Trump Threatens to Strip Funding to Colleges Over ‘Illegal Protests’
Three departments started reviewing federal contracts, grants connected to Columbia due to the antisemitic protests that plagued the campus last spring.
President Donald Trump vowed to strip federal funding to any higher education institution if it allows any illegal protest. He wrote on Truth Social:
All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter.
In other words…stop allowing antisemites spew genocide slogans and harassing Jews.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Education, and the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) already started reviewing federal contracts and grants connected to Columbia University due to the antisemitic and pro-Hamas protests that plagued the campus last spring:
Given Columbia’s ongoing inaction in the face of relentless harassment of Jewish students, the Federal Government’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is considering Stop Work Orders for $51.4 million in contracts between Columbia University and the Federal Government. The task force will also conduct a comprehensive review of the more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments to Columbia University to ensure the university is in compliance with federal regulations, including its civil rights responsibilities.
“Anti-Semitism – like racism – is a spiritual and moral malady that sickens societies and kills people with lethalities comparable to history’s most deadly plagues,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “In recent years, the censorship and false narratives of woke cancel culture have transformed our great universities into greenhouses for this deadly and virulent pestilence. Making America healthy means building communities of trust and mutual respect, based on speech freedom and open debate.”
Stop threatening people. These people weren’t protesting Israel’s policies. They were literally calling for Israel’s destruction, which would lead to the liquidation of Jews.
Genocide.
Oh, wait. The antisemites are still terrorizing Columbia.
Last month, members of Columbia University Apartheid Divest stormed a few buildings to protest the expulsion of other antisemites who targeted Jewish students in January.
Yes, they screamed the typical genocidal slogans: “The enemy will not see tomorrow” and “intifada, revolution.”
“Americans have watched in horror for more than a year now, as Jewish students have been assaulted and harassed on elite university campuses. Unlawful encampments and demonstrations have completely paralyzed day-to-day campus operations, depriving Jewish students of learning opportunities to which they are entitled,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Institutions that receive federal funds have a responsibility to protect all students from discrimination. Columbia’s apparent failure to uphold their end of this basic agreement raises very serious questions about the institution’s fitness to continue doing business with the United States government.”
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Dems in Congress will be horrified. May even ‘act out’ during the speech tonight.
Spank them and send them to bed without their supper, which should have been done when they were very young.
.
Or when children reach the stage a few swats are no longer do like what I did, a 1 pound bloc of unseasoned Tofu, green beans and water the brat’s supper. She started spouting off that it was abuse, which I countered with a lecture about nutritional value. Since she was still belligerent, I took away her mattress, gave her a sleeping bag. The next morning her attitude was much better. She was my most willful child, there were many more lessons.
Sounds very similar to the Ohio Correctional System’s punitive loaf.
Here in Maryland, I wrote my senators many times against “humanitarian” funding that went to Hamas. The response is a thank you for my concern over the “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza and a call to restore aid.
Van Collins literally has contempt for his constituents.
Sorry, Chris van Hollen,
I might be a good idea to move to a better state.
I’m in favor of taking the actions stated and I’ve called for them in comments. However, I think it is going to be a royal mess amplified by the democrats.
There will be loads of questions and legal battles as to where the lines should be drawn between acceptable speech and protests and those that should trigger state actions. This is because of the need to maintain our rights to free speech, assembly, and association.
As mentioned I think the democrats are going to screw everything up because their insane. What they should be doing is help craft reasonable guidelines the most can accept since it affects them too. Of course they won’t because of their resistance or something. (Also because of their stupidity).
There is no line to be drawn. There is no such thing as unacceptable speech. Even advocating genocide, slavery, or the violent overthrow of the government is absolutely protected by the freedom of speech.
But the fact that you are speaking doesn’t give you a license to break any laws at the same time. If you’re not protesting anything you have no right to harass or threaten people, or to obstruct their passage, or to trespass on private property. And if you are protesting you still have no right to do any of those things. Invading a building or blocking a highway are the same offense whether you’re do them while exercising your first amendment rights or at some other time.
Sorry meant to upvote but hit the wrong thumb.
So now the government gets to decide that protests it doesn’t like are illegal? Slippery slope
No, just the illegal ones.
Trump is saying that if the school declines to punish their criminals, he will.
Trump has enough criminals to prosecute within the realms of government
Trump runs a big, big team, and (unlike Biden) can do more than one thing at a time.
It’s his job to prosecute criminals outside that realm too.
Technically there is no such thing as an illegal protest. If your protest blocks a highway, or the entrance to an abortion clinic, it’s not the protest that’s illegal, it’s the obstruction. But the fact that you’re protesting doesn’t make the obstruction any less illegal.
Trump threatens to strip funding to colleges over “illegal protest” and liberal federal district court imposes a TRO and orders him to hand over the money.
Guaranteed.
That may happen, and in some cases the court will likely be correct.
The pro-Hamas protests on campus always involve going beyond mere speech. They takeover common spaces, impede ingress and egress, destroy property, or physically attack people. They are illegal aside from the content of their pro-terrorist messaging.
Not always. Often, but not always. Ditto for BLM protests; they weren’t all riots. Many of them were genuinely peaceful and law-abiding.
True but irrelevant. It makes no difference what they were protesting. They had an absolute right to protest, whatever it was; but they had no right to commit crimes while protesting. If they committed no crimes then the government can take no action against them. Since they did commit crimes their punishment should be the same regardless of what they were protesting.
If you shoot someone you are a murderer, even if you happen to be holding a protest sign in your other hand, and shouting a slogan while doing so. The crime is the murder, not the protest.