Robert Shibley

With @ColumbiaU on its 3rd president in 7 months, trustees, faculty, and staff need to realize that they are on course to bankrupt and destroy the college. This can be avoided, but it needs dramatic action now. A thread.

First: am I exaggerating? Columbia is sitting on a $15 billion endowment. They can afford a $400m hit, once or twice maybe, but an asset fire sale is going to kill value. How long can it stay solvent (able to pay bills as they come due)?
https://endowment.giving.columbia.edu/endowment-performance-and-management/

The real risk is losing all the scientists and scholars who bring in $1b a year from the feds. Many could take their work anywhere. Why stay at a place that might not have a future? I bet Vandy, WashU, Duke, Purdue, Ga. Tech, etc, will take their calls! https://x.com/sfmcguire79/status/1894469745946021940

As scholars and scientists leave, so will their funding. So does Columbia’s prestige. Top faculty and incoming students will look elsewhere. Donors have no reason to throw bad money after good. That weakness invites more attacks. It’s a death spiral.

Does Columbia have any allies? It’s made enemies of both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian activists on and off campus. “Columbia sucks” may be the only thing on which they agree. Republicans see it as the seat of evil; Democrats see it as a massive liability.

It’s true that the feds’ demands to Columbia lacked due process and were damaging to academic freedom. It’s also true that something dramatic was being telegraphed and you’d have to be an idiot to be surprised. Columbia, institutionally, was that idiot. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2025/03/07/trump-admin-cancels-400m-grants-columbia-u

Last fall, FIRE released a report on Columbia titled “What Went Wrong?” after it came in next to dead last--ranked #250 out of 251--in our free speech rankings. (#251 was Harvard.) It included 5 recommendations for change. 

FIRE recommended Columbia 1) Have policies in place before protests erupt, 2) work with stakeholders on policy, 3) enforce rules quickly, fairly, &amp; consistently, 4) commit to honesty &amp; transparency, and 5) adopt Chicago Stmt &amp; institutional neutrality. https://www.thefire.org/sites/default/files/2024/10/2025%20CFSR%20Spotlight%20-%20Columbia%20University.pdf

Instead, Columbia blew it on #3 by allowing a library takeover at Barnard (clearly the last straw leading the feds to yank funds) and #4 when its now former interim president first folded to federal pressure and then immediately tried to ooze out of it: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/columbia-trump-armstrong-statement-26c3830e?mod=hp_lead_pos3 

This fecklessness must stop if Columbia is to turn things around. FIRE and others will do what we can to defend free speech and academic freedom, but as someone who does this every day, I am begging the folks at Columbia: Help me help you! 