Nothing to see here: That's what Columbia president Katrina Armstrong told some 75 faculty members who assembled on a Zoom call Saturday morning to hear about the memo she sent the Trump administration purportedly agreeing to a series of reforms. None of them raised concerns about the treatment of Jewish students, though many of them expressed concerns with the policy changes.
"Throughout the conversation," Free Beacon editor in chief Eliana Johnson writes, "Armstrong and [Columbia University provost Angela] Olinto downplayed or denied that change was underway." Olinto was particularly candid when it came to the Trump administration's demand to place Columbia's Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department under academic receivership: "This is not a receivership," Olinto said. "The provost will not be writing or controlling anything," calling the department "totally independent."
Armstrong reassured faculty members that there would be "no changes" to rules surrounding masked protests, another Trump demand. Later on, one of her colleagues expressed concern that the Trump administration would catch on to the fact that "there weren't many substantial changes" and asked Armstrong how she'd respond. "Armstrong described a 'Catch-22' in which the school had already been making changes, but now appeared to be doing so at the behest of the administration." She also faulted herself for her "naivete" regarding the "media storm" around Columbia.
Those quotes come from a transcript of the meeting, obtained by the Free Beacon, that "appeared to have been generated because Columbia administrations seem to have been unable to disable the Zoom function that generates an audio transcript. The transcript itself captures administrators struggling to prevent the software from creating a transcript and then moving forward without success."
We're from the government, and we're here to hurt you: Roughly six months ago, Joe Biden's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined a small Chicago mortgage company, Townstone Financial, more than $100,000 for statements its owner, Barry Sturner, made about crime in the city. The Trump administration is in the process of returning the money after reviewing a trove of agency records related to the case. Those records, our Aaron Sibarium reports, "have not been previously reported and provide a remarkable window into the partisanship of federal bureaucrats."
They show that career staff at the CFPB "made no effort to hide the fact that it was interested in Townstone's speech." They closely monitored Sturner's social media posts as part of its investigation, which they said would "provide an opportunity" to suss out "Townstone's views on race and racism." They noted that Sturner was "often highly critical of the Bureau." They also floated a settlement agreement that would have forced Townstone to provide racially targeted loan subsidies and recruit black loan officers.
The new records, which OMB deputy director Dan Bishop outlined in a Wednesday court motion, are "a case study of how federal bureaucrats can bully small businesses for protected speech, using the penumbra of civil rights law to circumvent the First Amendment," writes Sibarium. "Settlements with CFPB often reach well into the seven figures—the agency initially proposed a $1 million penalty for Townstone because of its 'small size,' according to documents quoted in the motion—and do not include the six-figure attorneys’ fees that defendants typically pay over the course of litigation."
Something to hide: After the Trump administration deported a Brown University professor who attended former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's funeral and was subsequently caught with pro-terror materials on her phone, attorneys with the Council on American-Islamic Relations held a webinar to guide foreign nationals on how to avoid deportation. They did not advise attendees to refrain from traveling to terrorist funerals and sharing sympathetic videos of Hezbollah leaders. Instead, they advised them to get a burner.
"Delete some of the apps, some of the pictures you have on your phone," said Spojmie Nasiri, an immigration attorney who sits on CAIR's national board. "Maybe buy a burner phone, or maybe have a backup phone."
Another CAIR attorney, Gadeir Abbas, "advised non-citizens to scale back their involvement in activism," reports our Jessica Costescu, who attended the webinar. "I think one thing to keep in mind is … it's better for Palestine if you stay in the country," he said. "If you're on an F-1 visa, don't wave the banner in front of the protest. That's who they're looking for, and don't make it easy for them to come after you."
Away from the Beacon:
- Rare dissent against Hamas in Gaza continued for a second day, with hundreds of civilians, mostly in the north of the war-torn strip, taking to the streets to protest their terrorist leaders.
- The former editorials editor of the Los Angeles Times, Mariel Garza, resigned after Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris. On Wednesday, she published a New York Times op-ed telling Chuck Schumer that he, too, "should consider the benefits of proactive, principled resignation."
- It's been more than two months since LA mayor Karen Bass issued what her office called a "sweeping Executive Order to clear the way for Los Angeles residents to rapidly rebuild the homes they lost in the ongoing firestorm." Since then, the city has issued four permits for homeowners to rebuild, ABC's Los Angeles affiliate reported.