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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Happy St. Patrick's Day on this March 17th. If you're going to the parade, you might have to march or watch in the rain today. Think of how much better that still might feel than St. Patrick's Day five years ago. March 17, 2020, was basically the second day of COVID lockdown in New York City. Remember the day before, Monday, March 16, was the first day that schools were closed in the city to stop the spread and so much else was closed. The first of what would be 47,000 New Yorkers had already died from the plague. To protect everyone else who was vulnerable, there was no St. Patrick's Day parade.

We did what we could do here, and held a St. Patrick's Day parade of the air. We invited listeners who might have gone to the parade in-person to gather via the radio and call in to celebrate your Irishness out loud for our whole community to hear. One of those callers was Geraldine from Harrison, the Westchester county town. Remember this.

Geraldine: Brian, it's very different because I'm used to, for many years, March 17 is such a special holiday. I go to the parade and have often walked up 5th Avenue with the Monaghan Society, or if I'm not, I'm on the sidelines just with such energy because everybody's Irish on March 17, no matter where you're from. I'm missing that today. I am wearing my green and I did a little bit of an Irish jig around my apartment. I might branch out for a little walk later, but nothing like normal. The energy's not there. I'll talk to my family at home and we'll go from there.

Brian: Geraldine in Harrison five years ago today. Later in today's show, we'll play another clip of a great caller from that St. Patrick's Day parade of the air as we acknowledge both the anniversary and the holiday and have a 2025 St. Patrick's Day call in. Also about St. Patrick's Day, I was thinking about the Trump administration's ban and erasure of things that they see as DEI.

For example, Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth directed that no military facility observe Black History Month, Women's History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, people with disabilities, another observance, and things like that. I wondered, does that extend to St. Patrick's Day as well? Or is it only women and people of color and people with disabilities whose observances are getting canceled.

I did some Googling and I came up with a few interesting things. At West Point, where Black and Women's History Month events had been canceled this year and cadet affinity groups ordered to disband, here was a page promoting a St Patrick's Day event at a West Point eatery called the First Class Club, affectionately known around there, I gather, as the Firsty Club.

From what I saw on this page, the Firsty Club is an official function of the Directorate of Cadet affairs at West Point. Those other identity group celebrations are out. St. Patrick's Day and official Irishness, apparently still in, the flyer includes the language First Class Club, don't miss out on the luck of the Irish. The special that they're offering includes green beer pints and bangers and mash and other Irish things like that.

Another one from another local facility, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey, where, by the way, my father once served proudly, back when it was just called Fort Dix, he said they could have deployed me overseas. Instead, they deployed me to New Jersey. I did. Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, according to one of their web pages set up for this year, a St. Patrick's Day Rock the House Bash.

One more, Fort Eisenhower down in Georgia, it's called the St. Patrick's Day Ride. It's horseback riding. Their Eisenhower army site has horses and shamrock images and says, "Look for that pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow on horseback, March 14, 2025. It was the other day. Wear green and get 15% off." St. Patrick's Day events apparently not canceled like many others.

Is it because a white and Christian identity thing is still okay while the others aren't? Does President Trump consider it okay to be Jewish but not okay to be Palestinian? Have you heard this clip from an appearance a few days ago, where he insulted Chuck Schumer in this particular way? Being denounced, by the way, by the Anti-Defamation League, among many others. Here's Trump the other day.

President Trump: Schumer is a Palestinian as far as I'm concerned. He's become a Palestinian. He used to be Jewish. He's not Jewish anymore. He's a Palestinian.

Brian: He didn't say Schumer supports Hamas, or some accusation like that. The insult was to call him a Palestinian. Period. Imagine if the president insulted someone by calling them, and insert your ethnic group or nationality here. Insert your ethnic group or nationality as you think about how to consider that.

According to the Washington Post, the Anti-Defamation League, the country's most influential Jewish civil rights group denounced the use of Palestinian as a slur and argued that presidential power doesn't include deciding, "Who is and isn't Jewish from the ADL." If just being Palestinian makes someone suspect, is that a reason that Columbia University protest leader Mahmoud Khalil was detained for deportation last week?

