Columbia University’s time President, Katrina Armstrong, immediately resigned on Friday after a leaked text from a university call revealed that Armstrong was not planning to live up to some parts of the package the school signed with the federal government over issues of antisemitism and academic diversity.
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Armstrong is the second Columbia leader to keep in seven times. Claire Shipman, the co-chair of the school’s board of trustees, was named the acting president to remove Armstrong.  ,
The Trump administration had canceled$ 400 million in grants to Columbia after the school’s weak and ineffective reaction to the racist campus protests last year. Armstrong approved a sweeping deal with the government that locations academic departments in bankruptcy ( the Department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies and the Center for Arab Studies ), redefined the word “antisemitism”, banned wearing masks by protesters, and extracted a guarantee to get more intellectually different university.
Next week, the Trump administration said that it was satisfied with the ways Columbia was making to tackle hatred on campus. But after a record of a Zoom call between Armstrong and about 75 university people was leaked, Armstrong’s devotion to the terms of the deal was called into question.
According to a record of the phone obtained by The Free Press, Armstrong promised that there would be” no shift to masking”, and” no change to our admissions methods”, both of which the management has demanded. What’s more, she said the school would not put its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies ( MESAAS ) department under “academic receivership” for a minimum of five years—another Trump demand. She even told university people that “discipline remains separate” and “has never been moved to my office”, as the Trump administration’s hatred work force had insisted.
This is in direct contradiction to Columbia’s government promises to the White House.
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The Joint Task Force on Antisemitism that negotiated the deal with the Trump presidency was not pleased.
” Columbia does not check the government’s commitment in holding them to every actions they’ve agreed to take to safeguard their pupils and faculty”, an unknown source with the task force told the Free Press. ” We expect full compliance and good faith negotiations if Columbia wants to have a productive relationship with the federal government”.
Armstrong felt compelled to issue a statement on Tuesday promising she’d hold up Columbia’s end of the bargain. ” I regret any confusion and inconsistent statements and want to make sure our position is clear as we go forward”. It couldn’t save her. The Task Force issued a statement on Friday, after news broke of Armstrong’s departure that indicated she was an impediment to the deal going forward. ” The action taken by Columbia’s trustees today, especially in light of this week’s concerning revelation, is an important step toward advancing negotiations as set forth in the pre-conditional understanding reached last Friday between the University and the Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism”.
Columbia and other colleges and universities are sailing in uncharted waters. Most schools refuse to realize that the entire game has changed, and that they have very few advantages and virtually no leverage.  ,
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The left-wing academics and administrators never had to prove their worth before. It’s like the” Ghostbusters” talking about having to make a living after getting booted off campus.
” Personally, I liked the University. They gave us money and facilities, we didn’t have to produce anything! You’ve never been out of college! You don’t know what it’s like out there! I’ve worked in the private sector. They expect results” , , sniffed Dr.  , Ray Stantz, played by Dan Aykroyd.
Welcome to the brave new world, Columbia.
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