“I will not be bookended by two fascist regimes.” writes Joachim Frank of Columbia University

  Joachim Frank, who shared the 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, powerfully condemns the attacks on universities, and what he sees as the failure of his own university, Columbia, to mount  a principled defense.

“I will not be bookended by two fascist regimes.” he begins, recounting his birth in Germany, and his immigration to the U.S. as a young scientist. 

 But current events move him to write

"But in 2025, things are starting to feel all too reminiscent of the world I left behind in the Germany of my childhood." 

Nobel Winner: Colleges Teach Critical Thinkers. That’s Why We’re Being Targeted., US News & World Reports, Oct. 7

 "Autocrats try to control universities because we nurture independent thought. It’s time to defend our freedoms."

...

 "Columbia University, where I work as a professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, was put in a difficult historical position by being one of the first universities in the Trump administration’s line of fire earlier this year. In July, the university was pressured to pay the
government $200 million and accept numerous outrageous demands – including limiting international student admissions and allowing outside oversight of certain academic disciplines –in order to unfreeze $1.3 billion in federal funding the Trump administration had withheld to bully Columbia into compliance.

"I had hoped the leadership of my esteemed university would resist the administration’s unreasonable demands, rather than negotiating away its autonomy. But instead of suing the government for illegally freezing grants – as Harvard did – Columbia caved in, setting a
dangerous precedent that encouraged those in power to escalate pressure on other institutions. Trump is now demanding that Harvard pay $500 million and UCLA cough up $1 billion – and accept other conditions to end persecution by the government."

 

 HT: Richard Roberts