\n<\/p>\n
Students at Columbia<\/span> University\u2019s Middle Eastern studies department were suffering from whiplash. Over two days in March, they went from being reassured by Middle Eastern studies faculty that the university was supporting their embattled department to, just a day later, being hit with news that Columbia had cut a deal with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n At stake was some $400 million in federal funding from the school that had been suspended by the White House. The Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department \u2014 or MESAAS as it is formally known \u2014 was at the center of the storm.<\/p>\n Pushing back on the White House\u2019s demands proved too tall an order at Columbia. The university administration made an announcement on March 21 that laid out a raft of policy changes. Among them was a plan to appoint a new senior vice provost whose work would include \u201ca thorough review of the portfolio of programs in regional areas across the University, starting immediately with the Middle East,\u201d the announcement<\/a> said.<\/p>\n MESAAS scholars immediately saw the school had cut a deal that put them in the crosshairs.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s saying one thing to the federal government and saying another thing to faculty and students.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Now, for the first time, several insiders at MESAAS are speaking up about the turmoil facing their department, the back-and-forth between the Trump administration and university leadership, and how they are the ones caught in the lurch.<\/p>\n \u201cThe university is being quite opaque in its language and its messaging, and it\u2019s saying one thing to the federal government and saying another thing to faculty and students,\u201d said Craig Birckhead-Morton, a 22-year-old graduate student at MESAAS. \u201cObviously, it\u2019s been very frustrating for us, this duplicitous behavior of the university.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve spoken with several of my classmates who are also afraid of either their ability to research the things that they\u2019re researching being restricted, or them conducting that research and coming under attack for it,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is very scary.\u201d<\/p>\n The rollercoaster ride had begun only last month. On March 7, the White House put the university on notice: The Trump administration announced<\/a> that it was canceling some $400 million in federal funding to Columbia.<\/p>\n In negotiations over the funding, the White House made a series of demands on March 13, including that the Middle Eastern studies department be placed under academic receivership for a minimum of five years \u2014 taking control of the department out of its own faculty\u2019s hands. A Wall Street Journal article<\/a> published on March 19 said Columbia was about to cave to Donald Trump\u2019s demands, with a deadline approaching the following day.<\/p>\n Then, on the day of the deadline, came an email from Gil Hochberg, the chair of MESAAS. Hochberg and three other senior faculty from the department had met with two high-level senior deans from the university. They had come away from the hourlong Zoom discussion feeling relatively optimistic about maintaining \u201cacademic self-governing\u201d at MESAAS.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile many questions remain open, the four of us who attended today\u2019s meeting, feel significantly more reassured that our department is being supported by the university as much as possible under the circumstances,\u201d said the email, which was reviewed by The Intercept.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were told that it is very unlikely that we will hear anything determined this weekend,\u201d Hochberg wrote. \u201cThe situation is complex and will take time \u2014 more time than we would like. March 20 was one deadline, but not a legally binding one.\u201d<\/p>\n Defying Hochberg\u2019s expectations, word from the Columbia administration came down quickly.<\/p>\n The very next day, on March 21, Columbia University made a sweeping list of announcements, chief among them that the university was going to appoint a new senior vice provost that same week, whose work would include reviewing programs that touch on the Middle East, ensuring \u201cbalanced\u201d curricula, and processes by which curricular changes are made. (Neither Hochberg nor Columbia responded to requests for comment.)<\/p>\n Since Columbia\u2019s announcement, uncertainty has reigned. The new vice provost was set to be appointed in the week of March 21. Only after\u00a0three weeks,\u00a0on April 15, did the university appoint Miguel Urquiola, a dean of social science at Columbia, as the new vice provost. Urquiola\u2019s academic background is in economics, but his first major task as senior vice provost is to conduct a \u201cthorough review\u201d of Middle Eastern studies.<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t understand what this means,\u201d said a MESAAS student, a Ph.D. candidate who asked that their name not be used due to concerns over their visa status. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make any sense. What does it mean for them to claim that they\u2019ll be able to see how something is \u2018balanced\u2019? They\u2019re not the people who are experts in these fields.