A graphics reporter who was working for Bloomberg News and formerly worked at The New York Times was arrested when anti-Israel activists seized control of Columbia University’s Butler Library earlier this month.
Jason Kao, who graduated from Columbia in 2022, was charged with criminal trespass and given a desk appearance ticket as a result of his actions on May 7. Eighty-one activists were arrested.
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Bloomberg reporter arrested during anti-Israel protesters’ takeover of Columbia University library — and is no longer employed by outlet <a href="https://t.co/flQD0VqrwR">https://t.co/flQD0VqrwR</a> <a href="https://t.co/VaavsjR8qp">pic.twitter.com/VaavsjR8qp</a>
— New York Post (@nypost) <a href="https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1924659428155892000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 20, 2025</a></blockquote>
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“During the unrest, rioters injured two, passed out pamphlets endorsing Hamas&#8217;s violence, vandalized and damaged the library, and renamed the building after Basel al-Araj, a Palestinian terrorist killed in a 2017 shootout with the Israel Defense Forces,” the Washington Free Beacon, which <a href="https://freebeacon.com/campus/bloomberg-journalist-among-anti-israel-radicals-arrested-for-storming-columbia-library/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">broke the news</a> of Kao’s arrest, noted, adding, “Kao&#8217;s personal <a href="https://jasonkao.net/">website</a> is exclusively devoted to negative coverage of Israel&#8217;s war in Gaza.
Bloomberg News told the Free Beacon that Kao is no longer employed at the outlet.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the campus coalition of leftists, released a <a href="https://x.com/ColumbiaBDS/status/1920199061950329089">video</a> in which they stated, “BREAKING: THE BASEL AL-ARAJ POPULAR UNIVERSITY HAS JUST LAUNCHED, RECLAIMING BUTLER LIBRARY FOR THE PEOPLE &#8230; Over 100 people have just flooded Columbia University for Palestine.”
The group issued a <a href="https://x.com/ColumbiaBDS/status/1920211153214476471">list of demands</a>, including: “Full financial divestment from zionist occupation, apartheid and genocide. Academic boycott of all complicit institutions, including the cancellation of the Tel Aviv Global Center. Cops and ICE off our campus. &#8230; Amnesty for all students, staff, faculty and workers targeted by Columbia University’s discipline.”
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We reject an imperialist economy of knowledge. We evoke the legacy of liberation and the philosophy of direct action of Basel al-Araj. 
OUR DEMANDS: <a href="https://t.co/gwKVnowrXu">pic.twitter.com/gwKVnowrXu</a>
&mdash; CU Apartheid Divest (CUAD) (@ColumbiaBDS) <a href="https://twitter.com/ColumbiaBDS/status/1920211153214476471?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Last year, the Columbia University Apartheid Divest coalition publicly acknowledged a deeper truth: they are fighting to “eradicate” Western civilization. They joined with the university’s Bengali Student Association to post a statement on Instagram, as Campus Reform <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article/columbia-university-anti-israel-group-says-fighting-total-eradication-western-civilization/26077" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
“We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization,” they stated. “We stand in full solidarity with every movement for liberation in the Global South. Our Intifada is an internationalist one—we are fighting for nothing less than the liberation of all people. We reject every genocidal, eugenicist regime that seeks to undermine the personhood of the colonized.”
”As the fascism ingrained in the American consciousness becomes ever more explicit and irrefutable, we seek community and instruction from militants in the Global South, who have been on the frontlines in the fight against tyranny and domination which undergird the imperialist world order,” they continued.

