A Method to the Madness
Millions of Americans woke up this morning to fill out their March Madness brackets, choosing who will survive among more than 60 universities. But this March also features another challenge to more than 60 universities—one that would have been considered pure madness in any other era. These challenges to universities have the appearances of being about the defense of Jews against antisemitism, the defense of the nation against illegal immigration, or the defense of America against so-called wokeism. But as Anne Applebaum explains, they’re really about a defense of the current administration. “The attacks on Columbia, along with the assault on other universities, have an even broader purpose: They are designed to intimidate hundreds of other academic institutions in America. The point is to make every university afraid to offend the administration; to make academics self-censor; to make students wary too, concsious that something they might say on campus could trigger a MAGA social media campaign or cuts to their university’s funding.”
+ As Franklin Foer explains in The Atlantic, the point is not to deny that antisemitic acts happened at Columbia. The point is to address that reality while also being fully aware that it’s being used as a pretext for a broader plan. The Atlantic (Gift Article): Columbia University’s Anti-Semitism Problem. “Now that Donald Trump and his allies control the federal government, they have used anti-Semitism as a pretext for damaging an institution that they abhor. In the name of rescuing the Jews of Columbia, the Trump administration cut off $400 million in federal contracts and grants to the university … The Trump administration’s war on Columbia stands to wreck research, further inflame tensions on campus, and destroy careers—including, in a supreme irony, those of many Jewish academics, scientists, physicians, and graduate students whom the administration ostensibly wants to protect.” (As a Jew and the son of two Holocaust survivors, let me offer this piece of advice. Don’t trust groups that heil and want to give Mel Gibson his guns back when they say they’ve come to protect you.)
+ “A kidney transplant specialist and professor at Brown University’s medical school has been deported from the United States, even though she had a valid visa and a court order temporarily blocking her expulsion, according to her lawyer and court papers.” (Remember how they were going to target the criminals first?)
+ “Autocrats — both left-wing and right-wing — always attack universities. The public rationale varies. Some, like Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, reportedly accuse universities or students of supporting terrorism; others, like pro-government outlets in Viktor Orban’s Hungary, accuse them of working for foreign interests; still others, like Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico, accused universities of supporting “neoliberalism” and corruption. But these are pretexts. Universities are independent centers of ideas and often prominent centers of dissent. Autocrats are allergic to sources of dissent, so they almost invariably seek to silence, weaken, or control them.” Harvard Crimson: First They Came for Columbia. The big question right now is how universities, especially the most powerful and deep-pocketed ones, respond to the challenge. So far, the reaction has been muted. “Not only is silence in the face of mounting authoritarianism morally objectionable, but, as the Columbia case suggests, it’s not working. Columbia’s leadership made repeated concessions to right-wing critics, only to be the first to come under attack. Remaining silent will not protect us.”
Maybe the real madness this March will be if no one marches at all.