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Inside MESAAS, scholars have viewed the developments of recent weeks as Columbia caving to the Trump administration\u2019s demands. They fear control of the department is being wrested away from faculty \u2014 and, to make matters worse, little clarity has been available to students on how to navigate the changes since Columbia\u2019s announcement in late March.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no information that has been given since, so I\u2019m just waiting,\u201d said a Palestinian student at Columbia who asked for anonymity because of the crackdown on dissent at the school. \u201cThere\u2019s just a general confusion.\u201d<\/p>\n The Ph.D. candidate laid blame for the chaos on the university administration, not the department faculty.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe faculty have also not been kept in the loop with a lot of these updates of what\u2019s going on,\u201d they said. \u201cWe do feel supported by our faculty, but we are isolated by the university administration.\u201d<\/p>\n For students at the Middle Eastern studies department, the university\u2019s apparent capitulation was particularly galling because it felt like an indictment of the department with no substantive critiques.<\/p>\n \u201cThe MESAAS department is not being attacked right now because of a lack of rigor in its coursework or a deficiency in the quality of the research that\u2019s being produced,\u201d said Birckhead-Morton, the graduate student. \u201cThe MESAAS department is one of the greatest Middle Eastern Studies departments in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n Other students, too, had come to Columbia looking to study at the highly regarded department.<\/p>\n \u201cI came to Columbia specifically looking at MESAAS being home to some of the best scholars on Palestine,\u201d said the Palestinian student. \u201cBeing able to work with them just really inspired me to apply to Columbia \u2014 it was my top choice.\u201d<\/p>\n The internal MESAAS email and subsequent university announcement had come during spring break at Columbia. With classes set to resume on March 24, the Palestinian student felt dread over returning to campus.<\/p>\n \u201cI was considering fully dropping out,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the past few weeks, I\u2019ve just been very disillusioned by it all,\u201d they said. \u201cI would like my department to show a little ounce of courage.\u201d<\/p>\n For professors at Columbia, the move against faculty control at MESAAS reflects a larger attack by the Trump administration on academic freedom <\/a>in the name of ideological conformity<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe federal government doesn\u2019t get to tell ice cream shops what flavors to serve in what kind of cone, and they don\u2019t get to tell universities what subjects to teach or how to teach them,\u201d said Joseph Howley, an associate professor of classics at Columbia. \u201cFrom the outside, the fact that MESAAS was targeted without justification or explanation suggests to me that this attack is being driven not by a concern for academic excellence or anyone\u2019s safety, but by an extremist ideological agenda that has employed the federal government to remake the university for its own ends.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the university\u2019s announcements on March 21 was a policy change stating that Columbia would be appointing \u201cnew faculty members with joint positions in both the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and the departments of Economics, Political Science, and School for International and Public Affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n These appointments, according to Columbia, would be \u201creinforcing the University\u2019s commitment to excellence and fairness in Middle East studies.\u201d<\/p>\n Work on the Israeli\u2013Palestinian conflict was the obvious target of the changes, Birckhead-Morton said, but other areas of study could come under the same scrutiny.<\/p>\n \u201cAny coursework related to Palestine will certainly be the first to be removed or restricted or modified under this new regime that\u2019s being imposed on us \u2014 that\u2019s the biggest worry,\u201d he said. \u201cBut there are other courses that are on settler colonialism, for example, that aren\u2019t specific to Palestine, but could come under attack based on the statements of the university.\u201d<\/p>\n For his part, Mahmoud Khalil<\/a>, a Palestinian graduate of Columbia, denounced the attacks on the department in an op-ed<\/a> from immigration detention in Louisiana, where he is being held after having his green card revoked for his activism at the university <\/a>against Israel\u2019s war on Gaza. In his op-ed, Khalil referred to the pressures on MESAAS as \u201cMcCarthyist and racist interventions at the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies department.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
Short-Lived Reassurance<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\nChaos on the Inside<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Wresting Control From MESAAS<\/strong><\/h2>\n