Here is a two minute excerpt, worth it, we have the luxury of time on this long form show. Here is a two minute excerpt from, I think was Thursday morning's Morning Edition on NPR. It's Michelle Martin trying to get Deputy Homeland Security Secretary, Troy Edgar, to say on what grounds Khalil, who's no longer a student and has a green card, was detained.

Troy Edgar: This is a person that came in under a visa, and again, the secretary at any point can take a look and evaluate that visa and decide if they want to revoke it [crosstalk]

Michelle Martin: He's a legal permanent resident. I have to keep insisting on it. He is a legal permanent resident. What is this standard? Is any criticism of the Israeli government a deportable offense?

Troy: Like I said, I think that at this point is. When he was entered into the country on a student visa, at any point we can go through and evaluate what his status is and the secretary of State [crosstalk]

Michelle: Is any criticism of the United States government a deportable offense?

Troy: Like I said, if you go through the process and you're a student and you're on a visa and you go through at any point [crosstalk]

Michelle: Is any criticism of the government a deportable offense?

Troy: Like I said, as a student, he comes to the United States on a student visa, applies-- Let me put it this way, Michelle. Imagine if he came in and filled out the form and said, "I want a student visa." They asked him, "What are you going to do here?"

Michelle: He was a student.

Troy: [inaudible 00:07:59] and protest [crosstalk]

Michelle: Is protest a deportable event?

Troy: We would never have let him into country.

Michelle: Is protesting a deportable offense?

Troy: Like I said, you're focused on protests. I'm focused on as a visa process. He went through a legal process, came into the country [crosstalk]

Michelle: Are you saying that he lied on his application? He's a lawful permanent resident married to an American citizen.

Troy: I think if he would have declared he's a terrorist, we would have never let him out.

Michelle: What did he engage in that constitutes terrorist activity?

Troy: Michelle, having watched it on TV, it's pretty clear.

Michelle: No, it isn't. Explain it to those of us who have not, or perhaps others have not. What exactly did he do?

Troy: I think it's clear, or we shouldn't be talking about it. The reality is that if you watch and see what he's done on the university [crosstalk]

Michelle: Do you not know? Are you telling us that you're not aware, you don't know what he did is a deportable offense [crosstalk]

Troy: I find it interesting that you're not aware.

Brian: Deputy Homeland Security Secretary, Troy Edgar with Michelle Martin on Thursday's Morning edition. As Michelle was trying to get an answer about what Khalil is even being accused of as he remains in detention, obviously to no avail. Here's one more clip before we bring on Jake Offenhartz from the AP, who's reporting on the Khalil and Columbia and broader right to protest and pressure on universities around the country story.

This is from today's Morning Edition when they spoke with Khalil's eight month pregnant wife, Noor Abdallah, who describes the moment of the arrest as they were entering the Manhattan building where they live. This includes audio that she recorded as the arrest was taking place. Had the presence of mind to do that, apparently. The voice of an ICE agent is in this who refused to give his name. You'll hear NPR's, Leila Fadel, who's the anchor for the Morning Edition piece. This begins with Noor, Khalil's wife, trying to ask the ICE agent who he's with.

Noor Abdalla: Mahmoud's trying to ask the officer like, "Who are you with?" He said department of Homeland Security. Then he asked him like, "Can I see a warrant?" He's like, "It's on my phone, but never really showed it to us. The officer was like, "Give the keys to your wife, basically." I was like, "I'm not leaving him." The officer goes, "I'll arrest you too."

Leila Fadel: He said this even though Noor is a US Citizen.

Noor: Mahmoud gives me the keys and he says, "Go get my green card."

Leila: When Noor returned, three more immigration agents had surrounded him. One said Mahmoud's student visa was revoked, so Noor showed him her husband's green card.

Noor: The agent looked very, very confused, and whoever was on the phone with him said like, "Bring him in anyways."

ICE Officer: You're both going to be under arrest. Turn around. Turn around.

