How Obama and Biden Paved the Way for Trump's Attacks on Universities

President Donald Trump has been laying siege to Columbia University, canceling $400 million in federal grants to the elite school. In exchange for having funds restored, Columbia's administration has agreed to capitulate to a list of demands relating to campus anti-Israel demonstrations: The university will ban protesters from concealing their identities with face masks, create new disciplinary bureaucracies to punish purportedly disruptive students, and even police the Middle Eastern studies department for alleged antisemitism.

It's not inherently wrong for the federal government to refrain from funding an extremely wealthy private institution of higher education, especially one with an endowment of $14.8 billion. But the Trump administration isn't trying to save money for taxpayers—it's using the money as leverage to make the university police student expression.