Dissent | Columbia University
Today, largesse once again represents a potent form of government coercion. A devil’s bargain is on the table, with freedom up for sale—a bargain involving unconscionable conditions: losing largesse is the price paid for asserting constitutional rights. That was the lesson taught at Columbia University (above) last month, an example of the unfreedom so worrying to Reich a half century ago. At Columbia, $400 million purchased the abandonment of a lot of academic freedom, a deal prompting some belated university repentance about ill-gotten gains and avowals of independence.