From last week:

The Trump administration delivered an ultimatum to leaders of Columbia University on Thursday, threatening to end a portion of its federal funding unless the school implements strong controls over an international studies department and makes significant changes to student discipline standards and other university policies.

In a letter obtained by NPR dated March 13, federal officials from the U.S. Education Department, Department of Health and Human Services and General Services Administration demanded Columbia place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under “academic receivership for a minimum of five years,” requiring them to create a full plan to do so by March 20. The letter didn’t explain why this department was targeted for an academic receivership, an unusual move in which the control of a program is placed in the hands of university administration.

Hmm. What do Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African have in common. Hmmm, that’s a tough one. Oh I know!

Brownitude. Lack of pallor. A certain beige note to the skin, sometimes shading to umber.

It’s been a tumultuous week at Columbia as the Trump administration appears to have set its sights on the university. His administration has already canceled $400 million in federal grants and contracts to the school, claiming that Columbia failed to police antisemitism on campus in the wake of pro-Palestinian demonstrations last spring. And the high-profile arrest of a former student involved in those protests continues to keep the school in the public eye.

You know, it’s ironic. Columbia used to be considered a bit…how shall I put this…a bit not out of the very top drawer. A bit regrettable. Not sufficiently Yale-like. Can you guess why? [whispers] Too Jewish, dalling.

So they found Edward Said and they went all yay-Palestine and what did it get them. There’s no justice.

Much of the turmoil at Columbia began last spring after university leadership clashed with pro-Palestinian protests on campus, sparked by the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. Columbia students, for their part, established encampments on school grounds and took over a university building as they called on university leaders to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

Maybe they should focus on something else. Greenland? That’s looking intriguing these days.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, a Jewish and pro-Israel advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., called the the Trump administration’s targeting of higher education part of “an all-out assault on the norms of our democracy and against the very existence of critical institutions, programs and services across all sectors of our society.”

By taking this step, and justifying it as protecting Jewish students, the Trump administration is abusing real fears of Jewish Americans about rising antisemitism, Ben-Ami said in a press release.

“That is why it is so painful to see the very real fears of Jewish Americans about rising antisemitism being abused by the Trump Administration to advance a nefarious agenda that undercuts key pillars of the Jewish experience – from civil rights to immigration and higher education,” Ben-Ami said.

Maybe Jared could tell daddy-in-law to shut up about it.