Columbia’s Cowardice And The Death of Free Speech In America

Columbia's failure to protect students like Mahmoud Khalil has transformed it from an institution of higher learning to a complicit corporation in the erosion of democracy.

The irony could not be thicker. Jelani Cobb, the dean of Columbia’s prestigious journalism school—the very institution meant to train the next generation of journalists—has pleaded with students not to be journalists, in order for them to remain students, as if the pursuit of truth and justice should be put on hold in favor of obedience to a free fall into fascism.

Screenshot of a New York Times article published that highlights how Columbia has consistently chosen cowardice in this culminating, if dangerous, moment.

What, then, is the value of a Columbia Journalism School diploma if earning it requires not holding the powerful to account, but instead comes at the expense of free speech, journalism, and critical thought?

It is precisely in dangerous times that courage matters most and that journalism is needed most. And yet, Columbia has consistently chosen cowardice. Columbia, like all institutions has a duty—to protect your students, to defend free speech, and to stand firm against those who would see both destroyed. Instead, the university has surrendered.

I graduated with honors from Columbia’s Journalism School by practicing journalism that severed to hold the powerful to account. As a former adjunct professor, I cannot overstate how shameful this moment is, and how Columbia’s choices has made this pivotal moment all the more dangerous.

This is when Columbia should be mustering the courage to lead by example by teaching students not just to report the truth but also, to fight for it. Journalism is supposed to be the fourth estate, not a rubber stamp for power. Unless, of course, we’ve already chosen to surrender to fascism.

I understand that since Trump gutted Columbia’s funding to the tune of $400 million dollars last week, the university is hemorrhaging resources. But this is how you think you survive? By bowing to those who want nothing more than to crush dissent and erode free speech? By silencing the very people trained to challenge power?

This is not just complicity in the face of genocide—it is complicity in the slow, methodical dismantling of democracy itself. And history will remember.

A Journalism School That Fears Journalism

Columbia’s actions are not just ironic—they are an existential threat to the very profession they claim to train students for. Journalism is meant to serve as a check on power, yet here we see a top journalism institution actively silencing those who are paying an obscene amount of money do exactly that. If journalists only report within the boundaries set by those in power, then journalism ceases to exist. If Columbia continues down this path, it begs the question: Is Columbia a university of higher education or simply a profit-driven business?

Columbia does not fear speech. It fears speech that challenges the powerful that are bankrolling the university.

When former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett—a war criminal embroiled in the 1996 Qana massacre in Lebanon, which killed over 100 civilians and who proudly boasted in 2013, “ I have killed lots of Arabs in my life — and there is no problem with that” —was invited to speak at Columbia, and his security was prioritized, unlike the hundreds of students who were arrested for protesting genocide on campus.

Keren Yarhi-Milo, dean of the School of International and Public Affairs who moderated the panel at an invite-only event, cut off library access and brought dozens of NYPD cars to protect the architect of a “shoot to kill” policy in Gaza.

The students protesting his presence were threatened, harassed, and silenced.

“We are aware of an incident in which our Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs was harassed as she walked on our campus this morning. This behavior is not acceptable,” the statement reads. “We swiftly identified the person involved, have initiated an investigation, and will pursue appropriate disciplinary processes.”

During the panel, hundreds of protesters gathered outside of the 116th Street and Broadway gates to protest Bennett’s appearance.

Columbia’s actions, including setting up a security checkpoint into campus and along College Walk, mirror the very oppressive regimes and corporations that journalists are supposed to scrutinize. If students at Columbia Journalism School cannot practice journalism now—when it matters most—then what are they being trained for? To be stenographers for the powerful?

The message Columbia is sending is clear: Journalists should stay quiet. Do not ask uncomfortable questions. Do not challenge authority. Do not risk your future by taking a moral stance. But is it the right one?

Columbia’s Financial Interests and Direct Complicity in Genocide

But this is not just about a university suppressing dissent. It is about money. It is about power. And it is about ensuring that the next generation of journalists, academics, and policymakers never challenge the status quo.

Columbia’s complicity in genocide is not just ideological—it is financial. As any investigative journalist knows, to get to the truth, the first thing to do is to follow the money.

Columbia holds massive investments in companies profiting from Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, which is why one of the key demands of the students encampments last year was for the university to divest. They include BlackRock, the asset management giant; Airbnb, which has offered rentals in the occupied West Bank; Caterpillar, whose bulldozers Israel has used; and Google, which has faced protests from staffers over Project Nimbus, which provides artificial intelligence services to Israel.Among the more egregious investments are the following:

• Boeing (which supplies Israel with the bombs leveling Gaza)

• Lockheed Martin (which produces the F-35 fighter jets used in airstrikes)

• RTX (formerly Raytheon) (which manufactures missile systems used to target Palestinian civilians)

Columbia’s administration is not merely tolerating genocide—it is profiting from it. Columbia’s endowment is worth $13.6 billion and is managed by a university-owned investment firm. The suppression of student activists is not about “protecting campus safety” or “maintaining order” as Columbia wants the world to believe. It is about ensuring that these financial relationships remain unchallenged.

Columbia, like most private schools, keeps most of its financial information under wraps. Its trustees do publish annual financial reports, but those reports don't detail specific investments, such as stocks and private equity funds — let alone their geographies.

Columbia has a history of student activism, from the now-famous 1968 student occupation of multiple campus buildings to raise awareness of the Vietnam War, to hunger strikes over issues such as the university’s expansion in Upper Manhattan.

In 2000, the university established an advisory committee on socially responsible investing, made up of students, faculty and alumni, to provide feedback to the managers of Columbia’s endowment investments. When students Columbia University Apartheid Divest submitted a formal proposal to the committee for withdrawing investments related to Israel last December, students at Columbia College, the university’s undergraduate school, voted to support the divestment proposal, but the university refused to even consider their demands.

For Columbia’s leadership, the equation is simple: Do not alienate the donors. Do not jeopardize funding. And if that means betraying the university’s values and undermining the value and quality of education, or if that means throwing students under the bus? So be it.