When you dealin’ with the devil
Everything you do is wrong
You’ll drive away your lover
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When you dealin’ with the devil
Everything you do is wrong
You’ll drive away your lover
And keep all your things in pawn…
Don’t deal with the devil, cuz it ain’t no way to win.
The leaders of Columbia University might want to check out the song on Spotify, or, even better, should have checked it out before making their latest deal with President Trump. I don’t mean to suggest that Trump is in fact the devil, but the figure about whom Tampa Red sings — “a liar, a thief, and a jiver” — does bear at least a passing resemblance to the current occupant of the White House.
Certainly the devil would be impressed by the terms the federal government managed to extort from Columbia. Fines totaling $221 million. An agreement to eliminate considerations of racial identity that goes far beyond anything yet mandated by the Supreme Court. The continued pretense that this entire episode is actually about antisemitism. The claim in the resolution agreement that “no provision of this Agreement … shall be construed as giving the United States authority to dictate faculty hiring” is followed, curiously, by the requirement to “appoint new faculty members with joint positions in both the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies” and various departments. International student applicants will now be “asked questions designed to elicit their reasons for wishing to study in the United States.” What could Stephen Miller possibly have in mind? Oh, and “Columbia will examine its business model and take steps to decrease financial dependence on international student enrollment,” which according to Columbia’s acting president, Claire Shipman, “safeguards our independence.”
To paraphrase The Princess Bride’s Inigo Montoya: “Independence. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
This betters the government’s shakedown of the University of Pennsylvania, which was merely required to humiliate itself and confess to violations it did not commit in return for the restoration of $175 million in funding, and of the University of Virginia, which offered up the ceremonial sacrifice of its president. There are reports that Harvard, the lone and unlikely home of the resistance, is in the process of negotiating its own surrender, but only time will tell if that is correct and if the terms are similar to those agreed to by Columbia.
Two hundred million dollars will not stop, will barely slow down, the ideologues at the gates.
Columbia’s fundamental error was its failure to recognize that from the moment Max Eden of the American Enterprise Institute wrote, last December, that the Department of Education “should simply destroy Columbia University,” it was engaged not in a negotiation but in a war for survival. One would have thought that the futility of its initial capitulation — no restoration of funds followed by a series of further attacks — would have sent a clear signal, but apparently it did not.
Or perhaps Columbia learned a different lesson from the failure not only of other universities but of anyone in a position of power to rush to its defense when it was initially targeted: In this particular war, there would be no reinforcements, so surrender and a plea for clemency might be the best option. Not wholly unreasonable.
Of course Columbia can hope that in this singular case, capitulating to Donald Trump will work out well and that the government will move on from the university to other vulnerable targets. More likely, as David Graham of The Atlantic has written, “Institutions that are willing to sacrifice their values for the government’s favor are likely to end up with neither.” One has only to read the recent “Manhattan Statement on Higher Education” — likely authored by the indefatigable Christopher Rufo and signed by an anti-woke dream team — to see that the right-wing attack on the autonomy of higher education is just getting started and that neither Columbia nor other universities will be spared further damage.
The Manhattan Statement is purportedly about reform, but its language — “corrupt,” “nihilism,” “tyranny,” — is the language of revolution. It is somehow unsurprising that “child sex-trait modification” manages to find its way into a description of the evils of higher education. Two hundred million dollars will not stop, will barely slow down, the ideologues at the gates.
The story of Columbia is the current story of America and, more broadly, the story of authoritarian takeover. Confronted by the overwhelming power of the government — in our case, all three branches of government — most opt for compliance over resistance, for protection or profit over risk. Freedom and democracy sound great, but how can they compete with the desire of Paramount to gain federal approval of a merger or with the burgeoning profits of Goldman Sachs? From David Pressman, the former United States ambassador to Hungary: “Here, too, powerful people are responding to authoritarian advances just as their Hungarian counterparts have — not with defiance, but with capitulation, convinced that they can maintain their independence and stay above the fray.”
If and when there is a true resistance, higher education can and should join it. But, sadly, it has neither the power nor the social capital to lead it.
Compared to the actions — or, more often, inaction — of most American industries and institutions, Columbia’s attempt to preserve at least some of its research activity and some of its autonomy appears relatively benign. I wish that from the start the university had made different decisions, but I prefer to direct my anger chiefly at those who are enabling and profiting from the current chaos and criminality.
The painful message delivered by the humbling of wealthy and prestigious universities is that higher education, on its own, has few tools with which to push back against governmental overreach. There are, as always, “the courts,” but that road leads ultimately to a Supreme Court that seems quite comfortable with our slouch toward autocracy. For now, for most institutions, the best option seems to be to try to avoid notice, to make only the least damaging concessions, and to hope, like Mr. Micawber, that “something will turn up.” As the impact of recent legislation and of efforts to undermine accreditation becomes more widespread, this option will become more challenging for more colleges.
Higher education’s fortunes will only improve if the fortunes of other actors with more power begin to worsen: If Goldman Sachs begins losing money, if the economy tanks, if Republicans in Congress begin losing elections, because of federal policies. If and when there is a true resistance, higher education can and should join it. But, sadly, it has neither the power nor the social capital to lead it.
Hard as it is to acknowledge, the specter of Jeffrey Epstein — bizarrely, the most serious challenge to date to the Trump administration — might do more to determine the fate of American higher education than any lawsuits or letters of protest. Even the president of the United States, it appears, might pay a price for dealing with the devil.
