Columbia's Latest Anti-Israel Disruption, as Trump Threatens to Tax Harvard
29:48 Share

Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, cultural enrichment, and all-inclusive fares. Discover more at viking.com. From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

Columbia University is racked again with anti-Israel protests, but this time administrators call in the cops, resulting in about 80 arrests and nearly as many academic suspensions.

meantime president trump escalates his feud with harvard university cutting off future federal grants and even threatening to take away its tax exemption welcome i'm kyle peterson with the wall street journal we're joined today by my colleagues columnist kim strassel and alicia finley

More chaos at Columbia this week, but a notably different outcome this time. Activists on Wednesday bursting into Butler Library in New York, hanging banners, chanting pro-Palestine slogans. Two security officers reportedly injured in the crush of the crowd, according to the school.

Yet after several hours, acting university president Claire Shipman called in the New York Police Department a statement from New York Mayor Eric Adams that night saying that at the written request of Columbia University, the NYPD is entering the campus to remove individuals who are trespassing, unquote. By about 10 o'clock that evening, the news was that there had been about 80 arrests, mostly for criminal trespass.

And then on Friday, the university saying that it has handed down about 65 interim suspensions to students who were part of that activism pending further investigation. Let's listen to a bit of what acting President Claire Shipman told Columbia University and the community there in a statement earlier this week. Let me be clear. What happened today, what I witnessed was utterly unacceptable.

I spent the late afternoon and evening at Butler Library as events were unfolding to understand the situation on the ground and to be able to make the best decisions possible.

I arrived to see one of our public safety officers wheeled out on a gurney and another getting bandaged. As I left hours later, I walked through the reading room, one of the many jewels of Butler Library, and I saw it defaced and damaged in disturbing ways and with disturbing slogans.

Violence and vandalism, hijacking a library, none of that has any place on our campus. These aren't Columbia's values. She went on to say that she was heartbroken and incensed that this disruption took place the week before finals, forcing about 900 students

to halt their studies. Kim, the first thing to notice about that is what a change in tone, it seems, a change in attitude by the administrators toward these kinds of disruptions. Yes, thank goodness. And it's worth noting how all this unfolded, too. According to reports, these students came in, hijacked the library. They were initially told that if they would remove their masks and identify themselves, they could leave.

They refused to do so. And instead, they began defacing the library. 900 students, as you said, had to leave their possessions behind, stop studying, go out of the library. Some of the stuff was really aggressive, too. I mean, speaking of violence, I mean, there were things written like Columbia will burn. They announced their intention that they were renaming the library after a Palestinian terrorist who

which is not exactly a peaceful move either. I mean, this is essentially, it felt like a pep rally for Hamas. And so, yeah, Columbia University called in the cops and it's good to see the arrests. It's very good to see the suspensions.

Apparently also at least 33 of these students have been barred from coming onto campus while this is being investigated. And I have to say, I just doubt very much that you would be seeing this kind of response from Columbia if we had President Kamala Harris. And whether you agree with some of the actions that

Donald Trump is taking toward universities or not, even if you think some of them might go too far, what it has done is put these universities on notice that blatant acts of anti-Semitism will not be tolerated by the federal government. There will be consequences.

And you have to believe that that played a big role in Columbia's more aggressive response this time. Now, we'll have to see those students who were arrested if the district attorney or public prosecutors in New York actually decide to prosecute them. It would be good to see that happen. But there's not a great track record in that.

A couple of thoughts to build on that. One is that President Claire Shipman was named Columbia's acting president in March. So she may also have learned from the previous round of anti-Israel protests and the short tenures of her predecessors related to that. But Alicia, to the point that Kim makes here, I guess first, there is a question about whether the district attorney prosecutors will pursue these cases now that these students have

have been arrested for trespass. But Columbia University, I think, could raise a pretty good outcry if the answer to that is no. I mean, the president of Columbia could make a public relations campaign out of making sure these prosecutions take place if she really wants to.

