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A consent decree doesn't give the White House binding control over Columbia; it gives a federal judge that control. Consent decrees with universities aren't unprecedented; there are several over ADA issues, for instance.
I'm not saying this is good (I have no idea, but given the actors involved, probably not), and this isn't a normative claim.
This particular consent decree would a give judge binding control to enforce whatever the White House says.
The ADA is, in important contrast to this situation, a law.
As I said: it gives a judge binding control, not the White House.
A distinction with out a difference because this is entirely about whether Columbia agrees to do whatever the White House says it has to do.
>A consent decree doesn't give the White House binding control over Columbia; it gives a federal judge that control.
It’s gives the judge control to enforce the White House’s decree. What meaningful distinction are you making?
The distinction between Article III and Article II of the Constitution? A randomly-chosen SDNY judge is overwhelmingly likely to be a Clinton, Obama, or Biden appointee?
I still think this will be a shitshow, but the headline that "the White House is seeking binding control via a consent decree" is misleading; that's not how a consent decree works.
> Consent decrees are frequently used by federal courts to ensure that businesses and industries adhere to regulatory laws
What was the regulation that Columbia was alleged to have violated?
Upsetting Trump 25 years ago...
https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/03/31/columbia-t...
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
Yep. It's also worth noting that Trump didn't invent these charges. Many Jewish students sued, and the university president admitted:
> I know that many of our Jewish students, and other students as well, have found the atmosphere intolerable in recent weeks. Many have left campus, and that is a tragedy.
...
> The encampment has created an unwelcoming environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty. External actors have contributed to creating a hostile environment in violation of Title VI, especially around our gates, that is unsafe for everyone—including our neighbors.
https://president.columbia.edu/news/statement-columbia-unive...
Making conservatives feel bad.
Jewish Students on campus feel bad*
They're also applied to law enforcement agencies in the United States.
Thought they’re talking about the country for a second there
A good time to remember: Colombia/Columbia
also the o isn't just a spelling difference it is a pronunciation difference
Oh, I could’ve sworn that they meant the Space Shuttle
Soon.
I clearly don't follow so bear with me,
> A consent decree is an agreement or settlement that resolves a dispute between two parties without admission of guilt (in a criminal case) or liability (in a civil case).
Why would this be in any way relevant to what I think is happening at Columbia from approximately ~20 min/week of random news snippets
It means instead of accepting Columbia’s word they’ll comply, they want Columbia to enter into a legal agreement, bypassing possibly years of litigation if Columbia changes their minds without such an agreement.
It would give the Trump administration an unprecedented amount of control of a private university.
Only if they want to continue being funded to the same extent. Columbia receives more funding (% of budget and gross) than many public universities.
An alternative for Columbia is to just reject federal funding and look to its endowment and forprofit services
The new part is requiring a legal mechanism that grants the gov't operational control.
It's not full operational control. A consent order means you promise to comply with some stuff. The government will monitor you if you comply or not. In that sense, it's some form of indirect control, but it's far from full control.
This is why you don't kneel to dictators. The only reason this has gotten so far is because people think they will give an inch and Trump won't try to take a mile. Do not forget that actual white supremacist are in high ranking positions of the US govt. "Antisemitism" is just a Trojan horse they use to justify their power grabs. They do not care about antisemitism.
> Antisemitism" is just a Trojan horse they use to justify their power grabs
This is just about Israel. The US government is abolishing freedom of speech and engaging in arbitrary deportations and disappearances to curb activism and protests against Israel.
Again, trojan horse. Israel is the justification being used. If it wasn't Israel it would be something else. The protest at many of these colleges were organized by Jewish students.
Why do they need all that grant money? Surely they have a large endowment. Is it mostly research grants? It’s not like they’re building libraries with it, right?
tbh I’ve never really understood why universities don’t separate their grant-funded research institutions from their academic pursuits. Why keep it all under the same entity?
They actually do. Most universities have a foundation that runs their endowment and a delegate (or multiple) research corporations each with its own rules and policies and procedures.
As to the separation of research and education, where we have achieved the noble goal is a worthwhile discussion but the intent was that the creation of knowledge through research and the transference of knowledge through education have such significant parallels that the should co occur.
Are we talking about what philosophically the government should spend money on? I think education and general research is a good expenditure. And R1 universities are probably the right places for that research. Before Trump, people from all over the world came the US to study with great benefit, now we're throwing them out. Either way, if we don't want to spend $400M on grants, why are we going to spend $100M+ on a military parade [1]? It's all about efficiency right?