Pro-Palestine Protesters Take Over Columbia University’s Butler Library

Bloomberg Reporter Arrested With Anti-Israel Group That Seized Columbia Library

anti-Israel

Bloomberg News

Columbia University

Media

New York Times

Politics

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said his office is reviewing the visa status of the masked anti-Israel protesters who were arrested after occupying Columbia University’s Butler Library
“We are reviewing the visa status of the trespassers and vandals who took over Columbia University’s library,” <a href="https://x.com/SecRubio/status/1920293818194178397" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rubio posted to X</a>. “Pro-Hamas thugs are no longer welcome in our great nation.”
The announcement comes as the Trump administration continues to crack down on foreign visa holders participating in activities aligned with terrorist organizations, such as the antisemitic protests on college campuses.
The keffiyeh-wearing protesters, carrying large signs and chanting, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/masked-anti-israel-activists-take-over-columbia-u-library-during-finals-no-one-expels-them?author=Hank+Berrien&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Masked+Anti-Israel+Activists+Take+Over+Columbia+U+Library+During+Finals.+No+One+Expels+Them" target="_blank" rel="noopener">invaded the library</a> to disrupt students studying for finals. While inside, the protesters vandalized walls and furniture <a href="https://x.com/CU_JewishAlumni/status/1920278419113124257" target="_blank" rel="noopener">and</a> graffitied “Columbia will burn for the martyrs” on a glass case.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/zionists-dont-deserve-to-live-meet-the-leader-of-columbia-universitys-anti-israel-encampment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">‘ZIONISTS DON’T DESERVE TO LIVE’: MEET THE LEADER OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY’S ANTI-ISRAEL ENCAMPMENT</a>
The school’s anti-Israel group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), posted a <a href="https://x.com/ColumbiaBDS/status/1920199061950329089" target="_blank" rel="noopener">video</a> declaring that “over 100 protesters have just flooded Columbia University for Palestine.” The <a href="https://cuapartheiddivest.substack.com/p/flood-butler-now-disruption-until">language</a> seems to be a nod to Hamas’s name for its October 7 massacre of over 1,000 Israeli civilians, dubbed “Operation Al-Aqsa flood.”
The group declared <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-israels-national-security-minister-responds-to-bottle-throwing-yale-crowd?author=Kassy+Akiva&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=15&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=EXCLUSIVE%3A+Israel’s+National+Security+Minister+Responds+To+Bottle-Throwing+Yale+Crowd" target="_blank" rel="noopener">that the protesters</a> were “reclaiming” the library “for the people” and renaming it “Basel Al-Araj Popular University.” Basel Al-Araj was a Palestinian revolutionary writer who was killed in 2017 during a firefight with the Israeli Defense Forces after opening fire and running out of ammunition, <a href="https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/palestinian-killed-after-opening-fire-on-idf-forces-in-ramallah-483341#google_vignette" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to the Jerusalem Post</a>.
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Watch this entitled brat vandalize the <a href="https://twitter.com/Columbia?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@Columbia</a> library &#8211; without a single thought or care for the wage-earning custodians who will inevitably be called in to clean up this appalling damage. <a href="https://t.co/wJgGTfbWpY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pic.twitter.com/wJgGTfbWpY</a>
— Columbia Jewish Alumni Assoc. (@CU_JewishAlumni) <a href="https://twitter.com/CU_JewishAlumni/status/1920249214707380431?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">May 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
When protesters tried to leave, they were denied by public safety officers who requested to see their IDs before leaving, causing the protest to intensify. For about five hours, the disruption continued until about 80 protesters were taken into custody by law enforcement officers and placed on police buses, <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/05/07/us-news/masked-anti-israel-protesters-storm-columbia-library-shove-past-security-as-ivy-leaguers-prep-for-finals/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the New York Post </a><a href="https://nypost.com/2025/05/07/us-news/masked-anti-israel-protesters-storm-columbia-library-shove-past-security-as-ivy-leaguers-prep-for-finals/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
<a href="https://x.com/ColumbiaBDS/status/1920472867206058486" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CUAD announced</a> on Thursday that all of their “comrades” who were arrested are now “free.”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-trump-and-rubio-put-america-first-in-100-days?author=Kassy+Akiva&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=How+Trump+And+Rubio+Put+America+First+In+100+Days" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HOW TRUMP AND RUBIO PUT AMERICA FIRST IN 100 DAYS</a>
“Requesting the presence of the NYPD is not the outcome we wanted, but it was absolutely necessary to secure the safety of our community,” acting Columbia president Claire Shipman said in <a href="https://x.com/CUJewsIsraelis/status/1920369526484484167" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a statement</a>.
Shipman added that two public safety officers were injured by the mob and that some of the demonstrators were not affiliated with Columbia University.
<a href="https://x.com/NYCMayor/status/1920254951139283103" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In a statement</a>, New York City Mayor Eric Adams encouraged the parents of the protesters to “call your children and make clear that breaking the law is wrong and they should exit the building immediately.&#8221; He added that those who do not attend Columbia should exit immediately or face arrest.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/homeland-security-to-screen-immigrants-and-foreign-students-social-media-for-anti-semitism?author=Kassy+Akiva&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=29&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Homeland+Security+To+Screen+Immigrants+And+Foreign+Students’+Social+Media+For+Anti-Semitism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HOMELAND SECURITY TO SCREEN IMMIGRANTS AND FOREIGN STUDENTS’ SOCIAL MEDIA FOR ANTI-SEMITISM</a>
“To our Jewish New Yorkers, especially the students at Columbia University who feel threatened or unsafe attending class because of these events: know that your mayor stands with you and will always work to keep you safe.”
House Speaker <a href="https://x.com/SpeakerJohnson/status/1920458665179435091" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mike Johnson</a> thanked Rubio and President Donald Trump for cracking down on the protesters, adding that “America will no longer tolerate your <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/university-apologizes-for-inaction-after-students-antisemitic-abuser-pleads-guilty?author=Kassy+Akiva&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=35&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=University+Apologizes+For+Inaction+After+Student’s+Antisemitic+Abuser+Pleads+Guilty" target="_blank" rel="noopener">antisemitic violence</a>, destruction, harassment, and intimidation.”

Marco Rubio and Columbia University Protesters

Rubio Threatens To Snatch Visas From ‘Pro-Hamas Thugs’ At Columbia University

antisemitism

Hamas

Marco Rubio

Protests

Masked anti-Israel activists, some of them possibly students, occupied Columbia University’s Butler Library, where students were trying to prepare for finals, leaving the frustrated students outside.
No one expelled them.
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RIGHT NOW AT COLUMBIA: Masked anti-Israel students just broke into the library during finals week. 
Columbia Public Safety unsuccessfully attempted to stop them. <a href="https://t.co/vBfkQFlwUW">pic.twitter.com/vBfkQFlwUW</a>
&mdash; Eden Yadegar (@edenyadegar) <a href="https://twitter.com/edenyadegar/status/1920196848523833405?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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WATCH: Anti-Israeli protesters have stormed the Butler Library at Columbia University and are now occupying it. 
Make an example of these people. <a href="https://t.co/asiA8YMm3U">pic.twitter.com/asiA8YMm3U</a>
&mdash; RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) <a href="https://twitter.com/RedWave_Press/status/1920208253494964262?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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⚠️BREAKING: Pro-Hamas fanatics have taken over Columbia University, terrorizing everyone while masked with keffiyehs, as usual.
Public safety has cleared all other rooms because of these radicals.
Why is this allowed? Why aren&#39;t they being arrested?<a href="https://t.co/J4GILh5tdP">pic.twitter.com/J4GILh5tdP</a>
&mdash; Vivid.🇮🇱 (@VividProwess) <a href="https://twitter.com/VividProwess/status/1920202182093070371?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Students who could not enter the library gathered outside.
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BREAKING: Over 100 students have OCCUPIED Columbia University Butler Library, stating &quot;THE BASEL AL-ARAJ POPULAR UNIVERSITY has just launched, reclaiming BUTLER LIBRARY FOR THE PEOPLE&quot;.
Students are gathered outside of the library unable to go in.
Video by <a href="https://twitter.com/a_lkoakes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@a_lkoakes</a>… <a href="https://t.co/pwQOeyGs34">pic.twitter.com/pwQOeyGs34</a>
&mdash; Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) <a href="https://twitter.com/ScooterCasterNY/status/1920204903215227246?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the campus coalition of leftists, issued a <a href="https://x.com/ColumbiaBDS/status/1920199061950329089">video</a> in which they stated, “BREAKING: THE BASEL AL-ARAJ POPULAR UNIVERSITY HAS JUST LAUNCHED, RECLAIMING BUTLER LIBRARY FOR THE PEOPLE &#8230; Over 100 people have just flooded Columia University for Palestine.”
The group issued a <a href="https://x.com/ColumbiaBDS/status/1920211153214476471">list of demands</a>, including, “Full financial divestment from zionist occupation, apartheid and genocide. Academic boycott of all complicit institutions, including the cancellation of the Tel Aviv Global center. Cops and ICE off our campus. &#8230; Amnesty for all students, staff, faculty and workers targeted by Columbia University’s discipline.”
Last year the Columbia University Apartheid Divest coalition publicly acknowledged a deeper truth: they are fighting to “eradicate” Western civilization. They joined with the university’s Bengali Student Association to post a statement on Instagram, as Campus Reform <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article/columbia-university-anti-israel-group-says-fighting-total-eradication-western-civilization/26077">reported</a>.
“We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization,” they stated. “We stand in full solidarity with every movement for liberation in the Global South. Our Intifada is an internationalist one—we are fighting for nothing less than the liberation of all people. We reject every genocidal, eugenicist regime that seeks to undermine the personhood of the colonized.”
”As the fascism ingrained in the American consciousness becomes ever more explicit and irrefutable, we seek community and instruction from militants in the Global South, who have been on the frontlines in the fight against tyranny and domination which undergird the imperialist world order,” they continued.
Columbia University also administers the Pulitzer prizes, awards that recognize excellence in American journalism, arts, and letters, named after newspaper Joseph Pulitzer, who was Jewish.
This year, the Pulitzer committee awarded a Pulitzer to Palestinian Mosab Abu Toha, who denied that Israelis taken and kept by Hamas in the October 7, 2023 massacre of over 1200 Israelis were hostages. Toha claimed that an Israeli civilian who was shot twice and abducted from her home was not a hostage; referred to another young woman abducted by Hamas as a “hostage,”: with quote marks around the word, and declared Israeli soldiers celebrating Hanukkah was “what true antisemitism looks like,”
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Meet Pulitzer Prize winner Mosab Abu Toha. He justifies the kidnapping of Israelis on Oct. 7. 
We aren&#39;t going to congratulate him for his prize. Instead, we&#39;re going to ask <a href="https://twitter.com/PulitzerPrizes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PulitzerPrizes</a> whether they bothered to check his social media.
Because we did, and it&#39;s not pretty. 🧵 <a href="https://t.co/qQAMQGi0IK">pic.twitter.com/qQAMQGi0IK</a>
&mdash; HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) <a href="https://twitter.com/HonestReporting/status/1919972603545973171?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Hamas held Agam Berger hostage with none of the rights due to a prisoner who has gone through a legal process.
But that doesn&#39;t matter to Mosab Abu Toha. Because no Israeli could be a hostage in his eyes. <a href="https://t.co/w2tSLNrfO9">pic.twitter.com/w2tSLNrfO9</a>
&mdash; HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) <a href="https://twitter.com/HonestReporting/status/1919972606704308686?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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According to Mosab Abu Toha, Israeli &quot;terror soldiers&quot; celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah is &quot;what true antisemitism looks like.&quot; 🤨
Maybe he should ask Hamas what true antisemitism is. <a href="https://t.co/r5d3oOeD3Z">pic.twitter.com/r5d3oOeD3Z</a>
&mdash; HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) <a href="https://twitter.com/HonestReporting/status/1919972609401249891?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Pro-Palestine Protesters Takeover Columbia University’s Butler Library

