When I heard Thursday that Columbia University made a deal with the Trump administration to restore their federal funding, my first thought was about the prisoners’ dilemma.
In this game theory scenario, two parties must choose whether to cooperate or betray each other. Although cooperation leads to the best collective outcome, without communication, each party is likely to defect, leaving both of them worse off.
My preference would have been for all universities to resist pressure from the administration. But, as soon as Columbia defected — being the first of the impacted universities to enter into a deal — the administration had leverage on the others to do the same.
So, I wasn’t surprised when I read that the administration is looking to enter similar deals with other universities on the list, including Northwestern.
I don’t envy the position of university administrators right now. They have an incredibly difficult decision to make. Both options are, frankly, terrible, and will leave large swaths of the community unhappy.
After a few days of reflection, I decided that, if I were an administrator, I wouldn’t take the deal.
I have already written extensively about how deals like this have dubious motivations and won’t protect Jewish students.
It is worth acknowledging that what happened to Jewish students at Columbia was abhorrent, and sounded much worse than anything I encountered as a Jewish student at Northwestern. One Columbia janitor reported regularly scrubbing away swastikas, for example. I can understand the desire for Columbia to be punished for their mishandling of the situation.
In reality, however, the administration’s attacks on universities are the result of their long desire for revenge on liberal institutions, with an undercurrent of Christian Zionism.
They don’t even try to hide it.
As Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said about the Columbia deal, “This is a monumental victory for conservatives who’ve wanted to do things on these elite campuses for a long time.”
They’re using Jewish students as a pretext. An anonymous source close to the federal government told the Washington Post, “They’re going to use this template and go and say, ‘We’ve got a complaint from three Jewish students… Do you want a full investigation and humiliate you or do you want to reach this agreement?’”
This, to me, implies that the motivations for these settlements don’t come from a place of genuine concern.
The primary question, therefore, is not about antisemitism on campus. Instead, I’d think hard about whether agreeing to the deal would make this University a better or worse place.
Though not an easy decision, I’ve concluded that a settlement would make Northwestern worse, and would counter its mission.
I did consider the benefits of taking a deal. I read the terms that Columbia agreed to, and they were tamer than I expected. The University must pay the government a total of $200 million over three years, as well as $21 million more to settle a harassment investigation. Columbia must not consider race when selecting students, but this was already made illegal by the Supreme Court. I suspect Northwestern would have to make similar concessions.
This is what concerns me the most: Columbia will hire new faculty who hold joint appointments between the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and either the economics or political science departments, or the School of International and Public Affairs. Though it announced this change back in March, codifying this decision in an agreement with the federal government signals Columbia ceding its status as an independent institution.
Even more troubling is that a “resolution monitor” will monitor Columbia’s progress on these stipulations, and have wide access to its admissions records, hiring practices, data on disciplinary actions and more.
An independent university having a monitor who reports to the government seems, well, dystopian.
Nevertheless, acting Columbia President Claire Shipman noted the agreement doesn’t regulate what the University can or can’t teach.
Moreover, when the idea of universities making concessions to the administration first arose in March, almost a thousand alumni wrote to the Daily in protest. My initial reaction was that this type of letter is quite easy to send when you no longer attend the institution, and federal funding doesn’t affect your daily life.
As a current student, I know firsthand that my college experience depends on federal funding and the ability of the school to hire people. I also care about the people who work here, and want them to receive quality healthcare – not some second-rate plan. Ensuring the University’s ability to financially provide for its students and employees should be one of many important factors to consider when deciding whether to make a deal.
Yet, though the day-to-day life at Columbia will certainly be improved by restoring funding, and the federal government doesn’t explicitly say what Columbia can and can’t teach, I am greatly worried about a slippery slope of authoritarianism from the federal government over independent institutions.
This worry outweighs any potential benefits of making a deal.
First, a deal would set a dangerous precedent for government’s meddling in independent institutions. As Franklin Foer wrote in The Atlantic, just because I agree that antisemitism needs to be eradicated, I don’t know what new conditions they will ask for tomorrow.
Let’s say, a year into the future, the government says that universities need to teach apologist histories about the Civil War; it would be quite hypocritical to oppose the federal government’s meddling then if I supported it now. And this isn’t a crazy thing to suggest that the government might do — they’re forcing National Parks to rewrite their histories to leave out America’s misdeeds, removing certain gendered language from health websites and defunding NPR on account of its liberal bias. We’re only six months into this administration; who knows what the next three and a half years will bring.
Also, it would be dangerous to view this deal in a vacuum from the rest of the administration’s actions; they have no regard for the truth.
Just look at the past week and a half: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard floated a conspiracy about former President Obama supposedly committing treason. Observers are theorizing that CBS canceled Stephen Colbert’s (Communication ’86) popular show, on which he regularly criticizes Trump, to appease the administration, who needs to approve CBS’s parent company’s merger. The New York Times recently put out a podcast interviewing a former Justice Department employee who claimed he was fired after refusing to heed to political pressure in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case.
Entering a deal with an organization that despises the truth is a very dangerous game. With no referee — and an opponent who wants to keep taking and taking — I cannot in good faith recommend that NU play this game with the federal government.
I regard the truth so highly because of my philosophy of the value of college: If the ability to seek truth is at risk, so is the purpose of Northwestern.
Every day as a student here, I see the seal of Northwestern, whether it be carved onto Kresge Hall, in the Marjorie Weinberg Memorial Garden, on shirts. I can recognize it from afar: a circle with a book with light radiating out of it, a circle with “Northwestern University” adorning it like a halo.
What I, and likely many others, often miss is the Latin phrase under it: “Quaecumque Sunt Vera” or in English, “Whatsoever Things Are True.”
It comes from the New Testament book of Philippians, chapter four, verse eight, in which St. Paul, while imprisoned, writes to the Christians in the Greek city of Philippi. He states, “Finally, brothers, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just … think on these things.”
I’m not really a religious person, and I’m certainly not a Christian. But it would do all of us, including University leadership, some good to think about this lesson.
The ancestors of this University wanted Northwestern to hold onto the truth and pursue knowledge with integrity, even while facing existential challenges. They could not have foreseen today’s circumstances — but their words could not be more apt.
Conceding to the Trump administration would be a surrender of these values, and a shameful one at that; it would be a loss before the fight even begins.
This institution would certainly be weaker without federal funding. But it would be meaningless without morals.
Talia Winiarsky is a rising Weinberg senior. She can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.
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