Complicity gets us far closer to a useful explanation of recent actions by campus leaders than capitulation. It’s also right in line with what we have seen from university administrations, including Columbia’s, in the recent and not so recent past. Indeed, the current era of complicity started under Biden with the draconian response to pro-Palestine protests […]
Liberal institutions, including universities, traditionally surrender without a fight to the dictates of autocrats. Ours are no exception. CHRIS HEDGES March 24 I was not surprised when Columbia University’s interim president Katrina Armstrong caved to the demands of the Trump administration. She agreed to ban face masks or face coverings, prohibit protests in academic buildings and create […]
Trump’s assault on education comes out of the playbook used by all authoritarian regimes. CHRIS HEDGES March 11 The attacks on colleges and universities — Donald Trump’s administration has warned some 60 colleges that they could lose federal money if they fail to make campuses safe for Jewish students and is already pulling $400 million from Columbia University — has […]
The courageous stance of students across the country in defiance of genocide is accompanied by a near total blackout of their voices. Their words are the ones we most need to hear. By Chris Hedges May 8, 2024 NEW YORK CITY: I am sitting on a fire escape across the street from Columbia University […]
The open letter was started by a group of Indian academics, many of them active in prestigious universities around the world, including Suvrat Raju, a scientist in the field of quantum mechanics and black holes, and in just a few days it was signed up by leading academics and intellectuals, including Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak, reaching […]
Like their association of civil rights and peace demonstrators with communism throughout the Cold War, politicians on both sides of the aisle are now broadly hurling claims of antisemitism against anyone protesting Israel’s war in Gaza, many of whom are Jewish. By Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, University of New Orleans Interrogations of university leaders spearheaded […]