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HIGHER EDUCATION Democracy Now! COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY COMPROMISED AGAIN! Prof. Rashid Khalidi Cancels Fall Course over Trump Settlement PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUrG6mce_-4
Prof. Rashid Khalidi Cancels Fall Course over Trump Settlement Democracy Now! Aug 4, 2025 2.94M subscribers ... 360,458 views ... 5.6K likes Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-de... Rashid Khalidi, the renowned Edward Said professor emeritus of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, says he is withdrawing from teaching his fall course after the school has agreed to pay a $200 million settlement in a major new deal with President Trump, who accused the university of failing to protect Jewish students during campus protests against Israel's assault on Gaza. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess Transcript 0:00 This is democracyow democracynow.org the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. One by one, major universities have been making deals with the Trump administration. In the most comprehensive of all the deals with schools so far, Columbia University recently agreed to pay a $200 million settlement to the Trump administration after it accused the university of failing to protect Jewish students during campus protests against Israel's assault on Gaza. Colombia will also pay $21 million to settle investigations brought by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the EOC, by agreeing to end the consideration of race and admissions and hiring. The settlements will restore hundreds of millions of dollars worth of canceled or frozen grants from National Institutes of Health and Department of Health and Human Services. As part of the deal, Colombia also agreed to appoint a senior provost to oversee the Middle East Studies Department, will further crack 1:01 down on campus protests and will appoint three dozen new security officers with arrest powers. The agreement includes a little reported provision that commits Colombia to quote, 'examine its business model and take steps to decrease financial dependence on international student enrollment.' For more on this major settlement, we're joined by Rasheed Khaled. He's the Edward Sed professor emmeritus of modern Arab studies at Colombia University and author of several books including the hundred years war on Palestine. He has a new essay in the Guardian. It's headlined I spent decades at Colombia. I'm withdrawing my fall course due to its deal with Trump. The university's draconian policies and new definition of anti-semitism make much teaching teaching impossible, he wrote. In the piece, Khaled explains why he now finds it impossible to teach at Colombia given its adoption of International Holocaust 2:01 Remembrance Alliance or IHRA's definition of anti-semitism and cites parts of his lecture that would run a foul of it. Holiday writes, quote, 'The IRA definition deliberately, mendaciously, and disingenuously conflates Jewishness with Israel so that any criticism of Israel or indeed description of Israeli policies becomes a criticism of Jews, citing its potential chilling effect.' A co-author of the IRA definition, Professor Kenneth Stern, has repudiated its current uses. Yet Colombia has announced that it will serve as a guide in disciplinary proceedings. Khaled also writes in the piece, quote, 'It's not only faculty members academic freedom and freedom of speech that's infringed upon by Colombia's capitulation to Trump's dictat. Teaching assistants would be seriously constrained in leading discussion sections, as would students and their questions and discussions by the 3:00 constant fear that informers would snitch on them to the fearsome apparatus that Colombia has erected to punish speech critical of Israel and to crack down on alleged discrimination.' Professor Rasheed Khaled joins us now from France. Professor Khaled, welcome back to Democracy Now. Um, we've read some of your rationale. I'm sure there are hundreds of students who are extremely disappointed to hear that you're not going to be teaching this course. So, you did retire. You were continuing with this course. Can you more fully explain why you've said no to Colombia? Well, you you already laid out. Thanks for having me, Amy. Again, I'm sorry that for 22 months you and I have been talking about the same genocide. Um, and that's the background uh to my decision. Um, you've already mentioned a couple of the reasons that I gave. Uh, Colombia has agreed to a number of conditions uh 4:02 that the Trump administration wanted to impose. You mentioned some of them. Another of them is the imposition of an outside monitor so-called um who will have access to absolutely everything including classrooms, meetings and so forth um to ensure compliance uh with the various dictats of the of the Trump administration. Um, basically it's going to be impossible to teach a whole range of topics. Um, not just including modern Middle East history or the history of Palestine or Israel, but things like genocide, things like settler colonialism, things like the Holocaust. Um, one of my distinguished colleagues, a Holocaust scholar, Marian Hirs, has just mentioned in in an interview that she's not going to be able to teach. She's also retired but like me was also teaching uh a course in in fact I believe on the Holocaust and she said I cannot teach this course under the IRA definition because it makes it almost 5:00 impossible to say certain things which are critical of either Zionism or Israel. She said how can I teach Hannah Aarren Hannah one of the great figures of the 20th century was an anti-sionist. Um she's also one of the great commentators and and and writers about the Holocaust. She said, 'I can't teach an art. Somebody's going to come and and and lodge one of these spirious complaints uh under this new uh dispensation and I'm going to be brought up before a kangaroo court.' And that's essentially what Colombia has agreed with the Trump administration to establish as has already happened to her and has has hap as has has happened to a number of my colleagues. And so I I I figured I had to take a stand. I mean, they have been putting pressure on faculty and students really since the war began to shut down any any advocacy for Palestine, any opposition to this horrific genocide. Um, you you you ran a piece at the very beginning of this of this segment uh where you quoted a 6:01 speech that I gave a year ago uh talking about how the students are on the right side of