The speed and scope of actions coming from Donald Trump’s White House remain breathtaking.
Among other big moves Friday, the 46th day of his administration, the president said he was “strongly considering” imposing sanctions and tariffs against Russia until it agrees to a peace deal in Ukraine.
He also said America will offer a rapid pathway to citizenship for South African farmers whose government is threatening to confiscate their property.
And Trump revealed that he sent a letter to the Iranian government with an offer to negotiate a deal to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Other comments concerned the on-again, off-again tariff programs and his warning to Hamas to release all hostages “or there would be hell to pay.”
All of these issues are incredibly important, but for my taste, the most significant action Friday involved none of the above.
It was the administration’s announcement that it was canceling $400 million in federal grants and contracts given to Columbia University over its failure to address rampant antisemitism on its Manhattan campus.
It followed, by one day, a State Department announcement that it had yanked the first visa of a foreign student linked to “Hamas-supporting disruptions.”
Although the student and the school involved were not identified, it’s a certainty the twin developments are sending shock waves through colleges and universities across the nation — and that’s the point.
The moves lower the boom on the campus radicals, including professors, who are supporting the murderous terrorist organization and the feckless university administrators who have done little or nothing to stop them.
Reports indicate that grant cancellations for other schools will soon follow, with officials from the Department of Education saying recently they were conducting investigations of five universities where repeated antisemitic harassment incidents were reported.
Columbia was one of the five, with the others being Northwestern University, Portland State University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
“Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said Friday.
“Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus.”
It’s possible that Yale, another Ivy League school, could be in the crosshairs.
It received a “D” in a recent Anti-Defamation League report card over the distribution of antisemitic flyers on campus and an anti-Israel rally where protesters chanted, “Free our prisoners, free them all, Zionism must fall.”
Penalty could grow
The action against Columbia comes after officials had cited “an explosion of antisemitism on American campuses following the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023.”
They noted that the Civil Rights Act protects individuals from discrimination based on national origin and covers educational institutions that get federal funding.
McMahon left open the possibility that the Columbia penalty could grow.
Overall, the university, a major research institution, has some $5 billion in federal commitments over a number of years, with about a quarter of its annual budget reportedly coming from Washington.
Columbia, my alma mater, has only itself to blame for its predicament.
Like so many other elite colleges, it apparently thought it could continue to avoid any government penalties for the rampant misconduct it permitted.
The failure of Democrats and the Biden administration to act against antisemitism certainly contributed to that misplaced confidence.
The best and brightest apparently forgot that elections have consequences.
Recall that it was back in December of 2023 that House Republicans famously grilled the presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT about their failures to protect Jewish students from the antisemites on their campuses.
Although Dems generally stayed silent or even complimented them, the presidents of Harvard and Penn were soon forced out in large part because many alumni withheld donations.
Yet here we are, 15 months later, and outright expressions of support for Hamas and calls for the elimination of Israel continue.
Indeed, such vile events seem to be happening more frequently and on more campuses.
At Barnard College, which is affiliated with Columbia, radicals occupied buildings on two separate occasions recently and disrupted classes, including one incident last week.
If past is prologue, the number and severity of the campus outbreaks will grow sharply as the weather turns warmer.
Trump’s actions, which pick up where the 2023 GOP hearings ended, are a welcome antidote to the indifferent approach of the Biden administration.
By doing nothing about the growing domestic support for Hamas terrorists who slaughtered Israeli civilians, including children, raped countless women and took hostages, at least some of whom were tortured, the former president was effectively condoning the campus outrage.
Indeed, some of his White House’s public criticisms of Israel’s actions in Gaza were often indistinguishable from those of Hamas and the domestic radicals.
The result was a tacit federal greenlight for the harassment of Jewish students and wide expressions of antisemitism.
The open Jew-hatred, which continues to spawn marches and disruptions in New York and other cities, is unlike anything America has seen since the Holocaust.
In most cases, it has nothing to do with free speech.
Most pro-Israel prez
History shows that if left unchecked, the scourge will multiply and lead to more violence, which is why the new administration deserves praise for its fast, forceful actions to crush it.
Trump, widely regarded as the most pro-Israel president ever, is showing the same concern about Jewish safety in America.
It is telling that he nominated Rep. Elise Stefanik, the New York Republican who blew up the attempts of the Penn and Harvard presidents to couch their inaction in terms of free speech, to be America’s ambassador to the United Nations, where Jew hatred is baked into every cake.
“The antisemites at the United Nations better buckle up because I’m coming,” Stefanik said in a recent speech.
“The university presidents were just a warm-up.”
The new campus crackdown must also focus on prosecution.
Even after radicals set up tent cities, harassed their classmates and broke into university buildings and refused to leave, few if any students were suspended or expelled.
Worse, too-lenient prosecutors in New York and elsewhere dropped most charges.
At some point, Trump must consider whether the Department of Justice should take over cases that involve violations of federal laws.
And it must continue to cancel the visas of any foreign students involved.
Still, even that would not exempt the universities from their duty not to discriminate, which they clearly violated by failing to confront the terrorist supporters and provide safe environments for Jewish students.
For its part, Columbia is now pledging “to work with the federal government,” according to a Friday statement.
It said the school is “committed to combatting antisemitism and ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our students, faculty, and staff.”
That was Columbia’s obligation all along, but the fact that officials only seem to remember it after they’ve been penalized underscores the importance of Trump taking back taxpayers’ money.
Who is next on the chopping block?
