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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Adventures at the dignity loss event horizon [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-06-05
(H/T to Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall for inspiring the headline and general theme of this APR.)
We begin today with Sharon Otterman of The New York Times writing that the Trump regime is now threatening Columbia University’s accreditation which could threaten the ability of future Columbia students to receive financial aid.
The federal Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which two weeks ago found that Columbia violated civil rights laws by “acting with deliberate indifference” toward the harassment of Jewish students, sent a letter on Wednesday to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, the nongovernmental organization that accredits Columbia. The letter said that because Columbia was in violation of federal anti-discrimination laws, the Education Department believes it fails to meet the standards for accreditation. “University accreditors have an obligation to ensure member institutions abide by their standards,” Linda McMahon, the federal education secretary, said in a news release. She said the government looked forward to being “fully informed of actions taken to ensure Columbia’s compliance with accreditation standards, including compliance with federal civil rights laws.” [...] Experts on the process said that despite the letter, Columbia faced no immediate threat that its accreditation would be revoked, a process that typically takes years.
Leaving aside the number of universities (and it’s not just Harvard) that have chosen to fight Trump rather than capitulate…
One of the lessons that should have been learned during the first four years of Trump’s occupation of the Oval Office (and even during the 2016 Republican presidential nomination cycle) is that accommodation and capitulation pretty much ensures that you will continue to be humiliated. Trump isn’t exactly a merciful guy. There’s nothing to be gained by surrendering and accommodating to him once he has you in his eyesights, for whatever reason. Total humiliation will be the result.
While he was working, his son Icarus,
with smiling countenance and unaware
of danger to himself, perchance would chase
the feathers, ruffled by the shifting breeze,
or soften with his thumb the yellow wax,
and by his playfulness retard the work
his anxious father planned.
But when at last
the father finished it, he poised himself,
and lightly floating in the winnowed air
waved his great feathered wings with bird-like ease.
And, likewise he had fashioned for his son
such wings; before they ventured in the air
he said, “My son, I caution you to keep
the middle way, for if your pinions dip
too low the waters may impede your flight;
and if they soar too high the sun may scorch them.
Fly midway. Gaze not at the boundless sky,
far Ursa Major and Bootes next.
Nor on Orion with his flashing brand,
but follow my safe guidance.”
Ovid, The Metamorphosis Book 8.199-219
In the meantime. Samuel Dodge of MLive reports that hilarity ensued in Ann Arbor, Michigan, all over Twitter/X and all over Bluesky as former University of Michigan president Santa Ono’s bid to become president of the University of Florida was shut down by the Florida Board of Governors.
On Tuesday afternoon, Ono’s presidency was shot down in a 6-10 vote by the Florida Board of Governors, the governing board for the state’s university system. The move was made after prominent Florida conservatives questioned Ono’s past support of DEI and alleged inaction on combating antisemitism. [...] In his bid for the Florida job, Ono wrote in Inside Higher Education that he supported “the original intent of DEI” to ensure “equal opportunity and fairness for every student.” [...] Ono oversaw cuts to the university’s long-standing diversity, equity and inclusion programs . This includes March moves to discontinue UM’s DEI 2.0 Strategic Plan and close its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Office for Health Equity and Inclusion. These actions led to intense criticism from different segments of campus, including a 300-person protest on the Diag and resolutions from faculty. Despite these moves, as well as a Tuesday call to “ensure DEI never returns to the University of Florida,” Ono faced criticism from Florida conservatives for past statements supporting DEI and once calling racism one of America’s “original sins.”
Jordan Acker is a member of the University of Michigan Board of Regents.
The Bill Frieder comparison is dead on...
x @Johnubacon Santa Ono was "Schembechler-ed" when UM told him his employment was over immediately. He wanted to do a Bill Frieder and remain awhile after telling them he was leaving. pic.twitter.com/nA2pdN4dyH — Edward Seiler (@3crowns21) June 4, 2025
The staff of The Michigan Daily was nicer about it...then again, I haven’t read the Daily’s editorials yet…
(with all due apologies to the APR/DK Gator Nation!)
Eric Berger of Ars Technica covers the canceled nominee to head NASA, Jared Isaacman, and the reasons he believes he will not head the space agency and his vision for NASA.
Isaacman said he is, politically, a moderate, although he leans right. He supports Trump's desire to cut alleged waste and fraud from the US government, and that is what he intended to do at NASA. He also did not blame Trump for his departure, saying that a president makes a thousand decisions a day, often with a few seconds of information. He also said he enjoyed the Senate confirmation process, which allowed him to candidly discuss his positions on NASA with individual US senators. As for why he was removed, Isaacman said the following: "I had a pretty good idea, I don’t think the timing was much of a coincidence," he said. "Obviously, there was more than one departure that was covered on that day." The phone call to Isaacman saying his nomination was being pulled came the same day that SpaceX founder Elon Musk left his position as a special advisor to the president. Musk had been supportive of Isaacman's nomination. However, in his time running the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk had made enemies within the US government.
It’s only right that Talking Points Memo founder and editor-in-chief Josh Marshall has a say in a thread that utilizes political terminology that he's known for. Marshall admits to some skepticism about the Musk-Trump breakup.
A few quick thoughts on the apparent falling out between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. I don’t have more than speculation on what these two guys are thinking or feeling. But the White House took a big swipe at Musk by canning Musk’s handpicked NASA chief the day after his cringey departure ceremony. That action both took something valuable away from Musk and treated him with a very public disrespect. So while Musk is clearly trying to undo the ocean of brand damage he brought on himself and his companies, I don’t think the White House is playing along and trying to help with that project. I think they’re really trying to show him who’s boss, a classic example of Trumpian dominance politics. [...] One additional note apart from this purported feud. Musk isn’t shifting sides here. He’s complaining that the cuts to social programs in the GOP budget aren’t deep enough. He claims this is about growing deficits. But he’s not said anything about the centerpiece high income tax cuts which are the drivers of those deficits. So while it’s probably obvious to most of you reading this, it’s important to note that Musk isn’t in any way switching sides...I’m skeptical.
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