Connect with us

New York

Columbia Planned Tighter Protest Rules Even Before Trump Demanded Them

Published

on

Columbia Planned Tighter Protest Rules Even Before Trump Demanded Them

A lawyer for Columbia University said Tuesday that a demand from the Trump administration for dramatic changes in student discipline had merely sped up policies the university had already been planning to enforce.

In a March 13 letter, the Trump administration said the university had failed to stop “antisemitic violence and harassment,” adding that policy changes would have to be made before the government would discuss resuming $400 million in canceled grants and contracts. Last week, the school complied with most of the government’s requests, regulating masks on campus and empowering a team of security officers to make arrests.

The lawyer’s assertion that Columbia had been planning the changes all along came during a hearing in Federal District Court in Manhattan over a request by a group of anonymous Columbia and Barnard College students that a judge bar school officials from handing over confidential disciplinary records to a congressional committee that has asked for them.

Both Columbia and the committee have contended that the students have not shown a sufficient legal basis for such an order. The judge, Arun Subramanian, made no ruling Tuesday.

The arguments in court stemmed from a request by the House Committee on Education and Workforce for disciplinary records related to several incidents, including the occupation of a university hall last spring by pro-Palestinian demonstrators, a protest of a class taught by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and an art exhibition the committee said had “promoted terrorism.”

Advertisement

Seven anonymous students and Mahmoud Khalil, a former student and legal permanent resident who helped lead protests last year and whom the Trump administration is trying to deport, sued to keep the records private. The lawsuit said that to fully comply, Columbia would have to turn over private files of hundreds of students, faculty and staff members.

Their lawyers have argued that the House committee was trying to coerce the university into becoming the government’s proxy to chill speech critical of Israel and to suppress association, actions that the First Amendment would prohibit the government from taking.

Marshall Miller, a lawyer for Columbia, denied in court on Tuesday that the university was being coerced, saying that it was voluntarily responding to government requests.

At one point, Judge Subramanian asked Mr. Miller whether Columbia would have announced new rules last Friday without a suggestion from the executive branch that money was at stake.

“It’s a hypothetical,” Mr. Miller said.

Advertisement

“I don’t think it’s a hypothetical,” Judge Subramanian replied.

Mr. Miller then conferred briefly with colleagues before saying that although the new policies had been developed over many months, the Trump administration’s demand affected their “precise timing.”

Ester R. Fuchs, a Columbia professor who is the co-chair of the university’s antisemitism task force, said last week that “a lot of these are things we needed to get done and were getting done, but now we’ve gotten done more quickly.”

The provisions the school adopted were made public in an unsigned statement that many faculty members greeted with dismay, seeing an unprecedented level of deference to the Trump administration.

Among other things, Columbia banned face masks on campus for the purpose of concealing identity during disruptions and said it would adopt a formal definition of antisemitism.

Advertisement

The university also said it would appoint a senior vice provost to oversee the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department, which the Trump administration had said should be placed into receivership.

Lawyers for the students said their clients could suffer harm if their disciplinary information was handed over to lawmakers allied with the Trump administration. The lawyers wrote in court papers that after Columbia provided such information to the government last year, “members of Congress or their staffers posted students’ private information on social media sites and identified students and faculty on the public record during congressional hearings,” resulting in harassment.

Mr. Miller said on Tuesday that Columbia had “anonymized” information provided to the committee.

A lawyer for the students, Amy Greer, said that students who had participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations were “some of the most surveilled people in our country right now,” adding that several private organizations had worked to target students for their speech.

Even if Columbia removed names from information it gave the committee, the inclusion of physical descriptions and details of activity at specific times and places meant “somebody is going to recognize them,” Ms. Greer added.

Advertisement

Earlier in the hearing Judge Subramanian had asked a lawyer for the House committee what lawmakers might do with the student disciplinary records.

The lawyer, Todd Tatelman, replied that the identities of students might in “certain circumstances” be relevant.

“There is no intent to publicize student names?” Judge Subramanian asked.

