The administration is cutting funds and threatening what it sees as liberal bastions, such as Columbia University, where it detained Mahmoud Khalil for his pro-Palestinian activismIf Donald Trump thought few Americans would care about the deportation of an Arab student protest leader accused of supporting terrorism and antisemitism at an elite university then he was wrong on several counts.Trump accused the student, Mahmoud Khalil, of being “pro-Hamas” and hailed his detention by immigration officers, in front of his pregnant American wife as she waved her husband‘s permanent residence card, as the “first arrest of many to come”. Continue reading...
Trump is accused of a "pincer attack" on higher education, exemplified by the arrest of a graduate student labeled "pro-Hamas" and the withdrawal of $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University due to alleged failures to curb antisemitism. The US Education Department is scrutinizing 60 other universities' responses to antisemitism allegations, threatening further funding cuts. Critics argue Trump is exploiting concerns about antisemitism to suppress dissent, diversity programs, and control speech in universities, while the White House pressures Columbia to make changes to disciplinary and antisemitism policies.
