On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks said that the Trump administration’s conditions for Columbia University to keep their federal funding “are kind of reasonable, and Columbia should have done all of this stuff five or ten years ago. They really did get ideologically out of control.” But President Donald Trump is an “extortionist” and higher education as a whole has to say, “no more deals.” And “there will be a time where everybody has to hold together and stand up and say, no, no more deals.”
Brooks said, “In the case of Columbia, I personally think the Trump requests or demands, whatever it is, are kind of reasonable, and Columbia should have done all of this stuff five or ten years ago. They really did get ideologically out of control. And if they are publicly-funded — partially publicly-funded, then you’ve got a problem. And they created this problem. So, I understand why, I got to save my university. I’ve got to save $400 million.”
He continued, “On the other hand, caving into an extortionist rarely pays off, because he will say, oh, I take that, here’s my next demand, here’s my next demand. And if you look at the history of Zelensky, Macron, people — all the people who’ve tried to cozy up to the extortionists, [they] all end up losing in the end. And so, I think it’s time for the universities as a body — and we saw this with the Princeton president — to say, no more deals. We are standing up, because there will be a time — and, again, I don’t think this is quite the time to sort of beat down the Trump administration — there will be a time where everybody has to hold together and stand up and say, no, no more deals.”
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