Does the US Government Have the Right to Condition Funding to Universities?

Many left-wing university faculty members (a redundancy if there ever was one) are rebelling against the Trump administration's threat to cut federal funding to universities that tolerate antisemitic actions against their Jewish students. They condemned the acting president of Columbia for accepting some of the administration's conditions for restoring the $400 million that it threatened to cut, and she was forced to resign.

The faculty members are making the absolutist claim that it is always a denial of academic freedom for governments to pressure universities with a cut-off of funding. In making this broad claim, they ignore the lessons of history and the single standard of morality.

It doesn't take a lot of imagination to hypothesize the following variation on the current situation: it's the 1950s and 1960s in the Deep South; a formerly segregated university is allowing masked KKK racists to harass Black students, blocking some from attending classes; buildings are occupied by Klansmen demanding a return to segregation; the university is doing nothing to protect the Black students, citing academic freedom and freedom of speech.

The federal government threatens to cut off federal funding unless the university protects the Black students and bans the use of face masks for the purpose of concealing identity. The university reluctantly complies, out of fear of being defunded.

Liberals and civil rights advocates would applaud the threats of the federal government and the compliance by the university. Many did so in the 1950s and 1960s.

But now that similar threats and actions have been taken to protect Jewish students from masked Hamas supporters at Columbia University, many liberals and civil rights advocates are complaining about the government's threats and Columbia's submission, alleging interference with academic freedom. Why the difference?

There are three possible distinctions, none of which justifies — though they explain — why these left-wing groups respond in such a diametrically opposite manner to such similar actions.

The first is that the southern example involved the protection of Blacks, whereas the Columbia situation involves the protection of Jews. Pursuant to the bigoted dogma of "intersectionality," Jews are deemed the privileged oppressors and Blacks the unprivileged oppressed. So the distinction is seen to be justified. No rational person would accept that reasoning, but many radical students and faculty do.

A related distinction is that the southern protesters and blockers were the evil Klan, whereas the Columbia protesters and blockaders paint themselves as virtuous pro-Palestinians. This distinction too is seen as justified by intersectionalists, who deem all supporters of Palestinianism as oppressed and all supporters of Israel as oppressors. This racist distinction as well is accepted by many students and faculty.

Finally, there is the distinction between the government officials who threatened the southern universities in the 1950s and 1960s and the current government officials who threatened Columbia. The current government, which is presided over by President Donald J. Trump, can do no right, according to liberals and civil rights advocates, even if its actions are logically indistinguishable from past approved actions. This variation on the classic ad hominem fallacy is widely accepted in academic and left-wing circles, when the hominem is Trump.

None of these purported factual distinctions justifies the allegedly principled opposition to the Trump administration's employment of pressure to stop anti-Jewish discrimination at Columbia from those who would praise the employment of similar pressure to prevent discrimination against Blacks, gays or other groups favored by intersectionality. It is double standard bigotry against Jews, plain and simple.

There does need to be limitations on what the federal government should be trying to influence on university campuses. Legitimate academic freedom should be respected. The federal government should be careful about intruding on the content of courses, the hiring of faculty, the admission of students and other primarily academic matters. But even with regard to such academic matters, there are appropriate limits to academic freedom by universities seeking federal funding.

The government is entirely within its rights and power to condition what it provides in discretionary taxpayer funding so that those funds will not be used for propaganda or partisan political purposes, rather than for legitimate educational enterprises. This is a delicate area, since there is no clearly objective way to draw a sharp line between politically neutral education and partisan propaganda. But as the late Justice Potter Stewart once put in the equally nuanced effort to distinguish hard-core pornography from constitutionally protected speech:

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [hard-core pornography].... But I know it when I see it..."

The same is true of partisan propaganda: we know it when we see it— at least in its most extreme form, which is all too common in today's classrooms and curricula.

The bottom line is that there is a legitimate and constitutionally appropriate place for some federal financial pressure to be directed at some universities to achieve some beneficent purposes. But the government should be cautious, selective and targeted in its deployment. It should operate with a scalpel, rather than a chainsaw, and it should be careful to avoid cutting off financial aid to medical, scientific and other important research and educational enterprises. This is a difficult task but it is a mistake to argue — as many on the left hypocritically do in the current context — that all threats to cut funding from all universities for all purposes is categorically wrong.

The pressure on Columbia may produce positive results — if it keeps its promises — including more academic freedom and free speech for students who were victimized by Columbia's inaction until it was pressured to act by the threat of defunding. That would be a good thing, just as federal pressure on some southern universities that reduced discrimination against Blacks in the 1950s and 1960s was a good thing.

*This article was originally posted by Gatestone Institute.