Dem
47
GOP
53
Even giving in to all of Donald Trump's blackmail is not enough to save your job if you are a high-profile university president. On Friday Columbia's Katrina Armstrong resigned, effective immediately. She is the second Columbia president to resign in the past 12 months, as her predecessor, Minouche Shafik, resigned last August. Columbia will now have to search for a new president, but it is hard to imagine why anyone would want to be a university president now. It is a thankless job.
A week ago, Armstrong groveled in the dirt in an attempt to have Trump not cancel $400 million in contracts and grants to which the university has a legal right by dint of having negotiated and signed agreements to do certain work for a certain payment. That didn't save her. Nothing could have. Trump is angry because there were pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments at Columbia last year—aimed at Joe Biden, not at him. But at this point, the content of the demonstrations isn't the issue any more. What he wants is to ban all demonstrations and all political speech except things he approves. The idea is, once he starts to allow free speech, heaven knows what people might say, so better to clamp down on all speech than take a chance. The message here is plain. The time of free speech is over. Get used to it.
For the president of Columbia or any high-profile university, all options are terrible. If Armstrong had stood tall and sued Trump, the $400 million would simply not show up in the university's bank account and there would be no money to pay people, buy supplies, fund travel, and generally run a large part of the university's operation. Tuition covers only a tiny fraction of what big research universities do. But by caving to Trump, she infuriated the faculty and students, who wanted Armstrong to tell Trump where to go and sue. They weren't thinking about how she was going to meet the payroll next month. So she was put in an impossible situation. Do what Trump wants and everyone at the university is furious with her or stand up to Trump and not have the money to pay professors, researchers, staff, and the cleaning company next month. She couldn't handle it and just gave up.
Given the multiple victories some law firms and others have won in court, she could have sued and hoped that a judge would order Trump to continue payments until the case could be fully adjudicated up to the Supreme Court. That would be a gamble because not all judges care about the law, unfortunately. Some are more interested in currying favor with Trump in the hopes of getting a promotion (looking at you, Aileen Cannon). It would be a huge risk, in part because the legal system works so slowly. As Trump pulls this stunt with other universities, it will be interesting to see what lessons they take from Columbia. (V)