Leila: This is audio from footage Noor filmed that night as agents place Mahmoud in handcuffs.

ICE Officer: Turn around.

Noor: He's not stop resisting. He's giving me his phone.

ICE Officer: I'm good with you. No worries.

Leila: He appears calm and polite. He looks to his wife to reassure her.

ICE Officer: [inaudible 00:11:02]

Noor: I'm going to give [inaudible 00:11:04]

Leila: She grabs his phone before he's taken away to talk to his immigration lawyer on the line.

Noor: They just like handcuffed him and took him. I don't know what to do. What should I do? I don't know.

Leila: Noor follows the agents outside as they lead Mahmoud into an unmarked car, and she asks their names.

ICE Officer: We don't give our names.

Noor: He's saying they don't give their names.

ICE Officer: He will be taken to immigration custody at 26, Federal Plaza.

Brian: From where he was moved to a detention facility in New Jersey and then one in Louisiana. That from today's Morning Edition. With us now, Associated Press reporter, Jake Offenhartz, who's been covering the campus political scene since shortly after the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. As it happens, interviewed Mahmoud Khalil just four days before his arrest. We'll play some clips of that, too. Hey, thanks for coming on for this, Jake. Since you used to work in our news department, I'll say welcome back to WNYC.

Jake Offenhartz: Thanks, Brian. It's good to be back.

Brian: Let's start with the Khalil case, specifically, then we'll get to the broader demands on Columbia right now to get their research funding and other grants back and also related pressures on other universities. In what context did you happen to interview Mahmoud Khalil four days before he became one of the biggest news stories in the world?

Jake: I had spoken to him as part of a story I was working on about this relatively new office at Columbia University that was focused on investigating discriminatory harassment at Columbia. What that really seemed to mean is that they were going after students who had criticized Israel. In one case, a student had written an Op-ed in the Columbia Spectator, the student newspaper, calling for divestment, and she received one of these allegations from this new disciplinary body.

Mahmoud had received a range of allegations. I called him and he told me that he didn't actually do any of these things that he was accused of doing. It was more like guilt by association where they were saying that he was part of a group which had put on an unauthorized protest or was distributing offensive literature. This was one of dozens of conversations I'd had with him in the last eight months.

I think wasn't anything particular about me. He spoke to reporters who were covering this issue and was really one of the very few people who you could call and get a quote from, and would use his name, it would go on the record consistently. I would say, "Mahmoud, is that on the record?" He'd say, "Of course, Jake, that's on the record."

This is coming at a time when a lot of the other students are really hesitant to share their names with the press. That comes around to what we're talking about because he does end up becoming this target. He becomes the person that you see a lot of these far right pro-Israel groups identifying as, this should be the first person who is deported under this promised crackdown from Trump. That attempted deportation at least is exactly what happened here.

Brian: Here's a clip in which you asked him why he thinks he's being investigated by the school if he was a person they recognized last spring as a negotiator for the protesters in the encampment at the school.

Jake: Weren't you like recognized by university leadership as the negotiator?

Mahmoud Khalil: Exactly. This is to me, that's why I say it was targeting me for acting as a negotiator, but also for being a Palestinian student who's outspoken and known. It's an easy scapegoat for them to say, "Look, this Palestinian student who never wore a mask and was active.

Brian: That's an allegation by him that he was being singled out because he was Palestinian. I imagine Colombia denies that. To be clear, this isn't about his detention by ICE that you were interviewing him for. It was four days before that, but an investigation that the university had been conducting to determine something about his and other students actions. Exactly what, if you know.

Jake: In terms of what he was accused of, you mean?

Brian: Yes, or what they've been investigating various students together, not just him, for.

Jake: It really coincided actually with a list of demands that congressional Republicans had sent to Columbia saying, "What are you doing about these incidents? We're seeing on Twitter, or in the press, there's a unruly protest at Barnard. What are you doing there? We're seeing that there was an art exhibition focused on the takeover of this campus building last spring. How are you disciplining these students?"