Mr. Tatelman replied that he knew of no such plans. The judge asked next whether the committee would turn over the names of students to any “administrative agency.”

Mr. Tatelman replied that it would not be “a typical action.”

Advertisement

“But you cannot rule it out?” the judge asked.

“At this point,” Mr. Tatelman replied, “I cannot rule anything out.”

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

New York

Are You Smarter Than a Billionaire?

Published

on

Are You Smarter Than a Billionaire?

Over the course of one week, some of the richest people in the world descended on New York’s auction houses to purchase over $1 billion of art. It might have played out a little differently than you would have expected.

Can you guess which of these works sold for more?

Note: Listed sale prices include auction fees.

Image credits: “Untitled,” via Phillips; “Baby Boom,” via Christie’s Images LTD; “Hazy Sun,” With permission of the Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; via Christie’s Images LTD; “Petit Matin,” via Christie’s Images LTD; “Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio,” Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SIAE, Rome; via Sotheby’s; “Baroque Egg with Bow (Orange/Magenta),” via Sotheby’s; “The Last Supper,” The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; via Christie’s Images LTD; “Campbell’s Soup I,” The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; via Christie’s Images LTD; “Miss January,” via Christie’s Images LTD; “Fingermalerei – Akt,” via Sotheby’s; “Grande tête mince (Grande tête de Diego),” Succession Alberto Giacometti/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY; via Sotheby’s; “Tête au long cou,” Succession Alberto Giacometti/ARS, NY/Photos: ADAGP Images/Paris 2025; via Christie’s Images LTD; “Revelacion,” Remedios Varo, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VEGAP, Madrid; via Christie’s Images LTD; “Le jardin nocturne,” Foundation Paul Delvaux, Sint-Idesbald – ARS/SABAM Belgium; via Christie’s Images LTD.

Produced by Daniel Simmons-Ritchie.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

New York

Video: How a Mexican Navy Ship Crashed Into the Brooklyn Bridge

Published

on

Video: How a Mexican Navy Ship Crashed Into the Brooklyn Bridge

On Saturday, a Mexican Navy ship on a good will tour left a New York City pier bound for Iceland. Four minutes later, it crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge. [Spanish] “It’s falling!” [English] “No way!” Here’s what happened. The Cuauhtémoc had been docked on the Lower East Side of Manhattan for four days, open to visitors looking for a cultural experience. As the ship prepared to leave on Saturday night, a tugboat arrived to escort it out of its pier at 8:20 p.m. The ship’s bow, the front of the vessel, faced Manhattan, meaning it would need to back out of its berth into the East River. As the Cuauhtémoc pulled away from shore, the tugboat appeared to push the side of the ship, helping to pivot the bow south toward its intended route. The river was flowing northeast toward the Brooklyn Bridge and the wind was blowing in roughly the same direction, potentially pushing the ship toward a collision. Photos and videos suggest the tugboat was not tied to the ship, limiting its ability to pull the ship away from the bridge. The Cuauhtémoc began to drift north, back first, up the river. Dr. Salvatore Mercogliano, who’s an adjunct professor at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, told The Times that the ship appeared to be giving off a wake. This suggests its propellers may have been running in reverse, pushing it faster toward the bridge. The tugboat sped alongside the ship as it headed north, possibly trying to get in front of it and help the ship maneuver the other way. But it was unable to cut the ship off or reverse its course. All three masts crashed into the underside of the Brooklyn Bridge at approximately 8:24 p.m., four minutes after the ship had left the pier, causing the top sails to collapse. Crew members standing on the masts during the collision were thrown off entirely. Others remained hanging from their harnesses. A New York City patrol boat arrived about eight minutes after the collision, followed quickly by a fire department boat. Additional law enforcement and emergency medical services removed the wounded for treatment. According to the Mexican Navy, two of the 227 people aboard the ship were killed and 22 others were injured.

