The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Columbia University, Higher-Ed’s “Partisan, Political,” Refusal to Protect Jewish Students

Episode Date: March 13, 2025

What is it going to take for universities like Columbia University to start protecting their Jewish students? Having the President of the United States cut off $400 million in federal funding is a good start, says Victor Davis Hanson in today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.” “ It's widespread in higher education and the country's been appalled by it. But for some reason, higher education seems to equate Jewish Americans and, by definition, Israel with the white oppressor side of their Marxist binary, which is non-white oppressed versus white oppressor. “ For a long time, the university has decided that it will make no more pretense that it's disinterested. It's partisan, and it's political, and it's left-wing, and it's proud of it.” Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you noticed the dilemma that higher education is in? Recently, the Trump administration cut off $400 million in federal grants and aides to Columbia University for its inability to stop rampant overt and shameless anti-Semitism on the campus. For a long time, the university has decided it's partisan, it's political, and it's left wing, and it's proud of it. It's widespread in higher education, and the country's been appalled by it. but for some reason, higher education seems to equate Jewish Americans and by definition Israel with the white oppressor side of their Marxist binary.

Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hanson for the Daily Signal. Have you noticed the dilemma that higher education is in? Recently, the Trump administration cut off $400 million in federal grand. and aides to Columbia University for its inability to stop rampant, overt, and shameless anti-Semitism on the campus. It's widespread in higher education, and the country's been appalled by it, but for some reason, higher education seems to equate Jewish Americans and, by definition, Israel, with the white oppressor side of their Marxist binary, which is non-white oppressed versus white oppressor.

What I'm getting at is it's almost as if people who chase Jewish students down, scream at them, yell anti-Semitic epithets, disrupt their classes, have a free pass because they're self-described diversity, equity, inclusion students. There's other things that are going on that are even more serious, though. For a long time, the university has decided that it will make no more pretense that it's disinterested. It's partisan and it's political and it's left wing and it's proud of it. We can see that in the way that speakers are treated at campus. If you go to a campus as an invited speaker and you speak in any fashion to express doubts about abortion on demand, transgenderism in general, New Green Deal, unlimited support for the Ukraine War, you may find yourself the object of student disruptions. We've had one recently at Stanford University.

We've had the law school disrupted by students that tried to shout down a federal judge, but that's not unique. It's everywhere. The university also believes that it's not subject to the 1964 and 1965 civil rights statutes. By that I mean they have instituted racial, gender, and sexually sexual orientation bias in admissions, promotions, hiring. It's worse even than that. Theme houses, that's the word they use for racially segregated dorms. Safe spaces. That's the word they use for racially set aside zones on campus for particular people of a particular race. In addition to all of that, there's no protection for anybody, really, to tell you the truth, especially in Alita campus, if you're accused of a crime, especially sexual assault, sexual harassment,

there's no guarantee that you will be accorded protections under the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment. All of this is starting to change. We're in a perfect storm as far as higher education. There are fewer students because of declining fertility. Our fertility rate is 1.6 nationwide. More importantly, people are questioning the value of a higher education deal. degree. With the onset of diversity, equity, and inclusion therapeutic classes, the old reason to go to the university, to be roundly and disinterestedly educated, disappeared. So students did not get formal instruction in analytics, in English composition, and spoken and written fluency in English, etc. Common historical knowledge, math, and science literacy.

And employers are starting to know it. They're starting to see that if they're going to hire someone from Harvard, Princeton, Yale, or Stanford versus Texas Tech or SMU or Georgia Tech, they're not going to be better prepared. They're probably going to be less well prepared, and they're probably going to go to human resources on the first day of the job. I'm exaggerating, but you can see what I'm saying. But there are other forces that don't look good for higher education besides fertility and the questioning among the American people of the quality and value of a bachelor's degree from our elite institutions. We're $1.7 trillion in student debt. And the Trump administration is looking at this. And there are certain recommendations on their horizons as we speak the university is not prepared for.

Number one, the House and the Senate are trying to adjudicate how much they should tax the multi-million dollar income on many of these multibillion dollar endowments. It could be at 15 to 20 percent. We've mentioned cutting off federal funds to universities that do not protect their Jewish students. There's also another factor going on, and that is National Science Foundation, National Institutes of, health grants. The federal government is now saying don't charge us an overhead of 60%, 50%, 40%. You universities don't do that with the Gates Foundation grants or other private sector grants. From now on, you're not going to charge more than a 15% overhead. When you add that radical reduction in surcharges to a possible and likely tax on endowment income, the universities,

In many cases, the most prestigious and wealthy may be looking at three, four, five hundred million dollars shortfalls in their annual operating budget, besides any punitive action that the federal government exercises because of their unwillingness or inability to protect Jewish students. Do we see any reaction from college presidents? Is there a summit? Is there a sense of urgency? Is there some consensus that we don't charge the federal government more than we do private grant-making institutions? Is there some notion that we should, I don't know, honor the content of our character rather

than obsess on the color of our skin? I don't see anything coming from the universities other than outrage. But they have a rendezvous with Destiny and it's here before they know it. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis-Hansson for The Daily Signal. Thank you for watching today's podcast. And for more news like that, subscribe to the Daily Signal. Maybe you can check out my own website at victorhansson.com for podcast, lectures, ultra-series behind a paywall, but more importantly, just daily columns that are accessible and free to everyone. Thank you very much.