Mike Pompeo, President Trump’s secretary of State in his first term, is joining Columbia University as a fellow starting in March.
He will be joining the Institute of Global Politics as a distinguished fellow starting March 1 and will keep the position through February 2026, a university official said.
“Secretary Pompeo is among a very small group of diplomats who have represented the United States on the world stage and who understand intimately the impact US foreign policy has domestically and around the globe,” the official said.
The appointment comes as Columbia has been under fire by Republicans due to antisemitism on campus and the pro-Palestinian protests that began last spring at the university.
Pompeo told The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news, that he is looking to have “fair, reasoned and fact-based discourse.”
“I suspect that [Columbia’s] outreach was intentional in the sense that they were seeking to bring onto campus…someone with a view that is very different than most of the faculty on their staff,” he added.
Last spring, Columbia saw protesters take over a campus building and had to move classes online over the demonstrations.
Pompeo lost support in Trump’s circle after he said the Capitol riot was “unacceptable” and would not say the 2020 election was rigged, but says he supports the president’s efforts to get rid of diversity, equity and inclusion programs at schools.
“I’m uninterested in the name of the institution on their diploma, and deeply interested in what it is they know,” Pompeo told WSJ. “The United States’ greatest risk is that we refuse to teach the next generation about the greatness of our nation.”