Masked Anti-Israel Activists Take Over Columbia U Library During Finals. No One Expels Them.

Columbia University laid off nearly 180 staff members on Tuesday due to the Trump administration&#8217;s decision to cut $400 million in federal funding over what officials described as the school&#8217;s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”
&#8220;We understand this news will be hard,&#8221; Claire Shipman, Columbia University&#8217;s acting president, <a href="https://president.columbia.edu/news/preserving-columbias-critical-research-capabilities">wrote</a> in a statement with other top officials, citing &#8220;intense strain on Columbia&#8217;s finances and research mission&#8221; as a result of Trump&#8217;s cuts to federal funding.
The funding <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-admin-slashes-columbia-funding-citing-inaction-on-anti-semitic-harassment-on-campus">cuts</a> came in early March after Trump’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism determined the Ivy League institution had failed to adequately protect Jewish students from harassment.
“Since October 7, Jewish students have faced relentless violence, intimidation, and anti-Semitic harassment on their campuses — only to be ignored by those who are supposed to protect them,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon <a href="https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/doj-hhs-ed-and-gsa-announce-initial-cancelation-of-grants-and-contracts-columbia-university-worth-400-million">said</a> in a statement at the time.
According to The New York Times, more than 300 multi-year research grants have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/us/politics/columbia-layoffs-trump-research-cuts.html?smid=url-share">slashed</a>, shrinking their approximately $1.3 billion in federal research funds in 2023 to practically nothing.
Among the cut grants was a project examining &#8220;the consequences of structural racism on substance use risk in Puerto Rican adolescents,” as the Times puts it, with a researcher lamenting that it was &#8220;very disheartening to see the wheels of science kind of grinding to a halt in certain ways.&#8221;
Columbia had been temporarily paying the salaries of some affected researchers while departments developed plans to navigate the cuts, although Tuesday&#8217;s layoffs signal an apparent end to this approach.
The layoffs <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/columbia-university-cuts-180-staffers-funded-federal-grants-revoked-tr-rcna205080">affect</a> roughly 20% of research staff &#8220;who have been working, in whole or in part, on impacted federal grants.&#8221;
&#8220;Columbia’s leadership continues discussions with the federal government in support of resuming activity on these research awards and additional other awards that have remained active, but unpaid,&#8221; the Tuesday statement reads. &#8220;We are working on and planning for every eventuality, but the strain in the meantime, financially and on our research mission, is intense.&#8221;
Moving forward, scientists at the university can apply for limited grants to complete their research and support graduate students who would otherwise be terminated, although the university added that it would be &#8220;running lighter footprints of research infrastructure.&#8221;
Columbia has <a href="https://president.columbia.edu/content/fulfilling-our-commitments">attempted</a> to comply with the administration&#8217;s first round of demands, but negotiations to restore the funding remain ongoing.
&#8220;In the coming weeks and months, we will need to continue to take actions that preserve our financial flexibility and allow us to invest in areas that drive us forward,&#8221; officials said.
The cuts are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration targeting universities over allegations of anti-Semitism, with dozens of other institutions facing similar scrutiny.

Pro-Palestinian Protests Continue At Columbia University In New York City

Columbia Axes 180 Staff After Trump Cuts $400 Million In Federal Funding

Anti-Semitism

Education

Pro-Hamas

Protest

Trump Administration

U.S.

