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Churches are directly protected by the Constitution, so the government has to be kind of careful around them. Even if specific part of what the church does is not protected, a friendly judge can always spin it that way, and attacking a religious institution is an automatic PR problem for the government. Universities used to have same kind of deference, but their wokification lost them this stance on the right, and given that the left regularly sets their own university campuses on fire, if they claim "you don't respect The Sacred Institution enough!" nobody would really believe it by now. So right now they are much less protected than the churches.
I'm not sure what "the concept" here means, but the government can put Columbia in a world of hurt, causing them a lot of direct (fines, lost court cases) and indirect (limiting their access to things) trouble. Of course, technically this is not "forcing" to do them anything, the same way as "give me your wallet or be shot" is not forcing - you can choose to be shot, a lot of people survived being shot. But I don't think any sane board would be willing to fully explore how deep the rabbit hole goes. Because with Feds it can go very deep.
Yes. Inasmuch as anyone at Columbia actually believes that this is tyranny, they should be willing to let the institution's current incarnation collapse before they give in. Inasmuch as the liberal arts teachers actually believe in their own bullshit, they should believe it would be better to teach in Central Park than to teach falsehoods. If they don't believe those things, they should shut their mouths about them.
Time was that we had a concept of honor that required that one actually tested threats of violence before one gave into them. Now we think that idea so insane that nobody on the Left or the Right believes in getting into a fist fight.
Or you recognize that Trumpism may be temporary and letting him destroy Columbia before that would be useless or counterproductive since institutions like that will be needed come the counter-counter-revolution.
I grant it's totally hypocritical if you think there's an active genocide though.
If Trumpism is temporary, then he can't destroy Columbia in three years. If it isn't, then giving in will destroy your institution.
To survive, liberal arts educators have to be willing to become St. John's College. They might not have to buy they have to be willing to.
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