Continue Reading

New York

Audio Data Shows Newark Outage Problems Persisted Longer Than Officials Said

Published

on

Audio Data Shows Newark Outage Problems Persisted Longer Than Officials Said

On April 28, controllers at a Philadelphia facility managing air traffic for Newark Liberty International Airport and smaller regional airports in New Jersey suddenly lost radar and radio contact with planes in one of the busiest airspaces in the country.

On Monday, two weeks after the episode, Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, said that the radio returned “almost immediately,” while the radar took up to 90 seconds before it was operational.

Advertisement

A Times analysis of flight traffic data and air traffic control feed, however, reveals that controllers were struggling with communication issues for several minutes after transmissions first blacked out.

The episode resulted in multiple air traffic controllers requesting trauma leave, triggering severe flight delays at Newark that have continued for more than two weeks.

Several exchanges between pilots and controllers show how the outage played out.

Advertisement

Outage Begins

Air traffic recordings show that controllers at the Philadelphia facility first lost radio and radar communications for about a minute starting just before 1:27 p.m., after a controller called out to United Flight 1951, inbound from Phoenix.

Advertisement

The pilot of United 1951 replied to the controller’s call, but there was no answer for over a minute.

Advertisement

Two other planes reached out during the same period as United 1951 — a Boeing 777 inbound from Austria and headed to Newark, and a plane whose pilot called out to a controller, “Approach, are you there?” Their calls went unanswered as well.

Advertisement

Radio Resumes, With Unreliable Radar

From 1:27 to 1:28 p.m., radio communications between pilots and controllers resumed. But soon after, a controller was heard telling multiple aircraft about an ongoing radar outage that was preventing controllers from seeing aircraft on their radarscopes.

Advertisement

One of the planes affected by the radar issues was United Flight 674, a commercial passenger jet headed from Charleston to Newark.

Advertisement

Once the radio started operating again, some controllers switched from directing flights along their planned paths to instead providing contingency flight instructions.

Advertisement

At 1:28 p.m., the pilot of Flight N16NF, a high-end private jet, was called by a controller who said, “radar contact lost.” The pilot was then told to contact a different controller on another radio frequency.

About two and a half minutes later, the new controller, whose radar did appear to be functioning, instructed the pilot to steer towards a location that would be clear of other aircraft in case the radio communications dropped again.

Advertisement

Flight N426CB, a small private jet flying from Florida to New Jersey, was told to call a different radio frequency at Essex County Airport, known as Caldwell Airport, in northern New Jersey for navigational aid. That was in case the controllers in Philadelphia lost radio communications again.

Advertisement

Minutes Later, Radar Issues Persist

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, aircraft reappeared on radarscopes within 90 seconds of the outage’s start, but analysis of air traffic control recordings suggest that the radar remained unreliable for at least some radio frequencies for several minutes after the outage began around 1:27 p.m.

Advertisement

At 1:32 p.m., six minutes after the radio went quiet, Flight N824TP, a small private plane, contacted the controller to request clearance to enter “Class B” airspace — the type around the busiest airports in the country. The request was denied, and the pilot was asked to contact a different radio frequency.

Advertisement

1:32:43 PM

Advertisement

Pilot

Do I have Bravo clearance?

Advertisement

1:32:48 PM

Controller

Advertisement

You do not have a Bravo clearance. We lost our radar, and it’s not working correctly. …

If you want a Bravo clearance, you can just call the tower when you get closer.

1:32:59 PM

Advertisement

Pilot

I’ll wait for that frequency from you, OK?

Advertisement

1:33:03 PM

Controller

Advertisement

Look up the tower frequencies, and we don’t have a radar, so I don’t know where you are.

The last flight to land at Newark was at 1:44 p.m., but about half an hour after the outage began, a controller was still reporting communication problems.

Advertisement

“You’ll have to do that on your own navigation. Our radar and radios are unreliable at the moment,” a Philadelphia controller said to a small aircraft flying from Long Island around 1:54 p.m.

Since April 28, there has been an additional radar outage on May 9, which the F.A.A. also characterized as lasting about 90 seconds. Secretary Duffy has proposed a plan to modernize equipment in the coming months, but the shortage of trained staff members is likely to persist into next year.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Trending