"They don't really care about academic freedoms or research."

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In March, the Trump Administration cut $400 million in funding to Columbia University in retaliation for allegedly failing to address antisemitism. What do Jewish researchers think of this? Sam Seidman, a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, for one, is skeptical of the administration’s approach.

“It adversely affected the lives and the research and the careers of lots of Jewish students and faculty,” he says, “This isn’t the way you would have done it if you were actually concerned about that.”

Seidman joined Columbia in September last year to study youth depression and suicide, and help develop strategies to treat it.

Columbia largely caved to the Trump Administration’s demands, agreeing to allow for oversight of its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department and ban face coverings, among other concessions.

Seidman sees Columbia’s move as an abandonment of academic values. "Universities have been structured along the lines of a private business," Seidman told Mother Jones at a researcher-led protest last week. "So when they see their bottom line being threatened, the mission goes out the window."

"They don't really care about academic freedoms or research," Seidman added. "But we do. We got into this field not because we wanted to make a lot of money, not because we sought great acclaim. We did it because we believe in the mission."

#columbia #science #trump

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