The university's typical disciplinary process was seen by critics on the right as not moving fast enough. Columbia, which is under threat of losing federal funding, it hadn't actually lost the hundreds of millions yet, but it was definitely in the ether, launches this office to say that we're taking these complaints seriously. We're going to investigate a range of students for, like I mentioned, there was an Ep-ed in a student newspaper, what would really in most circumstances qualify as pretty basic university free speech was now under probe.

They hadn't had brought sanctions here, but they had probed it as a possible example. What I heard from a lot of students and faculty was this was seen as squarely attempting to appease the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress before everything we saw in the last week, which was an avalanche of news in terms of the deportation attempts and also the cuts in federal funding and the letter making these extraordinary demands at the university, which I'm sure we'll get to all that.

Brian: Here's one more clip from your interview four days before his detention, in which Khalil says what he is being investigated for, and denies the allegation having to do with his involvement in a group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest.

Mahmoud: They are very outrageous allegations that I had nothing whatsoever to do with them. Basically they are alleging that I led CUAD, I was the leader of Quad or that I was the social media person who posted the posts, which very far from reality.

Brian: CUAD, Columbia University Apartheid Divest. What's the context of that in terms of how many students Columbia is investigating and taking or considering action against and for what? If you know.

Jake: It's dozens of students as far as we know, they haven't really said. In this case, and in a lot of cases, what Mahmoud is describing is his affiliation with this group, CUAD, which is this coalition group on campus that, they become the leaders of the encampment movement. They're putting out the various statements. There's their social media posts from this group.

Mahmoud is serving in this very specific context as a negotiator on behalf of students, which is a nuanced thing. What he's saying is he's not the one who's posting the online, the Instagram post that the university says is offensive.

He was never accused as being part of the building takeover of Hamilton Hall, but because he was seen as speaking on behalf of this group to the press and negotiating with administrators about them, he is lumped in with them in the disciplinary file as part of this new, more far reaching body. That's in line with a lot of what we see where students who are alleged to be involved in some way with these groups, they're accused of playing a part in some allegedly discriminatory behavior.

Brian: You heard the Michelle Martin interview excerpt with the deputy Homeland Security secretary who could not provide an answer on why they claim Khalil was supporting terrorism. That was last Thursday. Then Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, was on CBS, Face the Nation yesterday and actually went to what Khalil is using as a reason he should be seen as legitimate, that Colombia had recognized him as a negotiator and had been negotiating with him as a representative of the protesters last spring.

Rubio said negotiating on behalf of people that took over a campus that vandalized buildings, that's a crime in and of itself that they're involved in being a negotiator, the spokesperson. That, I think was new yesterday. Does that build on what you had heard before?

Jake: I think it suggests, just as the clip with Michelle Martin that you played, suggests that this line between terrorism and taking part in any pro-Palestinian protest is like blurry to the point of non existent in terms of the Trump administration's view here. We have Rubio advancing this obscure legal theory that gives him a lot of power to revoke a visa even from a legal permanent resident.

I think there's a real question at this point of how much they have to even prove in the way of what he's saying about this is effectively supporting a terror group. He may be able to just make the case that the actions are adversarial to the US Interests, in which case that opens up a whole can of worms in terms of who else can you revoke visas for?

One thing about Khalil, which I think is interesting here is that he's serving in this negotiator role, in part because he's at Columbia studying this field and has a background in diplomacy effectively. He worked for the UK Embassy to Syria, which was based in Beirut, doing diplomatic work. I spoke with one of his colleagues there who talked about one, it's an incredibly extensive background check process.

They're not just hiring anyone. He's doing important diplomatic work. Then he was thought of, according to this colleague as a really measured, thoughtful, soft spoken member of the embassy. Then he gets into Columbia in 2022, and he joins the School of International Public affairs there. He's getting his masters in a public affairs context in which you could say that what he's doing here serving on it as a negotiator on behalf of protests actually fits within his educational context.

Brian: Rubio says, if he was serving as a negotiator on behalf of people who were committing vandalism or others who are espousing terrorism, who might have been a part of that group, that that is a crime in itself. I should probably ask a lawyer whether that's a crime in itself. You're a general assignment reporter covering campuses at the moment. Do you have any answer to that?

