By Breitbart News Network | Created at 2025-03-25 13:35:54 | Updated at 2025-04-04 00:12:56
1 week ago
On Monday’s broadcast of WBUR’s “Here and Now,” Columbia University Professor Reinhold Martin, who also serves as President of Columbia’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, but was speaking for only himself, reacted to pushes by the Trump administration over campus antisemitism by stating that “We’re in New York in 2025 with echoes of Frankfurt and Berlin in 1933. That’s the context in which we need to understand this.”
Co-host Scott Tong asked, [relevant exchange begins around 3:25] “Professor, as you know, this administration has warned some 60 other universities that their federal funding could be withheld if they don’t address what the administration considers antisemitic harassment on campus. What are you watching at campuses across the country now?”
Martin responded, “Right. Well, this is where I think we’re seeing, already, faculty standing up. And I know, from expressions of solidarity that we’ve received from all over the country that eyes are on Columbia, understandably so. But we can’t do this alone. Faculties and students around the country who are concerned about these attacks need to stand up together. That’s happening, and I think you’ll see more of it. Because Columbia cannot be the first domino to fall.”
Tong then asked what kind of help Martin needs.
Martin responded, “We need a little more robust public and political action on the part of public officials, on the part of academic administrators. Right now, our public officials have not been especially robust in defending the institutions of higher education to which they send — many of them send their children. So, this is a moment of truth. We’re in New York in 2025 with echoes of Frankfurt and Berlin in 1933. That’s the context in which we need to understand this. … And so, we need to understand this as a concerted assault that was scripted in Project 2025 and elsewhere, and now it’s being executed on the institution of higher education in the United States, not just one institution, Columbia, but universities and colleges as such.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
