WSJ: Faculty-on-Faculty War Erupts at Columbia

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Columbia University is fighting two wars at once. One rages publicly against President Trump, whose administration in recent days ordered the arrest of a student protester and canceled federal funds to the Ivy League school over allegations of antisemitism.

The second conflict simmers behind the scenes: a faculty civil war that pits medical doctors and engineers against political scientists and humanities scholars over how to handle pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have disrupted campus life.

In February, well before Trump made Columbia exhibit A in his effort to reshape elite colleges, seven Jewish faculty from the engineering, medical, and business schools, along with prominent deans and a representative for Jewish alumni, met with Columbia interim President Katrina Armstrong. They asked her to get ahead of Trump’s moves by implementing a series of restrictions on protesters, including banning masks on campus, according to people in attendance.

Faculty who attended the meeting said Armstrong’s response was to kick the can down the road.

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Last week, the Trump administration said it would cancel roughly $400 million in federal contracts and grants to Columbia. On Monday, notes went out informing faculty about the frozen money.

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Columbia is among schools under scrutiny by the Trump administration for allegedly failing to protect Jewish students during the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that disrupted campuses nationwide last year over the war in Gaza. Columbia, the epicenter of the demonstrations, drew especially heated criticism from some alumni for what they perceived as the university’s tepid response.

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Divisions often exist between disciplines at colleges, but the fissures cut particularly deep at Columbia because of the high number of both Jewish faculty who support Israel and faculty who believe Israel is committing a genocide against the Palestinians.

A half-century ago, Columbia professor Edward Said was among the founders of postcolonial studies that laid the intellectual groundwork for the current protest movement against Israel. A nucleus of his acolytes remain at Columbia and are active on campus.

Those faculty more sympathetic to Palestinians control key committees on the faculty senate and have sought to limit discipline against protesters and restrictions on protests. That helps explain why Columbia didn’t restrict student disruptions on campus as aggressively as other schools, according to interviews with faculty members.

Across campus, scientists and engineers have been less invested in the protests partly, several said, because they were too focused on their work to get involved. Now those researchers are being disproportionately punished by having grants and contracts canceled, said Larisa Geskin, a professor in the school of medicine at Columbia and cancer researcher.

“We’re actually quite busy. We’re actually doing our job,” said Geskin. Medical doctors and scientific researchers “are trying to save lives. We don’t have the time to ruminate on all this.”

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Science faculty are unhappy Trump has pulled funding, but some alumni said they are glad the situation is finally coming to a head. They hope his moves will strengthen resolve within the board of trustees and president’s office.

“Due to the failure of leadership at the university who did not heed many, many warnings, Trump had no choice,” said Ari Shrage, co-founder of the Columbia Jewish alumni association.

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