And then two, it is true that the Trump administration's leverage over Colombia, the freezing of money and this negotiated deal is still hanging over the university administration. The Journal has reported this week that the Trump administration has presented Colombia with a proposed consent decree.

a judicial decree under which a judge would oversee certain aspects. We don't have exactly all of the details. At least I've not seen them yet. According to this journal report, Columbia's leaders, we were weighing whether to accept that offer or whether to fight it. But the suggestion from the Trump administration is it could get a lot worse if they don't go along.

Right. So just to back up a little bit, the administration threatened, the Trump administration threatened to cut off some $400, $500 million in federal grant money to Colombia over its handling of the anti-Israel protests last year, and which has continued. They said that this violated the civil rights of Jewish students, and I think they have a strong argument about that.

Now, they then issued a letter demimaking sundry demands on Columbia, some of which are just kind of common sense that they enforce their discipline rules against students who are violating or discriminating against Jewish students, harassing them and such.

that they enforce their time, place, and manner for protests and such activities. And you're seeing actually Columbia doing that. And Columbia didn't protest or didn't disagree with those stipulations. Now, where there has been some

Some contention is over the administration's other demands such that, for instance, the Middle Eastern Studies Department, some other departments be put into independent receivership. And there's some dispute about how that would work, about having a faculty member oversee it. And is that enough for the administration? And then if you look at some of the administration's demands upon Harvard,

It seems that Columbia would like these Ivy League universities to go much further and bow much more to what the administration deems viewpoint diversity. So as you point out, we don't know exactly what's in the consent decree. This is really an unprecedented action. Usually when there is violation of civil rights or alleged violations of civil rights, the education department investigates,

produces a kind of a fact-finding report and then seeks to negotiate changes with the universities that at least allay those concerns. And the administration says that these are essentially toothless and haven't really resulted in any reforms, and therefore that it wants kind of a consent decree that would be overseen by a judge with the enforcement powers if Columbia doesn't follow to a T what the administration wants.

Now, I think, again, this is probably a little overboard, but that basically this threat is overhanging Colombia as all these protests or I wouldn't even call them protests are almost riots are going on. Hang tight. We'll be right back in a moment.

I'm Kim Strassel from the Wall Street Journal editorial board, and you may know me from my weekly column, Fox News, or the Wall Street Journal's daily podcast, Potomac Watch. I'm excited to tell you that my own weekly podcast, All Things with Kim Strassel, has its very own podcast feed, one that I'm really hoping that you'll hit the button and subscribe to.

It's been a great success so far, featuring Trump officials, members of Congress from both the right and the left, pollsters, policy geeks, all of them with news, insights, and debate that you couldn't get from anywhere else. All Things with Kim Strassel, the podcast now in its own feed. You can find it at WSJ.com, Apple, Spotify, and all your favorite podcast outlets.

Isn't home where we all want to be? Reba here for realtor.com, the pros number one most trusted app. Finding a home is like dating. You're searching for the one. With over 500,000 new listings every month, you can find the one today.

Download the Realtor.com app because you're nearly home. Make it real with Realtor.com.

Welcome back. We can stipulate that there has been bad behavior by these Ivy League schools. I don't think I would get any disagreement from either of my co-panelists about that. Many of these elite colleges are ideological echo chambers. They do not have viewpoint diversity in the department's

where you can think about that on a political spectrum. And they also, I think, have failed to stamp out anti-Semitism on their campuses and sometimes maybe to uphold the federal civil rights laws that are protecting Jewish students. Kim, though, the difficulty is parsing out where the Trump administration is making arguments that are on those points.

and where it is going further. And some of its demands on Harvard, for example, to review all current and future faculty for plagiarism seem like they are completely unrelated to the ideological push or at least the argument that Trump is making for the reason that it needs to crack down on these schools.

