Campus Protests, Student Unrest , Law Enforcement and the Long, Ugly, Sinister and Politically Repressive Tactics of the Republican Far Right!
To say that the following academic year has been riveting for higher education is an understatement. When Presidents Claudine Gay of Harvard, Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, and Sally Kornbluth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology appeared before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in December 2023, they tried to go down the path of nuance and complexity, guided by legal counsel. The result was a public relations disaster, shortly after which both Gay and Magill resigned. It was widely agreed that the three institutions had suffered serious damage, but not as serious as that which Columbia and several other high-profile campuses have recently suffered.
In retrospect, the three presidents’ decision to address genuinely complex issues in a complex and nuanced fashion — at the possible cost of their careers — looks admirable. In contrast, Minouche Shafik, the current president of Columbia University, has managed to place herself in the middle of a firing squad with heavy artillery coming from all directions. Students, faculty, donors, alumni, politicians at all levels, and others have viewed Shafik with a jaundiced, disappointed, and wary eye. Many people from across the…
