The Trump Administration Forces Columbia University to Pay it $200 Million and Accept its Ideological Oversight in Order to Resume Conducting Scientific Research
After threatening the arbitrary cutoff of federal funds for scientific research, Donald Trump has successfully forced Columbia University to relinquish control of key parts of its admissions process to a government overseer—and throw in a $200 million extortion payment.
The Washington Post reports:
The Trump administration hailed its deal with Columbia University as a victory and a template for agreements with other institutions on Thursday, even as concerns mounted that the settlement represents an unprecedented intervention by the government in the inner workings of higher education. …
“What we’re witnessing here is the emergence of a new model for regulating universities by the government,” said David Pozen, a professor at Columbia Law School.
It’s “regulation by deal,” Pozen said, in which the Trump administration attempts to set higher education policy through one-off, bilateral agreements with universities that it specifically targets. He called it “an extraordinarily coercive and arbitrary way to set policy. … Everyone in higher education should be worried about the manner in which this deal was constructed.” …
The largest chunk of the settlement money—$200 million—will go directly to the U.S. Treasury, senior administration officials told reporters Thursday, speaking on the condition of anonymity in accordance with the ground rules for the call. …
Under the terms of the agreement, a mutually agreed-to outside monitor will have authority to oversee the university’s compliance and have access to extensive data about university admissions and hiring to assure that racial preferences are not being used.
Columbia officials are claiming victory because they didn’t make even more concessions, but this is a model for a direct presidential takeover of higher education, shaking them down for money and setting the rules by which they are managed.
The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.
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