Alma Mater, by Daniel Chester French (1903) – Public Domain

That great slumbering beast, the Columbia University alumni, has finally awakened. Over 4,000 graduates from all the many schools of the institution, including Law and Medicine, the Teachers College, General Studies and Business have signed a petition that calls on the university to defend academic freedom in the wake of the recent attacks by the Trump administration and the abrupt cancellation of grants for research on cancer treatments, Alzheimer’s disease and more.

The petition reads “The Trump administration has already initiated similar attacks against other universities as part of a larger strategy to quell dissent........

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