On Monday, notably, the Education Department sent another letter to Harvard after the federal government had cut off some grant money to Harvard. This one is now saying that it will no longer give any future grants. This is a letter from Education Secretary Linda McNeil.

man complains about everything from plagiarism to transparency to academic rigor the fact that there are some remedial classes on math that are now being offered at harvard and then this is what secretary mcmahon says she says given these and other concerning allegations this letter is to inform you that harvard should no longer seek grants from the federal government since none will be provided

Harvard will cease to be a publicly funded institution and can instead operate as a privately funded institution, drawing on its colossal endowment. Let's listen to a clip of Harvard President Alan Garber. This is him explaining, now that the university is in a legal fight with the Trump administration over its previous cutting off of federal money, why he felt that the college needed to take that step. We were faced with a set of demands that

that addressed some problems that I and others recognize as real problems. But the means of addressing those problems is what was so objectionable. In particular, this call to give the federal government the ability, for example, to examine in detail all of our admission records, the ability to weigh in on who we hire to the faculty,

It's not that the goal, for example, of increasing ideological diversity on campus is one that I disagree with.

It's the means of achieving it. Kim, what do you make of that argument? I think those are the kinds of things that a judge, judges, appeals judges, maybe if this dispute between Harvard and the Trump administration gets that far, are going to be thinking about is, are these really powers that the federal government has over what is still a private institution? The Trump administration in classic Trump administration style, of course, gone at this with all guns blazing. And I think that there is certainly a case to be made that

a lot of the things that it's brought up in what will become litigation are legitimate, but that a lot of them, as you say, could fall outside the bounds. And that's going to have to be parsed by courts and judges. I mean, he just mentioned an example that

I think that there are First Amendment rights universities have and that some of the things the administration is asking likely possibly violate the First Amendment. But then you get into areas like they want to see admissions records. Can the federal government prove in court that there is racial discrimination going on on the basis of Harvard's application process and decision process and admission process? I mean,

That's something that's already been in the courts. We've been breaking some new ground in those areas in the courts. So some of this is up in the air. What I find really interesting in the parallels between Columbia and Harvard is Columbia's hesitation in just saying no to this consent decree demand. And the reason that, of course, it is hesitating is because

It recognizes it doesn't want to sign this consent decree, but it also knows that the alternative is litigation. And litigation could mean years in court battles. That is years at which potentially this grant money remains out of its reach. It could also mean depositions and fact finding that allows for a lot of private information to spill out into the public. And universities are notoriously secretive about their internal processes.

And those are the things that are weighing on Claire Shipman's mind as she decides about this consent decree. Harvard's walking down that road and, you know, it's doing so boldly. You might applaud that, but we are looking at potentially years of court battles and a lot of discovery. And this could get a lot messier for Harvard before it gets any resolutions.

That's a decision it's made. We had a very interesting piece in our paper today by a Harvard professor who cheered Harvard's decision to fight back against this, but did note that the university would have a

stronger footing if it were consistent in pushing back on government intrusion, noting, for instance, that Harvard basically rolled over when the Obama administration insisted that universities lower the burden of proof in sexual harassment allegations, made it easier for those to have an essentially stripped due process rights from a lot of their students.

So it's all going to be fascinating to see where this washes out. A separate conversation about Harvard's tax-exempt status. Donald Trump recently on True Social saying this, perhaps Harvard should lose its tax-exempt status and be taxed as a political entity. He added that tax-exempt status is totally contingent on acting in the public interest.

Unquote. Alicia, a CNN story around the same time saying that the Internal Revenue Service is making plans to rescind the tax exempt status of Harvard, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Unquote. What do you make of this? I mean, it's a similar conversation, maybe with separate legal precedents and legal concerns.

But there has been one instance where the IRS revoked tax exempt status for a university, Bob Jones University, on the basis of racially discriminatory policies. Right. And so what happened in the Bob Jones University, and this goes back 50 some odd years, is that Bob Jones barred students from attending who were part of interracial marriages.

Now, the IRS in 1970 adopted a policy barring tax-exempt status for 501c3s for private schools that engaged in racial discrimination. And this went up to the Supreme Court, went after Bob Jones University and tried to pull its tax-exempt status away.