Homeland Security <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/morning-brief-trumps-liberation-day-doge-pr-battle-self-deportation-push" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recently arrested</a> a Tufts University student, Rumeysa Ozturk, for engaging in “activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.”
While the Trump administration&#8217;s arrest of Ozturk is a move in the right direction, she is just one of countless students across the country who share a radical ideology.
Days after the first anniversary of the October 7 massacre which left 1,200 civilians dead, including 40 Americans, the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/09/nyregion/columbia-pro-palestinian-group-hamas.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">released</a> a chilling headline: &#8220;Pro-Palestinian Group at Columbia Now Backs ‘Armed Resistance’ by Hamas.&#8221;
The article claims a pro-Hamas student group at Columbia University marked the anniversary by distributing a <a href="https://newyorkwarcrimes.com/print-issue-vol-iii-no-13" target="_blank" rel="noopener">newspaper</a> titled “One Year Since Al-Aqsa Flood, Revolution Until Victory.” The headline was placed over an image of Hamas fighters breaching Israel&#8217;s security fence. Additionally, the student group published an essay describing the attack as a “moral, military, and political victory” and citing Ismail Haniyeh, the former political leader of Hamas hiding in Qatar who would later be assassinated. 
In 2024, encampments held by these same student groups multiplied on campuses across the country, from New York University to Harvard, Yale, UCLA, and many others.
How have American institutions come to the place where the mass slaughter of Westerners is celebrated on campus? 
A cursory glance at recent history reveals two driving factors: Mass Islamic migration to the West and mass funding from Islamic countries.
First, some clarification and some definitions. Radical Islam, or Islamism, is not the same as Islam. Rather, it is a radical offshoot that seeks, through political and often violent means, to establish a global caliphate where all citizens, Muslim or not, would be governed by a radical interpretation of Sharia law. While not all Muslims are Islamists, many who migrate are.
<h3>The Crusades</h3>
To truly understand the mindset of Islamists today, it is important to look back at the history of the Islamic empire. Since its rapid and bloody expansion in the 7th Century, the empire has clashed with the Western world a great many times in its pursuit for global dominance. The most famous example being the Crusades (1095-1300AD).
As Daily Wire commentator Michael Knowles <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAPeToyagqA">described</a> on a recent Piers Morgan panel, “The Crusades started because the Eastern Emperor requested help from the Western Pope. The Seljuk Turks were slaughtering Christians in the Holy Land, which had been Christian territory before the Muslim invasion in the 7th century.”
While the Holy Land may have remained in Muslim control at the conclusion of the Crusades, a greater victory was secured by the West that continues to define our world to this day: Islamic expansion was stopped from conquering all of Europe.
Fast forward nearly 1,300 years, and Islamists have yet to give up on the ambitions of their ancestors. Take Lebanon, for example. Once dominated by Maronite Christians, the mass migration and high birthrates of Muslim Arabs in Lebanese society over the 20th century eventually changed that. Today, Maronite Christians are a minority, and the nation is predominantly controlled by Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim terrorist organization.
They have now taken a new, alternative strategy when it comes to Europe and the West: mass migration.
<h3>Mass Migration</h3>
Over the past few decades, mass migration has overwhelmed many European countries.
In 2014, England’s Daily Mail <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2755654/The-changing-face-Britain-A-child-Birmingham-likely-Muslim-Christian.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">published</a> a chilling headline; “The changing face of Britain: A child in Birmingham is now more likely to be a Muslim than Christian”. According to the 2011 census, the second largest city in England with a rich Christian history, had 97,099 Muslim Children growing up there, compared to 93,828 Christian children. 
Radical progressive and generous immigration policies, including England&#8217;s, are to blame for this trend. During a recent Q&amp;A session, Parliament Member and leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage did not <a href="https://youtube.com/shorts/HidQi4mq71U?si=jVaqhsDBuZqMvqgY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hold back</a> when addressing the state of immigration in the UK:
<blockquote>From after the war up until the millennium, net immigration ran at 30,000 to 40,000 a year. And yes, it worked. In fact, we had the most successful immigration policies of any country in the whole of Europe—no question. Now, it is totally out of control. Just think about this: two and a half million people have come in the last two years … The numbers are now literally unimaginable and are diminishing the quality of life for everyone in this country.</blockquote>
Farage is correct. These policies have significantly worsened life for everyone living in England. A 2018 YouGov poll <a href="https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/home-news/uk-no-go-zones-muslim-sharia-law-third-poll-hope-not-hate-far-right-economic-inequality-a8588226.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a> that a third of England’s population believed there were areas in the UK they could not enter if they were not Muslim. Now, reports of predominantly Muslim grooming gangs allegedly <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uk-new-inquiries-child-sexual-grooming-pressure-elon-musk-tweet/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">terrorizing</a> young girls across the country for over a decade have made headlines, while the government turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, Islamic terror attacks remain a grim reality, with the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4ngx3341ldo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">last</a> major incident occurring as recently as 2023.
England is not the only European country dealing with an immigration influx. A recent <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/08/19/muslim-migrants-around-the-world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pew Research study</a> shows the top two European destinations for migrating Muslims are Germany and France. In both <a href="https://miwi-institut.de/archives/2461?_sm_nck=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Germany</a> and <a href="https://www.thelocal.fr/20171201/how-frances-muslim-population-will-grow-in-the-future" target="_blank" rel="noopener">France</a>, some estimates hold that by 2050 nearly one fifth of their respective populations will be Muslim if record high immigration patterns persist. 
North America is also grappling with mass Muslim migration. According to a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2011 study</a> by Pew Research:
<blockquote>The number of Muslims in Canada is expected to nearly triple in the next 20 years, from about 940,000 in 2010 to nearly 2.7 million in 2030. Muslims are expected to make up 6.6% of Canada’s total population in 2030, up from 2.8%.</blockquote>
When an Islamist migrant was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuL5pgW9f7g" target="_blank" rel="noopener">asked</a> by a Rebel Media reporter if he would like to see Sharia law implemented in Canada, he replied:
<blockquote>At some point it will! You know because we are having families, we are making babies. You’re not. Your population is going down the slum, right? And by 2060 according to Pew Research institute, your research, by 2060, Muslims will be the biggest religious group.</blockquote>
<h3>Mass Funding</h3>
A key player in subverting their minds is funding. While some universities receive funding from the U.S. government, large dollar amounts are funneled in from foreign governments like Qatar, a major <a href="https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/12/19/10-things-to-know-about-hamas-and-qatar/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">funder</a> of Hamas.
According to a 2022 study <a href="https://www.nas.org/reports/outsourced-to-qatar/full-report#_ftn1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a> by the National Association of Scholars, from 2001-2022 Qatar donated $4.7 billion into universities across the United States. As a direct result of Qatar’s funding, according to <a href="https://www.thelawfareproject.org/campus-discrimination/2020/5/15/qatari-influencing-american-education-system" target="_blank" rel="noopener">research</a> from the Lawfare Project, students across America are “learning about the Middle East in a biased way that emphasizes only the positive aspects of Islam while omitting a balanced discussion of other religions or belief systems, most notably Judaism.”
Imam Hasan al-Banna, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hassan-al-Banna" target="_blank" rel="noopener">founder</a> of the Muslim brotherhood, an influential Islamist organization from Egypt, once shared his commitment to the next generation, “The youth are our hope and the backbone of our movement; train them in the principles of Islam, and they will carry the banner of reform into the future.”
If universities remain under the influence of foreign entities like Qatar, the next generation of college educated Westerners will not only fail to stop the spread of radical Islamists, they will inadvertently support their efforts.
Whether it be through mass migration, funding, or ideological subversion, Islamism is a force the West cannot afford to ignore. World leaders would do well to follow the actions of the Trump administration who have been cracking down on the threat since day one. The West deserves to stay Western, and only through political action can current pushes for a global caliphate be subdued.
* * *
Jacob Falach is an associate producer at The Daily Wire. You can find him on Instagram at: @jacobfalach.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TOPSHOT-US-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICT-EDUCATION-PROTEST

