Students at Columbia University’s Middle Eastern studies department were suffering from whiplash. Over two days in March, they went from being reassured by Middle Eastern studies faculty that the university was supporting their embattled department to, just a day later, being hit with news that Columbia had cut a deal with the Trump administration.

At stake was some $400 million in federal funding from the school that had been suspended by the White House. The Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department — or MESAAS as it is formally known — was at the center of the storm.

Pushing back on the White House’s demands proved too tall an order at Columbia. The university administration made an announcement on March 21 that laid out a raft of policy changes. Among them was a plan to appoint a new senior vice provost whose work would include “a thorough review of the portfolio of programs in regional areas across the University, starting immediately with the Middle East,” the announcement said.

MESAAS scholars immediately saw the school had cut a deal that put them in the crosshairs.

“It’s saying one thing to the federal government and saying another thing to faculty and students.”

Now, for the first time, several insiders at MESAAS are speaking up about the turmoil facing their department, the back-and-forth between the Trump administration and university leadership, and how they are the ones caught in the lurch.

“The university is being quite opaque in its language and its messaging, and it’s saying one thing to the federal government and saying another thing to faculty and students,” said Craig Birckhead-Morton, a 22-year-old graduate student at MESAAS. “Obviously, it’s been very frustrating for us, this duplicitous behavior of the university.”

“I’ve spoken with several of my classmates who are also afraid of either their ability to research the things that they’re researching being restricted, or them conducting that research and coming under attack for it,” he said. “This is very scary.”

Short-Lived Reassurance

The rollercoaster ride had begun only last month. On March 7, the White House put the university on notice: The Trump administration announced that it was canceling some $400 million in federal funding to Columbia.

In negotiations over the funding, the White House made a series of demands on March 13, including that the Middle Eastern studies department be placed under academic receivership for a minimum of five years — taking control of the department out of its own faculty’s hands. A Wall Street Journal article published on March 19 said Columbia was about to cave to Donald Trump’s demands, with a deadline approaching the following day.

Then, on the day of the deadline, came an email from Gil Hochberg, the chair of MESAAS. Hochberg and three other senior faculty from the department had met with two high-level senior deans from the university. They had come away from the hourlong Zoom discussion feeling relatively optimistic about maintaining “academic self-governing” at MESAAS.

“While many questions remain open, the four of us who attended today’s meeting, feel significantly more reassured that our department is being supported by the university as much as possible under the circumstances,” said the email, which was reviewed by The Intercept.

“We were told that it is very unlikely that we will hear anything determined this weekend,” Hochberg wrote. “The situation is........

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