap for all American universities wanting to have research funding restored or avoid having it cut in the first place. However, there are still concerns about the possible threat to free speech.

Under the terms of the agreement Columbia will pay $220m (£150m) to settle all outstanding investigations into campus anti-Semitism and breaches of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It will not recognise or interact with organisations such as Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) or anyone who affiliates or works with it. The elite institution has also agreed to make all hiring and processing of student applications to join the university strictly merit-based rather than giving any kind of racial preference. Students and staff will also be expected to abide by rules designed to enforce civil debate. 

The university will be monitored for compliance with the terms of the agreement by an independent monitor, Mark Schwartz of Guidepost Solutions. In return most of Columbia’s research funding will be reinstated and threats to its accreditation will be dropped.

The agreement also requires Columbia to codify commitments undertaken in March. These include banning some masks on campus as well as hiring 36 officers with the power to arrest and remove people from campus. The Middle Eastern, South Asian and African studies department and the Center for Palestine Studies will be put under the supervision of a vice provost. He will be appointed by the university to oversee their curriculum and non-tenured faculty staff hiring. 

Columbia will also adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism. In addition, it has asked the ADL, an organisation founded to tackle anti-Semitism, to run training courses for its students and staff.

In an interview with the Columbia Spectator acting president Claire Shipman said the agreement was in keeping with Columbia’s values. She said it should not be viewed in terms of capitulation to or triumph over the administration. However, this claim is hard to accept. In her interview she admitted that Columbia had reached a point where lack of funding could permanently damage its place in the research community.

Further one could draw a comparison with Harvard which has sued the administration over cuts to its funding. This contrast is made starker by Columbia’s having cultivated an image as the radical, activist Ivy League university. It is almost as if Columbia realised it would lose any proceedings under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act related to anti-Semitism. Even if it did not it may assume that the damaging publicity caused by fighting the charge meant it was not worth taking on the administration. This again raises the question of whether Columbia would have behaved in the same way if it was deemed to have allowed a hostile environment to African-Americans to develop.

The main basis of Shipman’s claim that the deal is in keeping with the university’s values is that the Trump administration cannot dictate what is taught or who is employed. However, not everyone is convinced. A genocide scholar at Columbia, Professor Marianne Hirsch, has said the adoption of IHRA might prevent her using Hannah Arendt’s book Eichmann in Jerusalem. She wants to use it to start discussions on whether Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to genocide. Hirsch is considering whether to resign.

Concerns over the effects on free speech of the administration’s campaign against universities are not limited to Columbia. Recently the publication of a special issue of the Harvard Educational Review which was dedicated to Palestine was abruptly cancelled. The publishers, the Harvard Education Publishing Group claimed it was because of copy-editing problems and disagreements between the editors and the publishers. This is not entirely convincing as the issue had already been through two full rounds of review and editing. The suspicion must be that the decision was taken in the light of Harvard’s ongoing dispute with the administration. 

Whether that particular issue of the journal was worth reading cannot be known at least for now, though the Harvard Crimson referred to a back-cover piece referring to ‘scholasticide’ in Gaza. This is an absurd example of how some people seem to feel the need to invent new linguistic terms when discussing Israel. That is something they would not do when debating the actions of another country. Even so the phrase ‘the Palestine exception’ has become a regular part of arguments and counterarguments over the nature and intent of the Trump administration’s actions.

Of course applying sanctions to protesters who breach university policy and disrupt core activities is necessary. So it is to be welcomed that over 70 Columbia students were recently expelled, suspended or had their degree revoked owing to a protest in the Butler Library in May 2024 when students were preparing for exams after the final day of teaching. 

However, the suppression of discussion will do nothing to tackle anti-Semitism. On the contrary, it leaves open the claim that there is a Palestine exception to free speech.  

Guy Whitehouse is a member of the Academy of Ideas and the Free Speech Union. His views do not necessarily reflect those of those organisations.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the Radicalism of fools project.

PHOTO: "Linda McMahon 2025 (cropped)" by U.S. Department of Education is licensed under CC BY 2.0.