Money And Migration: How Radical Islam Gained A Foothold On Western Campuses

Harvard

migration

Muslim Immigration

Opinion

Qatar

Radical Islam

Students

UCLA

Yale

An immigration judge ruled on Friday that Mahmoud Khalil – who was detained over his actions leading anti-Israel protests at Columbia University — can be deported, giving him until April 23 to appeal the decision.
Judge Jamee Comans <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/columbia-anti-israel-protester-mahmoud-khalil-can-deported-judge-rules" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gave the ruling</a> in a Louisiana court, declaring that the federal government had met the necessary burden of proof to justify removing Khalil from the country.
Judge Comans had requested such proof from the United States government by Wednesday as he was considering the case, and had received a letter from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Rubio wrote that Khalil had led &#8220;antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States.&#8221;
&#8220;Condoning antisemitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States would severely undermine that significant foreign policy objective,&#8221; he added, citing the 1952 Immigration and Naturalization Act, which gives the U.S. Secretary of State authorization to deport anyone whose continued presence in the country &#8220;would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences.&#8221;
Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum gave the breaking news update during &#8220;The Story&#8221; on Friday afternoon, getting the live report from National Correspondent Brooke Taylor.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
BREAKING: A judge rules that the Trump administration can move forward with deportation efforts for Mahmoud Khalil. | <a href="https://twitter.com/Brooketaylortv?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@brooketaylortv</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/marthamaccallum?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@marthamaccallum</a> <a href="https://t.co/JmAGnd3RPu">pic.twitter.com/JmAGnd3RPu</a>
&mdash; Fox News (@FoxNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/1910787248255025369?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 11, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&nbsp;
Khalil spoke after the ruling, complaining that President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration had specifically sent him to another jurisdiction to ensure that the ruling would not be fair.
&#8220;I would like to quote what you said last time that there&#8217;s nothing that&#8217;s more important to this court than due process rights and fundamental fairness. Clearly, what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process,&#8221; he claimed.
&#8220;This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family. I just hope that the urgency that you deemed fit for me are afforded to the hundreds of others who have been here without hearing for months,&#8221; he added.

Pro-Palestinian rally in New York City

Judge Rules Columbia’s Pro-Hamas Agitator Mahmoud Khalil Can Be Deported

Courts

State Department

Now that President Donald Trump has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-pulls-stefanik-nomination-united-nations-ambassador" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pulled</a> her nomination to become U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) is back to putting higher-education institutions on notice over their responses to displays of anti-Semitism on campus. She even predicted that yet another university president will soon be forced to step aside.
During a Fox News interview on &#8220;Sunday Morning Futures,&#8221; host Maria Bartiromo asked Stefanik for a response to another Columbia University president <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/columbia-president-steps-down-amid-turmoil-with-trump-admin" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resigning</a> and President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-vows-to-strip-federal-funding-from-colleges-that-allow-illegal-protests" target="_blank" rel="noopener">threatening</a> to stop federal funding for schools and universities &#8220;that allow illegal protests&#8221; on their campuses.
&#8220;We have seen six high-profile university presidents resign, two of which are from Columbia, because these university presidents have failed to show moral strong leadership, and President Trump, as he campaigned on, is holding them accountable,&#8221; Stefanik said.
&#8220;The decision to withhold federal funding from Columbia, that&#8217;s what the American people wanted,&#8221; she added. &#8220;That is what they voted for, because these universities have failed to make sure that they are following their own rules. They have failed to protect Jewish students, and we will continue to highlight and spotlight.&#8221;
During a 2023 hearing following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the presidents of prestigious universities <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-top-university-presidents-balk-when-asked-if-genocidal-chants-against-jews-violate-codes-of-conduct" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dodged</a> on Stefanik&#8217;s question of whether calling for the genocide of Jews on campuses violated their schools’ policies on bullying and harassment. Columbia University’s newest interim president, Claire Shipman, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/columbias-new-prez-doesnt-appear-to-be-much-better-than-the-last-one" target="_blank" rel="noopener">referred</a> to congressional hearings over antisemitism on college campuses as &#8220;Capitol Hill nonsense,&#8221; as shown in a House Committee on Education and the Workforce report.
&#8220;The fact that we&#8217;re on the third Columbia University president, and this one, let&#8217;s be honest, Maria, is not going to last as well,&#8221; Stefanik told Bartiromo. &#8220;It&#8217;s already come out that she has criticized and belittled the House investigation and the accountability measures and has failed to protect Jewish students. So again, this is strong leadership from President Trump.&#8221;
She added: &#8220;I&#8217;m going to continue to lead this effort in holding higher ed accountable, standing up to be good stewards of U.S. taxpayer dollars, and combating the rot and the scourge of antisemitism in higher ed.&#8221;
Pressed to respond to Shipman&#8217;s dismissal of the congressional hearings on anti-Semitism on college campuses, Stefanik went on to say, &#8220;It&#8217;s untenable for her to be in this position, and I think it is going to be a matter of weeks before she is forced to step down as well. They still don&#8217;t get it. The faculty doesn&#8217;t get it. These radical, far-left students don’t get it.&#8221;
Stefanik said Trump is &#8220;revoking the visas for the pro-Hamas, foreign agitators and anti-Semites on campus&#8221; and &#8220;withholding those federal dollars. These universities are not entitled to those federal dollars. They have to ensure that they are protecting Jewish students on campus. So again, we are just seeing a failure within higher education. The Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, has done a tremendous job forcing these universities to address this crisis on campus, and we&#8217;re going to continue to use our ability on Capitol Hill and our appropriations and our oversight of these higher ed dollars to hold them accountable.&#8221;
<iframe loading="lazy" title="ICYMI: Stefanik Joins Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures To Discuss Advancing President Trump’s Agenda" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ag1aZ0i9-Ew?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Rep. Elise Stefanik

