Prof. Suresh Naidu urges Columbia to shift more research work overseas
A Columbia University professor in a Wednesday New York Times op-ed condemned the school’s $221 million settlement with the Trump administration over campus anti-Semitism, urging Columbia to move more of its research abroad in response.
“This deal won’t end Columbia’s torture,” Suresh Naidu, who teaches economics and international affairs at Columbia and has lectured on “the evidence-based policy path to socialism,” wrote in the op-ed. “New civil rights violations will be imagined, new vistas of anti-Americanism on campus will be discovered, and the attacks will continue.”
“Donors and university leaders might consider moving more of the scholarly mission outside the United States,” reads the op-ed, headlined “Columbia’s Administrators Are Fooling Themselves.” Naidu argued that “Columbia should recognize this agreement won’t placate the Project 2025 apparatchiks.”
Naidu’s Times op-ed came shortly after Columbia leaders agreed to settle the Trump administration’s concerns about campus anti-Semitism and other civil rights violations by paying $200 million to the federal government over three years and $21 million to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The Trump administration earlier this year revoked more than $430 million in federal funds from Columbia, citing the school’s failure to curb anti-Semitic protests and use of “discriminatory” DEI policies.
Trump in a Wednesday Truth Social post celebrated the deal, writing that Columbia will pay $200 million to the federal government “for violating Federal Law, in addition to over $20 Million to their Jewish employees who were unlawfully targeted and harassed.”
“Columbia has also committed to ending their ridiculous DEI policies, admitting students based ONLY on MERIT, and protecting the Civil Liberties of their students on campus,” Trump added.
Naidu in the op-ed slammed the Trump administration as “a coalition of election deniers, Christian nationalists and supplement- and crypto-hawkers” who have “little regard for academic freedom, scientific progress and learning.”
“It was always a stretch for Columbia to think a good-faith agreement was in the cards, but when the government is too often behaving unchecked by the law, the idea of a binding contract is a fantasy,” Naidu wrote.
Columbia acting president Claire Shipman, meanwhile, struck a conciliatory tone in announcing the settlement.
“This agreement marks an important step forward after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty,” Shipman said in a statement. “The settlement was carefully crafted to protect the values that define us and allow our essential research partnership with the federal government to get back on track.”
Naidu is not the only professor to slam Columbia’s efforts to fight anti-Semitism.
Last week, Columbia announced it will adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism, a standard endorsed by the Trump administration. In response, anti-Israel journalist Peter Beinart, a Times contributor and City University of New York professor, argued that “close to none” of Columbia’s faculty members “who teach classes on antisemitism” support the definition.
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