And tax exempt status broadly entitles nonprofits to various tax exemptions, including on some kind of wage unemployment benefits at the time, as well as donations and such. Now, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the IR.

IRS on the basis that an institution seeking tax-exempt status must serve a public purpose and not be contrary to established public policy. Now, I think this standard is very vague. It isn't written anywhere in the IRS tax code. In fact, the Section 501 of the tax code that specifies the nonprofit status as the corporations organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, and educational purposes

are entitled to exemption as long as they operate on a nonprofit basis and don't participate in political campaigns or lobbying. Now, it says nothing about public purpose or public policy. And there's the question of, well, how do you even define public purpose or public policy? Every IRS, every administration will have a different definition. And could you weaponize the tax exemption to go after nonprofits that they say, well, aren't serving the public purpose?

And this is why I think Justice William Rehnquist, before he became the Chief Justice, wrote a very compelling dissent arguing that the Congress didn't actually stipulate any of this in the law. His fellow justices just created this new rule out of whole cloth. And there was actually debate in Congress about this, and they did not actually go through and actually stipulate that tax exempted status should be pulled for universities that engage in racial discrimination.

Now, there are probably maybe good reasons for Congress to go ahead and do that, but it hasn't. And so racial discrimination or other kinds of discrimination. So I think if the Trump administration were to go through with this by pulling Harvard's or yanking Harvard's tax exempt status, I think you would also see a legal challenge. But I think it might turn out a very different way that

presumes that it would actually get up to the Supreme Court before you get a Democratic president. But I think even though the conservatives on the Supreme Court have been very leery of agencies writing into the law and revising laws in ways that extend their power and make stipulations that Congress didn't provide. And you saw that with

the Supreme Court's Wilbur Bright enterprise decision that said that agencies should not receive a deference to their interpretations of supposedly vague laws, as well as the West Virginia EPA case and other cases related to the major questions doctrines, basically stipulating that agencies cannot take politically significant or economically significant actions without Congress's express approval. Now, again, Congress did not expressly say that IRS can put

tax-exempt status for any university, nonprofit or such that it accuses of discrimination on whatever basis. And so I think that would be the argument that Harvard will ultimately make. Again, whether this ultimately even gets up to the Supreme Court, who knows? Hang tight. We'll be right back in a moment.

Optimism isn't sunshine and rainbows. It's fixing things, changing the way we fix things. It's running the world on smarter energy. Because if optimism never stops, then change can't either. G.E. Vernova, the energy of change. Don't forget, you can reach the latest episode of Potomac Watch anytime. Just ask your smart speaker. Play the Opinion Potomac Watch podcast. From the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

Welcome back.

You know, this university, this think tank employs people with views on climate that we think are contrary to the public purpose. And that gets to the point about the targeted nature of this, at least it seems to me. I mean, the tax laws are supposed to be the rules on the field for the game that all the players are treated neutrally with. And if we want to have a discussion in Congress or a debate in the media about whether it makes sense,

to have a tax exemption that is available to institutions that have foundations and endowments with billions and billions of dollars in them, maybe there's an argument to be had there. But that's an argument that is on the basis of what is good public policy for everybody, not this is an institution that one administration doesn't like and wants to make an argument is against public policy. And once again, we get back to the point that maybe Congress ought to do its job.

You know, you have all these members of Congress that are applauding Donald Trump saying this about revoking Harvard's tax exempt status. But if they had done their homework, they would know that this is not been defined by Congress. In fact, they would be pointing out that this is a prerogative bill.

reserved to them as the lawmakers of the nation. And then they would go, and if this is something that they really wanted to change with regard to educational institutions, not Harvard in particular, but educational institutions writ large, they would go through the tax code again. And while they're at it, they could also maybe make some other fixes so that we're not all drowning in taxes. But this is always too hard for Congress. And it's my bigger beef about this entire fight that's going on right now with educational institutions,

I mean, if you step back and think about why a lot of Americans have a lot of hostility toward these Ivy League campuses, part of it, yes, these anti-Israel protests have brought into focus these sort of radical students. But more broadly, Americans are frustrated with these ideological institutions that operate entirely on the left and they suppress viewpoint diversity there.