‘Untenable’: Stefanik Predicts Downfall Of Another University President

College

Congress

Elise Stefanik

U.S. House of Representatives

Columbia University&#8217;s new interim president referred to Congressional hearings over antisemitism on college campuses as “Capitol Hill nonsense.”
Claire Shipman, a former CNN correspondent, co-chaired Columbia’s board of trustees before she stepped into the role of interim president on Friday. The previous interim president, Katrina Armstrong, stepped down amid a struggle with the Trump administration over the college’s handling of antisemitism on campus.
The new university head takes over as the school negotiates for $400 million in taxpayer funding rescinded by the Trump administration. While her effectiveness remains to be seen, Shipman appears to have been at odds with Republicans on Congressional hearings on antisemitism in December 2023.
On December 28, 2023, Shipman sent a message to then-university president Minouche Shafik calling the congressional hearings “Capitol Hill nonsense,” according to <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/03/29/us-news/columbias-new-prez-called-congressional-hearings-nonsense/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New York Post</a>. The hearings focused on pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas protests and antisemitism that had broken out on college campuses after the October 7 terror attack on Israel. The presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT testified.
Shipman told Shafik that she believed Columbia would be spared from the scandal that erupted over the hearings and preceded the exit of both Harvard’s and Penn’s presidents. Shipman also encouraged Shafik to show leniency to student groups banned during the raucous protests, which included illegal actions such as vandalism and taking over campus buildings.
“I do think we should think about unsuspending the groups before semester starts to take the wind out of that,” Shipman said.
Shipman’s sentiments at the time were revealed in an October <a href="https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/10.30.24_committee_on_education_and_the_workforce_republican_staff_report_-_antisemitism_on_college_campuses_exposed.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from the Republican House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
The Trump administration has stripped Columbia University of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding over its policies and practices regarding antisemitism on campus. Under Armstrong, Columbia agreed to reform its policies, reportedly sparking blowback from faculty and staff that the university had conceded too much.
The university <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/columbia-president-steps-down-amid-turmoil-with-trump-admin" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> Armstrong’s replacement last week.
“I assume this role with a clear understanding of the serious challenges before us and a steadfast commitment to act with urgency, integrity, and work with our faculty to advance our mission, implement needed reforms, protect our students, and uphold academic freedom and open inquiry,” Shipman said in a statement. “Columbia’s new permanent president, when that individual is selected, will conduct an appropriate review of the University’s leadership team and structure to ensure we are best positioned for the future.”

Claire Shipman

Columbia’s New Prez Doesn’t Appear To Be Much Better Than The Last One

Columbia University’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, has resigned as the university struggles under pressure from the Trump administration stripping its federal funding.
Armstrong is the second president to vacate the role at the university in seven months. Columbia has been rocked by backlash to its handling of pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas protests that erupted on campus.
“Dr. Armstrong accepted the role of interim president at a time of great uncertainty for the University and worked tirelessly to promote the interests of our community,” said David Greenwald, chair of the board of trustees. “Katrina has always given her heart and soul to Columbia. We appreciate her service and look forward to her continued contributions to the University.”
Armstrong will return to lead the school’s Irving Medical Center, Columbia said in a <a href="https://communications.news.columbia.edu/news/shipman-named-acting-president" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a>. Claire Shipman, the co-chair of the board of trustees, will take over as the university’s interim president.
“I assume this role with a clear understanding of the serious challenges before us and a steadfast commitment to act with urgency, integrity, and work with our faculty to advance our mission, implement needed reforms, protect our students, and uphold academic freedom and open inquiry,” Shipman said. “Columbia’s new permanent president, when that individual is selected, will conduct an appropriate review of the University’s leadership team and structure to ensure we are best positioned for the future.”
The Trump administration has stripped $400 million in taxpayer funding from Columbia. The university had received more than $1 billion in federal funds annually before the Trump administration crackdown over its protest policies.
The university last week agreed to make significant changes to its protest policies and security practices. The school made the concessions without securing any pledge from the Trump administration to restore the hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds that have been cut off.
Armstrong has received blowback on campus from the agreement, according to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/columbia-university-interim-president-katrina-armstrong-is-stepping-down-7644f880?mod=hp_lead_pos5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Wall Street Journal</a>. In the days ahead of her resignation announcement, she met with faculty and staff who thought the university had given up too much in the agreement.
The battle between the Trump administration and Columbia University has been over what the federal government has said is a double standard by the university to enable its pro-Palestinian students while allowing a hostile environment to threaten its Jewish students.
The Trump administration’s anti-Semitism taskforce said in a statement after Armstrong’s resignation: “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,” according to WSJ.