And since you mentioned libraries, IMLS recently was DOGE'd which used to provide funds to a lot of libraries.
[1] https://fortune.com/2025/04/07/trump-birthday-military-parad...
I’m more asking about how the universities are spending the money (and which pile of money they’re spending).
The government could spend the equivalent of a university’s endowment many times over and nobody would notice. If it wants to spend more money on scientific research, great - but I’m questioning how effectively that can be used as leverage if the universities don’t really “need” it.
Let me connect the dots for anyone confused.
Last Spring in particular there were a bunch of student protests against the genocide being done by Israel with material support from the US. Many of these protestors were themselves Jewish. Organizations such as the Jewish Voice for Peace [1] were heavily involved. Jewish people in the US have a long history of being active in civil rights movements. Notably, 3 of the 4 of the students who were killed by the National Guard at Kent State in 1968 were Jewish.
Genocide (and apartheid) supporters try and silence dissent by claiming anti-Zionism (that is, opposition to Israel as a settler-colonial state) is anti-Semitism, which it is not. For every Jewish Zionist in the US there are 20-30 Christian Zionists who are motivated by bringing on the Rapture [2]. It's worth pointing out that if this prophecy were to actually come true, all the Jews in Israel would be killed. The point here is that many Zionists are actually anti-Semitic.
The state came down hard on such protestors. There have been something like ~3500 arrests of college protestors (compared to ~1300 for January 6, an actual coup attempt). There's lots of lies disseminated to demonize the protestors. For example, false claims that Columbia protestors blocked Jewish students from going to classes.
The administration has used research funding as a weapon to bring colleges into line to expel or otherwise punish studnets who protested, implement policies to say that criticism of the state of Israel was anti-Semitism and so on. Columbia, in particular, has already completely capitulated.
All of this is a direct attack on free speech to silence any protest or critcism of US foreign policy in the Middle East. Columbia is being made an example of but it's odd that this is potentially going forward to a consent decree since Columbia has already fallen in line.
But it goes so much further than this. Protestors and organizers have been targeted for unlawful deportation. They have in some cases been black-bagged and illegally kidnapped 1000 miles away without due process and then deported without seeing an immigration judge to have a deportation hearing, under the ludicrous "state of emergency" related to a Venezuelan gang.
So where is ICE, who is the Gestapo in this scenario, getting these names? From places like the Canary Mission [3]. Canary Mission had already engaged in doxxing protestors. Now they seemingly have the ear of the administration to point the finger and have opponents black-bagged and sent to El Salvadore to a prison on a seemingly indefinite sentence.
This is the 1930s Nazi Germany playbook.
[1]: https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/30/us-evangelical...
[3]: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/canary-mission-israe...
I'm so incredibly sad due to this state of affairs. I don't even know what to do really. Do I drop everything, try to get a law degree, and fight via the law even though this administration doesn't really seem to heed it?
What I've done is just set aside a percentage of my paycheck to go towards democratic lawyers fighting this as well as get involved in protest locally. Connect with your local community.
Nobody involved in pro-Palestine protests has been sent to El Salvador. AFAIK only Venezuelan or Salvadoran nationals accused of membership in Tren de Aragua or MS-13 have been sent there. (If I'm wrong please correct me!)
Mahmoud Khalil hasn't been deported (yet) but he was absolutely black-bagged and sent to Lousiana pending deportation, despite being a lawful permanent resident and not being accused of any criminal conduct [1]. His crime? Involvement in pro-Palestinian protests [2].
You are correct that, to the best of our knowledge, no pro-Palestinian protestor has thus far been deported to El Salvador.
The precedent here is what's important, meaning the government is arguing that they have the right to deport anyone they want for pretty much any reason and put them in a foreign prison indefinitely.
The legal justification for all this is an over 200 year old law called the Alien and Seditions Act and a declared state of emergency and invasion/incursion by a Venezuelan gang, something which has gotten at least some support from the Supreme Court [3].
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has basically come out and said that Khalil is being deported for his views. If these people don't have rights to free speech and due process then nobody does.
[1]: https://apnews.com/article/mahmoud-khalil-columbia-universit...
[2]: https://www.axios.com/2025/03/09/ice-arrests-palestinian-act...
[3]: https://www.livenowfox.com/news/supreme-court-lifts-order-bl...
You know, I was worried there for a second but then you said they were accused of something mildly bad, so I feel much better now.
wrong post :facepalm: