The shock waves continue from Columbia University’s capitulation to Trump administration demands that undermine its independence. The world is watching and waves are already crashing on Australia’s shores._

_

New York’s Columbia University has long been a central site for student (and staff) protest. All the big issues of the day have seen action – from Vietnam to apartheid to fossil-fuel divestment.

The student body has a habit of getting firmly up the nose of those in power.

But this time it is different. Columbia has been singled out. After the Trump administration stripped Columbia of US$400 million (A$633 million) in annual funding, the university agreed to an extraordinary list of demands in an attempt to have the federal funds restored.

Universities in the US, and beyond, were watching Columbia, as a model of what is to come and were shocked to see an Ivy League university fall so hard and so quickly. Former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich is calling this a key part of the battle for the American mind.

Why is this such a big deal? Why does it matter so far away, in Australia?

Part of the explanation lies in the fact that Columbia is a private, Ivy League, university. Unlike the Australian system, many of America’s top universities are private with sizeable endowments and private income. Columbia’s annual total revenue for the 2024 fiscal year (ended 30 September) was US$6.6 billion (A$10.44 billion). So when pressured by politicians, or donors, in the past, Ivy Leagues have stood strong for the most part. They have been almost immune from outside interference and they could afford to be.

The other reason this is a big deal is because, in agreeing to the administration’s demands, the university has effectively ceded what is taught and who teaches it across three departments. Specifically a newly appointed “senior vice-provost" will review curriculum and staffing in Jewish Studies, the Centre for Palestinian Studies, and the Institute for Israel. Columbia also agreed to hire 36 “special” officers, who can arrest and remove students from campus. Also, Columbia will adopt a formal definition of antisemitism.

One Columbia staff member, who spoke to Pearls and Irritations on condition of anonymity, put it this way. Like many, she couldn’t initially understand why the university administration had “caved”. Staff and students were anxious and afraid, and, for the first time in her 35 years at Columbia, she was “ashamed to be a faculty member at this institution”.

She was, however, in no doubt about the gravity of the situation the university was facing. The options, as she saw them, were:

1. “Say no, and be destroyed by the Trump administration.
2. Say yes, and destroy ourselves.”

Her belief is that Columbia should have said no.

None of this occurred in isolation. Columbia’s capitulation came in the wake of moves to dramatically increase taxes on the all-important endowments, and after student protester Mahmoud Khalil was arrested. A permanent resident, Khalil is now fighting deportation. And this in the same week Trump signed the executive order to close the US Department of Education.

In Australia, universities have been faced with an extraordinary list of “questions” from the Trump administration, and some have already lost collaborative research funds. The questions ask if university projects are with “any party that espouses anti-American beliefs”, or have “ANY funding from the PRC”. They require confirmation “that this is a no DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] project nor any “climate; or environmental justice project”. The questions also ask does the “project reinforce US sovereignty by limiting reliance on international organisations or global governance structures (e.g., UN, WHO)?”

The list goes on, and on.

It is hard to imagine a more blatant intrusion on Australian sovereignty, via critical national institutions.

And this anti-free expression and anti-autonomy pressure is not only coming from outside. In recent years, Australian universities have faced a range of attempts to interfere with the freedom of expression that is one of their key defining characteristics. From the reversal of independently assessed and awarded Australian Research Council grants to a raft of “foreign interference” laws that have institutions reporting to government in minute detail on collaborative research in the name of weeding out malicious actors.

And just last month universities agreed to adopt a uniform definition of antisemitism, aligned to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition.

According to many, this makes it very difficult to say anything critical of Israel. It is not only unmanageable, but counter-productive, according to Sawsan Madina writing in Pearls and Irritations in February.

There had been pressure to adopt this definition in previous years, but after both the ALP and Coalition came together and called for the adoption, in a parliamentary committee report, and after Harvard University adopted the IHRA definition, Australian universities fell into line.

In 2018, Australia’s Universities adopted a common statement on freedom of expression:

“Universities have a special role as institutions dedicated to free, open and critical expression across the full scope of human knowledge and endeavour. Central to this role is the freedom of staff and students to teach, research, debate and learn independent of external political circumstance and pressure.”

The terrible stories coming out of the US, with Columbia at the centre of the storm, should focus our minds not only on what Trump is doing to us, but what we, in Australia, are doing to ourselves. We do not have an autocratic government as an excuse. Universities are no use if they are not free to teach and research without political interference (within the bounds of the law). Erosion of that principle is erosion of one of the founding pillars of a healthy democracy.