News roundup: All the lawsuits; Shipman email; No Kings protest
Dear friends—
We’re sorry for the slow pace of Riseupcolumbia updates in recent weeks. Summer slump is real. We’ll aim to do better as the hot months progress. Herewith, toward that end, some updates.
Legal
A federal judge has ruled that Mahmoud Khalil cannot continue to be detained on the fictional premise that he is violating American foreign policy.
Eighteen universities, including all the Ivies except Cornell and (shamefully) Columbia, joined an amicus brief supporting Harvard in its lawsuit against the federal government. However, in an attempt to partly salvage the honor of our university, the Columbia Alumni for Academic Freedom have filed their own amicus brief. It is excellent. As that group wrote in its foundational statement on academic freedom:
There is a steep price to pay for rejecting the government’s ultimatums, standing up for academic freedom and institutional integrity, and demanding due process under the law, but we urge Columbia’s administration to consider that the cost of appeasement will be much greater. As it engages the current crisis, we call upon the University to take a longer view — one that gives greater weight to foundational principles and to the judgment of history.
You can read and sign that statement here.
Finally, in legal news, a judge has found once again that three Penn students who sued the university on Title VI grounds have not come close to proving their case, and has asked them to do a re-write of their complaint or get thrown out of court. The whole opinion, by Judge Mitchell Goldberg, is worth a read, but the key paragraph is this one, underscoring that it is not enough to establish that some incidents took place, but that you must prove that the university deliberately and over time made a conscious effort to ignore them:
[W]hile Plaintiffs spend an inordinate amount of space expounding on long-past injustices and incidents, some dating as far back as 1993, and complaining that Penn did not take the actions or respond to their reports, letters, or emails in the manner which Plaintiffs wanted, Plaintiffs have failed to plead any facts showing either intentional discrimination or deliberate indifference on the part of Penn. Indeed, I could find no allegations that Penn or its administration has itself taken any actions or positions which. even when read in the most favorable light, could be interpreted as antisemitic with the intention of causing harm to the Plaintiffs. At worst, Plaintiffs accuse Penn of tolerating and permitting the expression of viewpoints which differ from their own. And the Amended Complaint acknowledges that Penn has responded to the antisemitic incidents and expressions of antisemitism on its campus and has made efforts to redress these problems.
Judge Goldberg adds:
Deliberate indifference is a very high bar and Plaintiffs’ dissatisfaction with Penn’s responses is not enough to establish there was an official decision by Penn to not remedy a Title VI violation and that this deliberate indifference effectively caused racial discrimination. As Plaintiffs have not succeeded in alleging the necessary facts entitling them to relief under Title VI, Count I shall be dismissed.
We hope Columbia’s lawyers have read this decision and are considering its implications. As court decision after court decision has demonstrated, if we actually fought this stuff, we would win.
A new Acting Presidential email dropped yesterday. You can read it here. It includes some useful information and a brief statement of our principles.
Our red lines remain the same and are defined by who we are and what we stand for. We must maintain our autonomy and independent governance. We decide who teaches at our institution, what they teach, and which students we admit. Any agreement we might reach must align with those values.
So far, so good. Then it gets a little misleading, unfortunately:
I’d like to say, however, that following the law and attempting to resolve a complaint is not capitulation. That narrative is incorrect. As a former journalist, I would encourage anyone covering Columbia to look closer and do better.
Following what law? Columbia *does* follow the law. The university has not been in violation of Title VI, as numerous faculty, including law faculty, have been trying to explain to the administration since last year. As for putting a provost in charge of overseeing a specific department (of Middle Eastern Studies) that has fallen out of favor with some people at the university, that is not “following the law.” That is extra.
Acting President Shipman goes on:
It is simply a fact that antisemitic incidents surged on our campus after October 7th, and that is unacceptable. I’ve seen too many students, faculty members, and staff in absolute anguish. We engaged in conversations with the government about their concerns—which were and continue to be our concerns and our community’s concerns. We’ve committed to change, we’ve made progress, but we have more to do.
It’s true that there was a very tense atmosphere on our campus around the Israel-Gaza war and in the wake of the October 7 attacks by Hamas. Did antisemitic incidents “surge”? Only if you believe that anti-Israel speech is antisemitic. But it is true: There were Jewish students and faculty members and staff in anguish. Some were in anguish over what Hamas had wrought on October 7; some were in anguish over what they perceived to be speech on and outside our campus that crossed the line; and some (though these are not included in Shipman’s reference) were in anguish over what Israel, a government that purports to speak and act in our name, was doing to the people of Gaza.
But, sure. There were Jewish people in anguish. That is fine. What is not fine—what is appalling about this paragraph, and morally blind—is that it seems entirely unaware of the fact that there were also students and faculty and staff who were in anguish because their friends and families and loved ones were being killed in Gaza; or because their government, the U.S. government, was supplying the weapons and political cover for this killing; or because their university, Columbia, did not seem to be willing to condemn the killing or think about how it was complicit in it. They, too, were in anguish, and they expressed this anguish in ways both constructive and destructive. But they are missing, somehow, from this message of empathy—which is very telling, and very sad.
No Kings
The No Kings march is tomorrow. Please see the CUIMC Stands Up Instagram for more details on the Columbia contingent’s route:
https://www.instagram.com/cuimcstandsup/p/DKpYlFcuv3A/
As a university that was once named for Kings, and changed its name in protest against tyranny, there is no one better positioned to say: No Kings! Not at Columbia, and not anywhere.
See you there tomorrow.