Jake: No, and I appreciate that. I would point out, I think it's important to say that, my experience dealing with him, at least, was not that he was directly making demands from the group. They referred to themselves as an autonomous group that had broken away from the encampment and had occupied Hamilton Hall. His primary negotiation effort was during the encampment period last April, where Columbia was in dialogue with these students who had a set of demands that they wanted to see from the university.

The Columbia administration would say, "No, we're not going to do that, but if we're not going to call on the police right away," they ended up eventually doing that, "If we're not going to, we need you to at least remove x number of tents because they're a fire hazard." Mahmoud was the person who was authorized to speak with the university and go back to the students and say, "Hey, we need to remove 17 tents or they're going to call on cops."

They would do that because they listened to him, and the university also had recognized his role there. When we talk about a negotiator, it's not exactly like he's got a bullhorn in an occupied Hamilton hall building as the cops are coming through the windows.

Brian: Yesterday, three days after the Michelle Martin interview with the Deputy Homeland Security Secretary, neither Rubio, this is quoting CBS News after the Face the Nation appearance, neither Rubio nor the White House have provided evidence that Khalil supported Hamas in any way other than support for the protesters at Columbia University.

Khalil's lawyers say he is being punished for exercising his right to protest. Have they explained another Rubio statement, which is he said that he has the right as secretary of state, to deport Khalil because he could impede US Foreign policy. His presence in the US could compromise US foreign policy as opposed to characterizing it as exercising his First Amendment right to oppose US foreign policy. Have you seen if they've gotten any more specific about that with respect to Khalil in particular?

Jake: I don't think Rubio has elaborated on it. What people who understand immigration law more than I do have told me is that there is this 1952 statute that gives the secretary of state broad powers to revoke even permanent residency status in the event that the person staying here could compromise US Foreign policy interests?

I think it's really an open question whether or not you could apply that statute to what's being alleged here, which, as you point out, is not not exactly a specific thing at all or a specific crime at least.

Brian: There's a legal process that's going to continue to play out on all these unresolved questions. We're going to take a break in a second and then continue with the AP's Jake Offenhartz, and expand the conversation to a series of demands that the Trump administration has placed on Colombia in order to restore $400 million in grant funding to various research and other projects at Columbia that the Trump administration revoked last week.

That's another negotiation that's been going on with those hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for research and other projects hanging in the balance and also, to Jake's reporting on the implications for universities around the country. Listeners in part two here we can take phone calls and texts. 212-433-WNYC. Anyone from the Columbia community, students, faculty, anyone around there currently, want to describe the atmosphere on campus now or your own thoughts and feelings from any point of view.

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Alumni, anyone else with whatever opinion or observation or question, or anyone from any other university on the national higher ed implications. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text and stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with Jake Offenhartz, who's covering the detention for deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, also the largest situation at Columbia and the largest situation on campuses generally in the Trump era and with respect to immigration, to protest things like that. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692, if you want to get in on it.

Jake, for people who don't know ,or if there have been any very recent developments, describe this rescission of $400 million in grant funding from the federal government to Columbia University. Some people may even be surprised to learn that a private university gets $400 million of taxpayer money. To the extent that you know, what was that money originally for, why was it suspended by Trump, and what's this deal or threat or whatever you want to call it, that's being offered to get that money back?

Jake: 10 days ago, I think was the announcement that the Trump administration is cutting $400 million in grants from Colombia because of what it says is continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students. That pot of money is largely US National Institutes of Health grants. This is funding for things like biomedical research.

It's been a little bit hard to immediately figure out what has been hit and what hasn't been, but we're hearing that research on schizophrenia and depression, maternal mortality, grants for K-12 students, according to some reporting, that's what we're talking about. On top of that, there are billions more in these federal grants that Trump has said it's going to continue to review and could cut.

Then this past Friday, as the university is dealing with these cuts and trying to figure out how to move forward, they get a another letter from the Trump administration saying that they want to see a series of pretty extensive changes, and that these would be a precondition to negotiate, possibly restoring federal funding. These are pretty extraordinary demands.