Columbia President Steps Down Amid Turmoil With Trump Admin

Columbia University made <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/columbia-u-prez-gets-flak-from-faculty-for-not-fighting-harder-against-trump">headlines</a> for accepting the Trump administration’s <a href="https://president.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/content/03.21.2025%20Columbia%20-%20FINAL.pdf">demands</a>: in exchange for the restoration of over $400 million in federal funding — which the federal government revoked from Columbia due to its failure to address violent campus anti-Semitism, a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — the university will expel disruptive students, increase campus security, review its admissions policy, and place certain departments under academic receivership.
The mainstream is, unsurprisingly, aghast. “Columbia has capitulated to the bullies,” <a href="https://www.nyclu.org/press-release/columbia-university-gives-in-to-trump-admin-demands-eroding-academic-freedom-and-student-speech" target="_blank" rel="noopener">read</a> a statement from the ACLU of New York.
It’s an interesting choice of word, “bullies,” and, for Columbia, rather convenient. Based on <a href="https://freebeacon.com/campus/what-columbia-university-president-really-told-faculty-members/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">leaked internal conversations</a> from Columbia, administrators likely would prefer to seem as though they were rapidly bullied into submission by the big bad Republican President of the United States than be forced to admit the reality: that they had been bullied into submission by their own students and faculty over the course of a decade, and now finally have an opportunity to excise extremism from their ranks.
Indeed, the story of the past 15 years or so of American academic life is a story of profound cowardice: people who should have known better and who, in the case of tenured faculty, had the power to act per their conscience without risking their livelihoods, chose instead to give in to a small group of entitled campus radicals who made increasingly deranged demands — campus inquisitions for the accused, struggle sessions for dissidents, a near-total shutdown of academic freedom — while demonstrating poor behavior and poor scholarship that in a saner era would not only have gotten them expelled or fired, but publicly ridiculed.
Eventually, as the dust from the COVID era began to settle and the failures of liberal orthodoxy became apparent, it became more acceptable to discuss internal problems. By 2022, professors began to admit publicly that their students were <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-stunning-level-of-student-disconnection" target="_blank" rel="noopener">worse off</a> emotionally and academically after the pandemic, and that colleges had tossed out expectations for them, beginning in the <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/05/on-college-admissions-its-the-woke-fringe-vs-everyone-else/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">admissions department</a>; that spring, MIT became the first elite university to <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2022/stuart-schmill-sat-act-requirement-0328" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bring</a> back its standardized testing requirement after relaxing it during the pandemic.
But the real watershed moment on American campuses was October 7, 2023, as college students across the country cheered for murderous Hamas terrorists. For the first time since the Obama administration, there was real internal debate within the liberal mainstream about what had happened to academia, not just with respect to Israel but with respect to the entire toxic sludge of ideology that long preceded the Hamas attack. In December of 2023, the Chronicle of Higher Education, perhaps the nation’s most prominent academic newspaper, <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-decade-of-ideological-transformation-comes-undone" target="_blank" rel="noopener">published</a> a story titled, “A Decade of Ideological Transformation Comes Undone.” Wrote Lee Gutkin, “College leaders have discovered, maybe too late, that the habit of validation has left them incapable of managing institutions in which real and deep disagreements exist.”
Gutkin was right: when Columbia and other universities were confronted in the spring of the 2023-24 academic year with protests far more objectionable than in the fall, administrators failed to act. At Columbia, things got so bad that even non-Jewish janitors are now filing a Title VI complaint, claiming they were <a href="https://www.thejc.com/news/world/columbia-university-janitors-claim-anti-israel-encampment-accused-them-of-being-jew-lovers-and-spray-painted-swastikas-around-campus-aegd9g7s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called</a> “Jew lovers” by an antisemitic mob and forced to scrub swastikas and other antisemitic graffiti.
Columbia, specifically, did too little too late, disciplining only 40 of the hundreds of students involved and then <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/suspension-most-columbia-students-disciplined-over-gaza-protests-is-removed-2024-08-20/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">restoring</a> 38 of them to campus the following academic year. While the university’s schizophrenic actions led to allegations of unfair treatment by both sides, they mostly just showed spinelessness.
It appears now that administrators had been hoping for an out. <a href="https://president.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/content/03.21.2025%20Columbia%20-%20FINAL.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Columbia’s plan</a> goes far deeper than the Trump administration’s demands of cracking down on anti-Semitism and physical violence: the university is also committing to institutional neutrality, hiring more intellectually diverse faculty, creating spaces for open discourse, and reviewing its admissions practices.
These are not the actions of a university that is begrudgingly complying with a hostile government; they are the actions of administrators who have found an excellent excuse — money — to disregard the activists they were previously beholden to and recommit themselves to the teaching and research that they should have been focusing on all along. As the co-chair of Columbia’s anti-Semitism task force <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/nyregion/columbia-response-trump-demands.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The New York Times, “What’s fascinating to me is a lot of these are things we needed to get done and were getting done, but now we’ve gotten done more quickly.”
While there is not a single university that actively wants its federal funding revoked, the looming threat of losing federal funding — one that the Trump administration has now made clear it is willing to make good on — may be excuse enough for the saner voices in universities to attempt to deradicalize. Whatever university administrators may say publicly, they may very well silently be thanking the Trump administration.
* * *
Neeraja Deshpande is an education policy analyst at Independent Women’s Forum (iwf.org).
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TOPSHOT-US-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICT-education-COLUMBIA-demonstration

