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Columbia University will renovate the aspects of its management after pressure from the Trump administration, which has sparked fears of restrictions on academic freedom across the United States.
Katrina Armstrong, a temporary president of Colombia, described a series of measures on Friday – including centralizing disciplinary procedures against students and the appointment of a senior official to “consider” his regional studies programs, starting with those covering the Middle East.
“At all times, we are driven by our values, putting academic freedom, free expression, open examination and respect for all in front of every decision we make,” Armstrong said in a statement.
The move, which was criticized by the Faculty and the National Academic Associations of the Ivy League institution, followed a fierce Republican -led campaign claiming that the anti -Semitism on his campus in Newsorque, caused by protests following the attack on Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Federal authorities withdrew $ 400m in funding from Columbia Earlier this month, she threatened to reduce future financial support, unless the university quickly fulfilled a series of reform requests.
It caused a week of intensive negotiations, which included pressure from Colombia’s lawyers to prevent academic associations from launching legal challenges on the validity of the Trump administration’s demands.
The Measures Posted on Friday included initiatives such as centralizing student discipline, a ban on masks that hide the identities of the protesters and the appointment of a senior deputy provision to view “all aspects” of leadership, curricula and non-current faculty and “faculty”.
However, the University has ceased to meet the government’s demands to formally “academic reception” of the Department of Studies in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa for five years and to abolish its Judicial Board. Instead, the president will have much stricter control over board membership.
Michael Tadeus, vice president of the Colombian chapter at the American Association of University Professors, called the measures “deeply disappointing and alarming”.
Speaking in personal capacity, he said: “The appointment of a new older deputy regional studies must not be used for police in the content of research and handing over controversial topics in Colombia. It would hit the heart of our academic freedom.”
Lynn Paskerella, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, said: “This undermines the power of US higher education, which assumes freedom from unjustified government intrusion and unnecessary political influence on the curriculum.”
Regarding concerns by Republicans and some academics that many US universities dominate the faculty with more progressive opinions, Colombia has also promised that its searches for a new faculty “will be expanded to provide intellectual diversity through our offers and scholarships”.
He noticed that there was a recent decline in the Jewish and African -American enrollment and said “we will carefully examine those questions.”
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