One of them is that it place an entire department, the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies department, under an academic receivership for a minimum of five years, doesn't really spell out what that would mean. It calls the university to ban masks on campus for people who are using them to conceal their identity, to change its definition of anti-Semitism, to totally overhaul its long standing disciplinary process and to reform its undergraduate admissions along with international recruiting and graduate admissions practices.

People we spoke to about this see it as a really unprecedented set of demands on a private university. It would effectively end the long standing independence of this university if it were to acquiesce to this. At this point, we haven't seen anything from Columbia suggesting otherwise, but it's very much a moving target.

Brian: Here are a couple of texts that have come in. One listener writes, "I'm torn because while I want to protect his right to free speech, even though it's speech I disagree with, I would not expect to go to another country, stage protests against that country in a disruptive way and not have there be some consequences like being listed as a Persona non grata." That's one person.

Another listener writes, "I'm an alum of the school and currently work here. I'm embarrassed and ashamed to be associated with this school. We didn't get into education for this treatment and disregard for the well being and growth of students." Another listener writes, "American Jews should be deeply concerned. Anti-Semitism is being weaponized and they are finding themselves on the serving side of fascism. Those are a few. Adam in Bay Ridge, you're on WNYC. Hello, Adam.

Adam: Hi, Brian. I just wanted to call in. I'm a student at the CUNY Graduate Center in midtown Manhattan. I just wanted to report on a few things that have happened in and around CUNY. First of all, there are still students facing felony charges. These are undergraduate CUNY students from City College up in Harlem, facing felony charges from the encampment that was staged there in April.

At the CUNY Graduate Center, the student government recently passed a boycott, divestment and sanctions resolution, a BDS resolution. The Graduate Center administration has responded by investigating student leaders with Title VI investigations. They have shut down the student government's listservs. A lot of students have faced harassment as well from pro-Israeli students on campus.

Just across CUNY, we saw the governor, Kathy Hochul, tell Hunter College to remove the job posting for the Palestinian studies job. CUNY has also been investigated in this politically motivated investigation that was directed by the governor's office, the Lippmann Report for anti-Semitism. In this report, anti-Semitism also equates any criticism of Israel with being anti-Semitic speech.

I just wanted to connect what's going on at CUNY with Colombia. I think that what people are saying right now that what's happening at Columbia will actually extend to other universities is very true. That's what we're going to see happen down the road.

Brian: Adam, thank you very much. Adam's call makes some particular factual allegations that we would need to fact check. He's describing an atmosphere obviously that he and others perceive, at very least the way he's describing them. Your Article relating to that last caller, Jake, goes on to report one of your articles that the Columbia situation is leaving college leaders across the US on edge. Can you describe that larger picture?

Jake: I think the caller raises a great point there that it goes far beyond Columbia here. As far as I could tell, his rundown of what's been happening at CUNY is what we've been hearing as well. We know that as of last week, there's over 50 universities that are being investigated for alleged racial discrimination. This is the Trump's campaign to end DEI programs.

I think when you piece it together, it speaks to the really broad efforts by this administration to crackdown on higher education. It's not just pro-Palestinian protest, it's also DEI programs. It speaks to this long standing push in some conservative circles to leverage the federal funding sent a lot of private universities to root out what they see as wokeness there.

CUNY is its own situation in some ways because it is a public university system. In that case, you can see just the Governor of New York getting out in front of it and saying, "No, we're not going to have this Palestinian studies professor here. I'm going to nix that." She wouldn't be able to do that at a private university, but because it's a public university system, she can.

Brian: Do you know, because that was one of the things that the caller said that I hadn't seen independently. Do you know that that's true, that they've nixed that position?

Jake: Hochul ordered Hunter to remove this job posting. This followed some reporting New York Post, that said the position likened it to radicalism and said it was promoting anti-Semitic theories. Hochul pretty swiftly went out there and said, "We're going to remove this posting."

Brian: The governor says the existence of a Palestinian studies director at Hunter College would in and of itself be anti-Semitic. Is that an overstatement of the governor's position?

