Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, one of Columbia University’s most renowned professors, denounced the institution where he has taught for more than two decades over its recent capitulations to the Trump administration.

After Donald Trump withdrew some $400 million in federal funding from the university and issued a list of demands, Columbia entered negotiations that concluded with the school caving to pressure from the White House. Among other concessions, the school made concessions about faculty appointments and placing the Middle East studies department under review.

“I worry that our university may have capitulated to some of the demands coming out of the Trump administration,” Stiglitz told The Intercept on Monday. “Academic freedom means that we have the right to criticize any government, anywhere, the American government or the government of any other country. We have to do it with decorum, conviction, and research, but the notion of academic freedom means that we have to maintain those rights.”

Stiglitz reserved his harshest rhetoric for the attempts to deport current and recent Columbia students, including the arrests of Mahmoud Khalil on March 8 and Mohsen Mahdawi earlier Monday in Vermont.

“What is clear is that it appears that there’s a pattern of intimidation,” he said, “a pattern where they’re trying to discourage people to protest, and a pattern that they’re particularly going after Palestinians.”

Speaking to The Intercept about the apparent struggle between protecting the university’s academic independence versus the attempts to regain the $400 million in revoked federal funding, Stiglitz said, “Obviously, the university cannot continue without money, but what is most important is academic freedom. If we lose our academic freedom, we have lost everything. And so at this moment, we have to decide what our priority is. To me, our priority is academic freedom and the defense of our community.”

Stiglitz, 82, was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001 and was a lead author of the 1995 Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. At Columbia, Stiglitz was named a university professor, the school’s highest academic honor.

© The Intercept