Donors should reject Columbia, turn elsewhere

Columbia University has succumbed to the mob. Protesters have encamped on its grounds for the past week, disrupting its staff, faculty, and other students. Especially affected are Jewish staff, faculty, and students, who reasonably fear for their safety. 

The protesters have been demonstrating against Israel’s war in Gaza, demanding the university “divest” from Israel. By divest, they mean to cease any dispersing of university funds to Israeli businesses or those entities that participate in any way in the war. But their own slogans and actions show that many of them harbor a vicious hatred not just for Israeli policies but for Jewish people. 

These mobs have already spread to other campuses as well, threatening similar disruptions and safety concerns. They need to be stopped. Not stopped in the sense of silencing students from speaking their minds. These campuses could use a lot more free speech, especially from more religiously devout and politically conservative voices. 

Instead, these campuses must restore the safe and orderly conditions necessary to have rational discourse. Colleges and universities exist to facilitate the cultivation of the mind and the heart. This cultivation seeks to privilege words over fists, reason over the passions. Such privileging does not always come easily and a good education develops habits of self-government to realize these goals. 

What Columbia has permitted and other schools risk allowing undermines what a true education means. This matter now adds to a series of episodes exposing the pervasive problems with most of our elite universities. They have lost sight of what made them excellent and thus what established their elite reputation. Instead, they have squandered a precious inheritance on trite goals such as satisfying political mantras now trendy with the progressive Left. 

I think another kind of divestment needs to happen. Those who have contributed before should divest these schools of future donations. They should do so at least until serious reform takes place on these campuses. A number of high-profile donors have already done so at Columbia and other schools in the wake of student protests and feckless administrative reactions. Whether such actions send an adequate wake-up call remains to be seen. 

But not only should donor funding be removed. These divestments should then turn to new investments, regardless of what Columbia or any other elite school does in response. Find those schools willing to protect free speech without allowing campus to collapse into chaos and anarchy. Make sure they hold a commitment to true liberty in intellectual discourse, not merely yelling for it when one side doesn’t get their way. 

Moreover, seek out institutions that seek the true purposes of education. Do they build their institution around cultivating minds and hearts? Do they see the goodness, even the greatness, in past thinkers and events without ignoring the serious sins and painful faults? 

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Such institutions exist already, not only at the collegiate level but also in K-12 education. The visionaries have the ideas and know how to implement them. They need partners in that vision to create and to expand networks of learning to reach greater and greater numbers of students. 

Columbia exposing its own internal rot presents one of the best opportunities for charting new paths. Let us hope we take full advantage of this chance. It is past time to renew our education and redirect who donors, parents, and citizens support. Out of this mess might come real hope.

Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.