Jake: I think that she took issue with the description of what the professor would be involved in. I think that there was language in there, I don't have it in front of me about plumbing issues of settler colonialism and apartheid, I think that may be what she took issue with.

Brian: Jeff in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jeff.

Jeff: Hi, good morning. I just dropped my phone, so I apologize about that. Good morning. I want to start off by saying I'm Jewish, and I think that's important to be a long winded and convoluted story, but I'll try and get to the point, which is that within the last month or two, I was in Central Park cycling. At the end of my ride, one of the protesters from the regular, "Bring Them Home Jewish Protests," didn't like how I rolled the light, and he physically assaulted me.

He used his flagpole and otherwise chased after me and attacked me. I was fortunate that I have it all on film. I sent that to the leader of the protests, a young woman who is a recent Columbia graduate. I believe was also involved in some of the Columbia activity. Anyway, her whole point was that she was a victim. She literally didn't apologize to me. She didn't try and identify who a member of her group who physically assaulted and attacked me was. It was really all about her. That's the point, is that--

Brian: Jeff, what is the point, because you're making an allegation about an individual who was a pro-Israel protester, if I understand you right, and let's assume that allegation is true, I assume you don't want to generalize from that to people protesting on that side of things, do you?

Jeff: No. I don't want to generalize, Brian, in the sense that I want to say that there are definitely concerted efforts on the pro-Israel side to be professional victims, to make it always about them and to blow things out of proportion and to weaponize things and say, "Oh, there's rampant anti-Semitism, or we're being discriminated against because we're Jewish and things are really terrible." Now, I'm not naïve. I do believe anti-Semitism does exist. It has long existed and it continues to exist, but it is not the problem [crosstalk]

Brian: It's been well documented that there have been some anti-Semitic expressions associated with some of the protests on the other side.

Jeff: Absolutely. As I just said, I did not deny the existence of anti-Semitism. What I said was that the problem is being blown out of proportion and that there are people on the other side because it fits their political agenda, for lack of a better word, or their beliefs, because they are pro-Israel because they believe that Israel can do no wrong, because they believe that no matter what, Israel is always right and everybody else is always wrong, that they are professional victims, that it's always about them, and that they never take responsibility for the fact that maybe Israel isn't doing things right.

Maybe Israel is violating international law, maybe Israel is going into the west bank and setting up illegal settlements, and it is involved in atrocious activities, whether in the west bank or in Gaza, but somehow they're always able to justify that, and somehow it's always about them, and somehow it's always they're the victim. Then if you try and criticize them, even if you're Jewish, it's, "Oh, this is anti-Semitism."

No, it's not. It's criticism of atrocious illegal activity by the state of Israel. There's nothing wrong with saying that. Saying it doesn't make me or doesn't make anybody else anti-Semitic. It does you and Jewish people a disservice by always claiming that, using that saying, "Oh, it's anti-Semitism. We're under attack."

Brian: Jeff, thank you for your call. As we come to the end of the segment, Jake, I just want to go back to one of the particular demands from the Trump administration on Colombia, which is being perceived by many people as outrageous or unprecedented at very least, or rarely precedented, this idea of receivership of their Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies department. What would that mean? The demand says academic receivership for a minimum of five years.

Jake: I have been asking folks who would be in a position to know the answer to that. None of them really know what it means. I think the implication is that this would would require Columbia to cede control of an academic department, which is really significant in terms of the actual mechanism for that or the protocol. No one really seems to know.

The letter says exactly what you said, basically, and then moves on to the next demand. We don't really have an answer. We do have a sense that this particular department may be targeted in part because some of its faculty have been critical of Israel. They're branding it as inappropriate or trying to push it into receivership, whatever that might mean, but they haven't actually said that, and they haven't said what receivership would entail.

Brian: Responding to our most recent caller and other listener texts, "I often go to these weekly demonstrations in Central Park. They are from a group that is trying to get attention on bringing hostages home. They're nonviolent. I've been many times, and I've never seen any physical altercations between members of the group and bystanders in the park. Please don't generalize saying to that caller about these protests that happen every week in Central Park.