history. They are. A year later, it's even more true. the starvation, the mass death, the extraordinary callousness that Israel has shown have been exposed to the world. Um, you don't have 300,000 people crossing Sydney Bridge uh in in Australia uh unless they realize that something horrific is happening at the hands of Israel. Um, so I I realize that I cannot simply I simply cannot teach uh under these circumstances in this institution. The last thing I want to say is this is not just a capitulation to the Trump administration. This was an inside job. There was a fifth column. Members of the board of trustees, senior members of the faculty of some of the professional schools and a a clutch of donors who have been beating the drums for years and year more than a decade to the effect that Colombia is deeply profoundly anti-semitic. This is a this 7:01 is a despicable lie. It simply means that their sensibilities and their un unbounded support for Israel are offended by the fact that some people are sticking up for Palestinian rights. This is not a new phenomenon at Colombia. This fifth column working from within within the board of trustees among a minority of the faculty um and and a few students have been trying to get Colombia to do these things. In fact, one of them admitted it. She said, 'I'm glad we've been forced to do this. These are things we wanted to do all along. I wanted to go back to uh your essay where you said citing its potential chilling effect, a co-author of the IRA definition, Professor Kenneth Stern has repudiated its current uses. Talk more about that. Well, Ken Stern was one of the people who helped to write this. And he he intended it for an entirely different 8:01 purpose, not to be used to punish speech in support of Palestine, not to be used to punish people who say certain things about Zionism. Um, things that have been said by leading Jewish intellectuals for over a hundred years. uh he never never intended uh that his the definition that he helped to co-author would be used for these purposes to discipline and punish academics and students and others. Um, and that is the way it has been weaponized as a tool to protect Israel from criticism as a tool to perfect this political ideology of Zionism from criticism by arguing that any criticism of Israel or virtually any criticism of Israel and virtually any criticism of Zionism are anti-semitic that they are directed at the entirety of the Jewish people which is of course nonsense because the majority of the Jewish people didn't even support Zionism until uh about 100 years ago less than 100 years ago. Majorities of them were opposed to Zionism. Most anti-Zionists 9:00 were Jewish up through the middle of the 20th century. Um, but this definition has been concocted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association, not in order to remember the Holocaust, to prevent any criticism or many criticisms of Israel and of Zionism. And that is what Ken Stern was was objecting to and he's been objecting to it quite vigorously. I understand that he spoke to the board of trustees at their invitation to try and persuade them not to take this step and of course that had no impact on them and of course many of the protesters across the country and at Colombia are Jewish. Um I wanted to get your response to the acting Colombia president Claire Shipman speaking to the Colombia Daily Spectator, the student newspaper. She defended the deal with the Trump administration, saying, quote, I think we were able to craft an agreement that's in line with our values and doesn't cross any of the red lines we 10:00 articulated. So, I understand that narrative and as a former journalist, I understand the power of narrative, and I understand the power of simple narrative, but this is a very complex situation. I think that the process we move through is actually the right one for this institution. Professor Holiday, can you respond to Colombia's acting president, Claire Shipman? I think she's acting as a mouthpiece for what I call this fifth column within the board of trustees, within the donor community among a few senior faculty in the professional schools for whom any critique of Israel is unacceptable. Certainly, many critiques of Israel are unacceptable and any or many critiques of Zionism are unacceptable. I don't think that the values of Colombia include a government-appointed monitor from a company that in June celebrated Israel's independence or celebrated Israel. Um to to be able to go into classrooms, to be able to go into meetings, to be able 11:00 to to harvest our data. Um if that's the value that Colombia stands for, it's a sassy value. It's it's it's a dictatorial value where the government appoints a monitor to check on on what is happening inside an independent private university. What values are protected by the IH definition? The only value that's being protected is Israel's impunity as it commits genocide. Uh there are many other there are many other aspects of the settlement. U the appointment of a special provost, a vice provost. Why? Why does Middle East studies require scrutiny? What's wrong with what's being taught at Colombia? These are enormously popular courses. They represent the scholarship of a vast array of people, not just the people teaching at Colombia. Uh they represent basically the the most respected scholarship in the field. uh there's no need for a for for a vice provost to supervise Middle East studies at 12:00 Colombia anymore than there's a need for it to super this is intended by the way to go go further and to cover other area studies and undoubtedly as the Trump administration squeezes and squeezes we'll be talking about race we'll be talking about gender we'll be talking about uh Colombia's uh expansion into Harlem at the expense of the local community those things are going to be you're not going to be allowed to speak about race you're not going to be allowed speak about gender just as you're soon not going to be allowed to speak about you're now not allowed under these rules to speak about certain aspects of Israel and Zionism. I wanted to compare Colombia's response to Harvard. Uh this is in the Harvard Crimson. Harvard President Alan Garber has told faculty a deal with the Trump administration's not imminent. Denied the university is considering a $500 million settlement according to three faculty members familiar with the matter. University is seriously considering resolving its dispute with the White House through the courts rather than a negotiated settlement. Garber said according to these three faculty members. Your