And there's all these crazy grad students that are running around and they cost an absolute fortune and they take federal taxpayer dollars. And that's what the Trump administration is railing against at root. If you can see that in the demands it's asked of these universities. But these are the symptoms of a problem, not the disease. You have to ask, how did we get here in the first place? And once again, Congress...

Right. I mean, we have a student loan program that it has never taken care of, like just let grow and balloon into huge proportions that allow these students

Kids to go and become graduate students forever. They're radicalized. They can't get jobs in the real world. So they stay on campus and they pass along their ideology to undergraduates. You've got a grant program that's basically operated on autopilot. And, you know, we've been having this discussion because of Doge about the enormous overhead costs.

chunk that the universities hive off of this grant money and then throw into a kitty and use because money's fungible, use for whatever and funding this. Maybe Congress ought to look at its education policy. And they seem to finally be doing some changes to federal loan programs as part of this reconciliation. But this just comes back, Congress never does anything, nothing of substance. Right.

except for, you know, applaud or boo when presidents take unilateral action. And at some point, they might want to remember they have a role in our three pieces of government, too. We'll give you the last word, Alicia. But on that point, one thing that I've heard you raise is that Congress could capitalize

loans for graduate students in a way that would stop universities from using these kinds of graduate programs as big money makers. I'd say the same thing about federal grants and federal research dollars. I mean, there's neutral reforms that could be made. Maybe that money should be shifted more toward the hard sciences and more away from the soft sciences.

But I guess my pitch again for neutrality is that if we are gonna give out federal money for research money, for medical research, cancer research and so forth, I think we should give that out on the basis of who has the best grant application, who has the most promising research.

and not start cutting off grants to institutions that are doing things in their undergraduate programs that one administration doesn't like when those undergraduate programs are pretty far removed from the people in the cancer lab across campus that have maybe not seen or taught an undergraduate in five or 10 years. Right. And so most of the money that Harvard actually gets, it doesn't go to Harvard.

or even the direct graduate programs. It goes to the medical school and its affiliated hospitals. And you can argue, as Kim says, that they have high overhead costs and that hospitals are actually quite well-funded and they don't need as much money. And I would generally concur with that.

Now, I think there's a broader issue, and I think Kim pointed that out, that Congress needs to actually do its job capping the graduate loan programs. Right now, it's open-ended, and this was actually thanks to a change that Democrats made with George W. Bush that removed any cap on the federal loans that you can borrow to get a master's degrees or PhD or law school. And this is why almost all the increase in federal student debt over the last decade has been for graduate programs.

You've actually seen a decline in students going to undergraduate or going to college for four-year degrees, but you've seen a huge expansion of students going on to get graduate degrees, mainly master's and as well some PhDs. More schools are also adding law programs, but there is a real issue when you have a

increasing high unemployment among degree recipients. I think we pointed out in the editorial the other day that the unemployment rate for recent graduates of four-year programs is around 15%, whereas it's around 2.8% for community college grads and actually 9% for those who graduate with advanced degrees. So something's wrong here. And really, Congress needs to provide some kind of accountability to make sure that it's not just

Colleges, Harvard including, aren't just taking in these kids, saddling them with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans that they can't repay because they don't really have any hard skills that the market demands.

Thank you, Alicia and Kim. Thank you all for listening. You can email us at pwpodcast at wsj.com. If you like the show, please hit that subscribe button. And we'll be back next week with another edition of Potomac Watch. ADP imagines a world of work where smart machines become too smart. Copier, I need 15 copies of this. Printing. By the way, irregardless, not a word, Janet. Yeah, I know.

Page six should be regardless of or irrespective of. Just print them, please. If it were a word, Janet, it would mean without irregard, which is... Copier! Switch to silent mode. Let's put a pin in it. Anything can change the world of work. From HR to payroll, ADP helps businesses take on the next anything.