We were going to end the segment here, but I see a member of New York City Council is calling in to respond to another previous caller. I'm going to let Councilmember Jeffrey Dinowitz on the air. Oh, here we go on line 6. Councilmember Dinowitz, thank you for calling in.

Councilmember Dinowitz: Thanks for having me. You're so close to the name. It's Councilmember Eric Dinowitz. Jeffrey Dinowitz is the assemblyman who we also like very much. Thank you for having this really important segment. I want to clarify a few things one of your previous callers mentioned. First I just have to express my disgust with the previous caller who said Jewish people are professional victims.

It is well documented that the Jewish community makes up the majority of hate crimes in New York City despite not being a majority of the population. I want to make sure your callers are aware of that. Anti-Semitism is on the rise. We have seen this on our college campuses, and certainly people protesting for whatever reason is acceptable.

What we saw at CUNY, the Graduate Center, was some of those people in the encampments broke in to [sound cut] At one of my hearings, it was revealed that it cost $3 million worth of damage. I think it's worth noting that this isn't just about people's free speech. This is people causing damage to property and making Jewish students feel unwelcome.

You have clubs at Baruch College that harass students just trying to have a meal at a kosher restaurant. That is a reasonable thing to investigate when you are intimidating and harassing Jewish students. The Palestinian posting for the Palestinian studies, at my hearing last week, it was asked about this posting and what CUNY testified, they said the position isn't gone, but the language in it was incendiary.

They changed the language in it, but they did not get rid of the position. It seems that that caller was wrong on just about everything, including the Lippman Commission report, which wasn't an investigation, but it laid out 13 really important recommendations that says we have a problem at some of the CUNY campuses with Jewish students being harassed, intimidated and with anti-Semitism, and here are 13 recommendations.

CUNY continues to implement some of those. We are working with CUNY and pushing them to implement a number of those recommendations, which will make sure CUNY is a welcoming place for all students.

Brian: Thank you for clarifying some of those things. I did say to that caller that there were some allegations in there that I couldn't verify and would need to be fact-checked. We appreciate your call. May I ask you, Councilmember, how do you feel about the Mahmoud Khalil situation?

Councilmember Dinowitz: Anyone who's here legally is entitled to due process. My personal feelings aside, I happen to think his speech is abhorrent and some of his actions are as well. The point of living in this country and the point of due process is to say it's not up to me, it's not about how I feel, and it's not up to a single president.

We have processes in this country that are supposed to go through those things and make those determinations so that we don't fall into the trap of having a single person decide what is best for one group or another. If due process finds that what his actions deserve consequence, then so be it. The other thing that I think is missing in a lot of these conversations is the fact that Colombia utterly failed to act.

Whether you're talking about the $400 million as you were talking about earlier in your show, or individual people, the fact that Colombia failed to act early on and in a meaningful way, means that all of these problems are exacerbated and all these problems are blown up and the consequences then become that much bigger.

Brian: It sounds like you're criticizing Colombia in the way that you just did, but that you don't support the Trump administration and Secretary Rubio saying just on the basis of the fact that Mahmoud Khalil was negotiating on behalf of the protesters at Colombia is grounds for deportation. Am I hearing you correctly?

Councilmember Dinowitz: To be clear, just about him, I don't think it was just that he was negotiating. This is from what I see, but is that he was engaging in other more egregious acts. The point is [crosstalk]

Brian: That's what Rubio said. Did he go further [crosstalk]

Councilmember Dinowitz: I think there are, and should be processes in place to ensure that anyone who's here legally has those rights afforded to them. It cannot be up to a single person to determine who gets to stay and who leaves.

Brian: City Councilmember Eric Dinowitz, thank you very much for calling in. I'm glad you added your voice to this.

Councilmember Dinowitz: Thank you. So much for having me on.

Brian: Associated Press reporter, Jake Offenhartz, thank you very much for your reporting and for your appearance today.

Jake: Thanks, Brian.

 

 

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