Columbia University Wanted This

ACLU

American Universities

Department of Education

Leftists

New York City

President Trump

Pro-Palestinian

Violence

For two years, my soft voice was drowned out at Columbia University, smothered by deafening roars outside our windows. I was spoken over, screamed past, pushed aside by mobs whose chants turned threats into anthems.
I live with a rare form of muscular dystrophy. My predicted lifespan was four years. While I defied the odds, never has my voice been more silenced.
Throughout my life I have faced immense adversity, yet I have prevailed by becoming the first person with my condition to walk the New York Fashion Week runway (February, 2023), the first person with my condition to climb a mountain (Camelback Mountain in Arizona 2022) — producing an internationally awarded documentary combating disability stereotypes — and most recently setting a Guinness World Record for the fastest swim time in my category.
My limited energy is normally invested in advocating for others, but for the first time, my very means of advocacy was heartlessly stolen from me.
For two years, my faint tones were consumed by a campus that refused to listen, dismissed by an administration that chose appeasement over accountability, ignored by a culture that demanded my silence in the name of supposed progress.
For two years, voices chanted for the destruction of my people, fists raised in protest not merely for justice, but for erasure, all while those in power stood by in cowardice. Mobs that disregarded our accessibility and our right to belong stormed our campus walk as I scooted in search of a single accessible entrance. While I fought for a space to exist, countless others with disabilities, some bound to their wheelchairs, were left navigating a campus that refused to see us, let alone accommodate our basic needs. Our identities became a debate, and our safety an afterthought.
Yet my purpose is not to debate the hostility, prove our right to exist, or even to justify our presence at this university. Rather, my purpose is to emphasize one simple truth: now, at last, my soft voice can be heard. Unfortunately, the silence that once suffocated me, was only exhaled in response to intensified government intervention. This government intervention is nothing new and has brought forth three harsh realities: (a) The freedom of a Jew comes at a troubling cost (b) History is repeating itself and (c) Columbia&#8217;s cowardly silence has perpetuated further hostility and segregation – their indifference must end now.
At an unfortunate cost, the world is now witnessing what it takes for Jewish students to experience basic campus safety and dignity. The Trump administration’s cancellation of $400 million in funding, along with the detainment of a former student protest leader with alleged ties to Hamas, has widened the nation&#8217;s eyes to one chilling truth: Columbia’s failure to uphold the rights of Jewish students was not appropriately corrected by institutional conscience but rather it required external force, exposing the depths of negligence.
Columbia’s government funding was <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/doj-hhs-ed-and-gsa-announce-initial-cancelation-grants-and-contracts-columbia-university">revoked</a> in direct response to “the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” This is a profound failure of humanity, that restoring safety required government intervention at the expense of fundamental freedoms. The price of inaction was paid through imposed financial costs, an obligation that should have been paid through moral courage. It was not.
For a Jew to attend class freely, must a child with cancer lose access to life-saving research?
For a Jew to walk through campus freely, must an international student fear detainment?
For a Jew to learn without threats, must a groundbreaking cure remain locked away due to defunded research?
For a Jew to simply exist, must a first-generation student lose access to financial aid?
Have we truly arrived at another moment in time where, for a Jew to express their identity openly, the future of innovation, education, and opportunity must be compromised? Where an engineering breakthrough must be halted and countless other students must suffer collateral damage simply because Columbia University refused to act until it was forced?
The university administration’s cowardly silence is screaming! While government intervention has never been more necessary, agony pulses through my veins at the realization that this is where campus life has arrived. The university administration had every opportunity to protect its students, yet chose to allow the escalation of intolerance and violence against their Jewish students. And now, that silence has been replaced with an even louder reckoning, one that should never have come at such a cost.
Now, the campus is silent. But this silence has not emerged from understanding or reflection. Campus silence exists only because the cost of inaction became too great — the silence is screaming!
History has proven – that government mandates do not equate to inherent justice. Canceling government funding for needed research and resources is truly an unfortunate crossroads between morality and human equality. Throughout history, intensified government intervention, though imperative, has proven to deepen divisions, inflame resentment, and fuel further segregation.
In 1954, reluctance to properly integrate black children into the school system, following the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling against racial segregation (1954), persisted. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus refused to integrate Little Rock Central High School or to protect Black students from violent mobs, making federal intervention essential. In September of 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent federal troops to forcibly escort nine Black students, known as “The Little Rock Nine,” into the school. While governmental mandates undoubtedly served as one necessary step towards respect for all, one consequence was generational racial strife.
Columbia&#8217;s suffocating silence is the true culprit, forcing external action where institutional courage should have prevailed. The silence on campus will be temporary if Columbia’s leadership refuses to take meaningful action.
Columbia’s administration must summon the courage to acknowledge the undeniable truth, only then will we cultivate true respect for all. One can be Muslim, Jewish, Christian, tall, short, in a wheelchair or running freely. One can come from any faith, culture, or any physical ability but at Columbia one principle must consistently hold true: that all academic thinkers can and should be safely welcomed. When policies are upheld, order will follow.
We must not allow the tides of academic accountability to shift along with the ever changing waves of podcast trends, political climate, public opinion, or what funding is or is not received.
True racial, cultural and ability equality will not persist if Columbia University does not speak up and clearly condemn the open disrespect of students. The current silence is deafening.
Dear Columbia University leadership: dig deep and draw from the depths of your hearts and souls to shatter your indifference and proclaim that respect for all will no longer be up for debate. I urge you to speak out online, in print, and, most critically, stand in person at the Columbia Sundial, a historic gathering place at the heart of campus. The institution’s declaration of justice and respect for all is crucial for both the present and future. Please, replace your silence with a bold message to our diverse, complex world, memorializing it for those not yet born.
Take it from me, someone whose soft voice speaks against the odds – our campus’s silence is screaming.
* * *
Lilian Brasch is an undergraduate student and ability activist at Columbia University, class of 2025.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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At Columbia University, The Silence Is Screaming

Disability

Jewish

After Columbia University interim president Katrina Armstrong’s remarks over the weekend called into question her commitment to falling into line with Trump administration standards the school had agreed to, she released a statement clarifying her commitment to implementing the changes, at the behest of the Trump administration.
Over the weekend, Armstrong met with roughly 75 faculty leaders. The university president reportedly said that Columbia is being investigated by six federal agencies, which could lead to all federal funding being pulled from the Ivy League school, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/columbia-trump-armstrong-statement-26c3830e?mod=hp_lead_pos5">per</a> The Wall Street Journal. Despite the fact that Columbia had written a letter to the Trump administration agreeing to ban masks during unauthorized protests, Armstrong told faculty no mask ban existed.
But now, Armstrong released a <a href="https://president.columbia.edu/news/statement-regarding-columbias-commitments">statement</a> on Tuesday saying:
&#8220;I regret any confusion and inconsistent statements and want to make sure our position is clear as we go forward. &#8230; Let there be no confusion: I commit to seeing these changes implemented, with the full support of Columbia’s senior leadership team and the Board of Trustees. &#8230; We need to continue to work to restore the public’s faith of the fundamental value of higher education for the nation and the longstanding partnership between ground-breaking universities like Columbia and the federal government.”
The deal Columbia University made with the government does not guarantee the return of the $400 million in grants to the university the Trump administration canceled earlier this month “due to the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”
“Since October 7, Jewish students have faced relentless violence, intimidation, and anti-Semitic harassment on their campuses — only to be ignored by those who are supposed to protect them,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon <a href="https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/doj-hhs-ed-and-gsa-announce-initial-cancelation-of-grants-and-contracts-columbia-university-worth-400-million" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stated</a> as the funds were canceled. “Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding. For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus. Today, we demonstrate to Columbia and other universities that we will not tolerate their appalling inaction any longer.”
“Freezing the funds is one of the tools we are using to respond to this spike in anti-Semitism. This is only the beginning,” Leo Terrell, Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and head of the DOJ Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, added. “Canceling these taxpayer funds is our strongest signal yet that the Federal Government is not going to be party to an educational institution like Columbia that does not protect Jewish students and staff.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/columbia-u-prez-gets-flak-from-faculty-for-not-fighting-harder-against-trump">Columbia U Prez Gets Flak From Faculty For Not Fighting Harder Against Trump</a>

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Amid Trump Admin’s Continued Pressure, Columbia U Prez Says She’ll Honor Commitments To Changes

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