response, Rashid 13:00 Khaled. Like Colombia, Harvard practiced uh anticipatory obedience, closing down an exchange program with Beer University. This happened months ago. uh firing the two people who had the Middle East center uh shutting down a program at the Divinity School related to Palestine. They have already cowed out. They have already done what was asked of them. They've already accepted IH the same draconian strictctures on speaking about Israel and on speaking about Zionism are already adopted by by uh by Harvard even before Colombia adopted them. So uh Garver's uh uh tough talk relates basically to money which incidentally is the value that these universities uh uh cherish above all else. Their their contempt for their students, their contempt for their faculty is unbounded. Their their their attention to the bottom line is unlimited. And that's one of that's the reason I desire to decided to retire 14:01 several years ago. Long before the war in Gaza, long before any of this happened, I saw an institution that was not driven by pedagogical and educational values, an institute that had contempt for its community, that had contempt for its students, that had contempt for its faculty, and was led by people, none of whom in the board of trustees, with one or two possible exceptions, knows anything about education. They're a bunch of hedge hedge fund managers, government bureaucrats, and lawyers. uh with all respect to those three categories, they don't know squat about education and those are the people who are leading Colombia and most other private universities, politicians, ex-politicians, government bureaucrats, lawyers, hedge fund managers and so forth. Um and those are the people who have decided for whatever reason whether because they sympathize with an attempt to shut down any kind of protest against Israel's genocide or whether they really don't want the faculty. I mean one of the things that they have promised the Trump administration here at at Colombia is to re restructure governance. So the 15:01 faculty and the senate are excluded uh from any aspect of governance. They've already been excluded from the discip disciplinary process. You have a bunch of kangaroo courts led by faceless nameless bureaucrats investigators who know nothing about education who have condemned student after student faculty member after faculty member on ridiculous spurious grounds. um in some cases kicking them out of the university. In in in the case of one of my colleagues, she was forced to leave her position at the law school. Um in the case of students, withdrawing or preventing them from getting their degrees or suspending them for two years, including suspension of their of their funding. Um, so we are we are talking about uh a a a situation in which really uh Colombia University has accepted a set of values that have nothing to do with the values that Chipman talked about. There are values that are that are dear to a dictatorship. There are values that are that are dear to sensors. There are values that are dear to people who want 16:00 to protect Israel from criticism at all costs while it slaughters people by the hundreds daily in Gaza. one child every day over more than 600. I mean, it's it's extraordinary. The the largest number of children killed uh in in a in a conflict, the largest number of of of medical workers killed in a conflict, the largest number of journalists killed in a conflict in the 21st century. And they want to protect that with IH, with their monitor, with their vice provost, with their kangaroo court disciplinary procedures. Uh I don't see how people can in good conscience uh continue uh a as before inside these universities. People really have to do something. It was easy for me. I'm retired. I simply decided not to teach a course that I didn't have to teach in any case. Uh but it'll be harder obviously for people who depend on their salaries or people whose careers would be affected. But I really do think that things have gotten to the point where people have to stand up and do more than any of us have done. I mean 17:01 people have tried to stop this genocide. The students were enormously heroic. Hundreds of them have paid very high prices in terms of expulsion, suspension, uh the traumatic disciplinary procedures. Many of the students I know have been very severely psychologically harmed by the brutality of Colombia's crushing repression. They've sacrificed. I think it's time for other people to sacrifice. And by that I don't just mean people in academia. I mean everybody. people in the complicit news media, the mainstream news media are are complicit in genocide by by by for example uh publishing anything that the Israeli military spokesman says. They're ineterate liars. They should be called out for that when it is proven that what they're saying is an absolute lie. The the media should be saying that. On the contrary, the reverence for anything an Israeli official says is nauseating. These people are committing genocide. you would not have reverence for the government of Myanmar or for the rapid 18:00 support forces in Sudan as they slaughter people. Why are we reverently repeating in the media uh the the the lying statements of Israeli officials? Uh there's a lot more that needs to be done by everybody. I wanted to get your response. I've seen this going around online that there's going to be a spontaneous memorial for the first concrete academic casualty post deal. uh in parentheses class outside the campus on Broadway north of 116th at noon today. Your thoughts on this? I hadn't heard about that. Um one of the things that I mentioned um in the article that I wrote for the Guardian was that I will be teaching a free hybrid short course on Palestine which will summarize a chunk but not all of what I was going to teach in this course at Colombia. I'll be doing that in New York at the People's Forum. Uh time and date and details yet to be yet to be arranged. Um so I will be teaching this 19:00 this fall. Uh but not at Colombia. Um and I will continue to teach uh elsewhere. Um maybe not in the halls of corrupt academia. Maybe elsewhere. Um so uh I don't I think it's a little early for a post more. Thanks for watching Democracy Now on YouTube. Subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications to make sure you never miss a video. And for more of our audienceup supported journalism, go to democracynow.org or where you can download our news app, sign up for our newsletter, subscribe to the daily podcast, and so much

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