With his targeting of elite universities in recent months over allegations of campus antisemitism, President Trump seems to have pierced the irritating air of superiority that has long enveloped Ivy League higher education officialdom. We, and we suspect many of our readers, were turned off by the smug attitude of the university presidents who testified last year at those televised congressional hearings on antisemitism on campus and what their schools didn’t do about it. That they considered the questions impertinent intrusions into what they considered their exclusive domain was palpable.
But President Trump is following up on the antisemitism claims and is seeking huge cash payments from the schools to settle them and all of a sudden, the glower is no longer in evidence. The other day the New York Times reported that the Trump Administration is seeking payments of more than $1 billion from the University of California to the federal government to settle charges of antisemitism and a contribution of $172 million to a claims fund that would compensate victims of civil rights violations.
The UCLA matter involves the largest payout of any university that has so far reached a deal with the White House. Columbia University has agreed to pay $221 million in connection with its settlement with the government and Brown University pledged to spend $50 million with state work force programs. One of the accusations against UCLA is that it allowed pro-Palestinian protesters to block Jewish students on campus. Anti-Jewish and anti-Israel bias by instructional personnel has also been identified.
The Trump campus antisemitism campaign includes lawsuits and suspensions of massive research grants in the hundreds of millions of dollars. UCLA has recently had $584 million in research funding suspended.
And, it would be a mistake to think that all of this will only benefit Jewish students. In fact, by leveling the playing field for them the return of the university as the marketplace of ideas will be moved forward and benefit everyone.
