Rose Horowitch

1 month ago | theatlantic.com | Rose Horowitch

Forcing some of America’s richest and most successful enterprises to pay more in taxes would have once, for Republicans, been tantamount to treason. But when those enterprises are left-leaning universities, all bets are off. As part of its attack against elite universities, the Trump administration has frozen billions of dollars in federal funding for Columbia and Harvard, and has announced a scheme to revoke Harvard’s nonprofit tax-exempt status.

1 month ago | theatlantic.com | Rose Horowitch

It makes for a most tempting “Help Wanted” ad: Earn $5 million a year to lead one of the nation’s most powerful and prestigious institutions. Enjoy fancy dinners, almost unlimited travel, and a complimentary mansion in Upper Manhattan. This is an incomplete list of the perks that the president of Columbia University receives. And yet no one seems to want the job.

1 month ago | theatlantic.com | Rose Horowitch

The richest university in the world has decided that some things are more important than money. Earlier this month, the Trump administration threatened to revoke $9 billion in federal grants and contracts if Harvard did not agree to a long list of demands, including screening foreign applicants “hostile to the American values and institutions” and allowing an external body to audit university departments for viewpoint diversity.

2 months ago | theatlantic.com | Rose Horowitch

When the Trump administration announced that it was canceling $400 million worth of grants to and contracts with Columbia University, ostensibly to punish the university for its handling of anti-Semitism amid pro-Palestinian campus protests, one important detail went unspecified: what type of funding, exactly, would be getting cut.

2 months ago | theatlantic.com | Rose Horowitch

If the Trump administration’s goal was to sow chaos among America’s colleges, it has definitely succeeded. Last month, the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights sent a letter to universities explaining the agency’s view that, because of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision striking down affirmative action, any consideration of race—not just in admissions, but in hiring, scholarships, support, “and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life”—is now illegal.