{"id":286873,"date":"2025-07-24T03:20:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T03:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/286873\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T03:20:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T03:20:10","slug":"columbia-university-to-pay-trump-admin-200m-to-settle-dispute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/286873\/","title":{"rendered":"Columbia University to pay Trump admin $200m to settle dispute"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The deal with Columbia University is &#8220;a seismic shift in our nation&#8217;s fight&#8221; to hold universities accountable, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Claire Shipman, Columbia&#8217;s acting president, said in a statement: &#8220;This agreement marks an important step forward after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Columbia is among <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cj9vkve298no\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a list of universities<\/a> that have been pursued by the Trump administration over protests against Israel&#8217;s war campaign in Gaza and other issues, including transgender athletes and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The government has targeted over 4,000 grants for termination at over 600 universities and colleges across the US, totalling roughly $8bn, according to a tracker by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Trump posted on Truth Social platform on Wednesday: &#8220;Columbia has also committed to ending their ridiculous DEI policies, admitting students based ONLY on MERIT, and protecting the Civil Liberties of their students on campus. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Numerous other Higher Education Institutions that have hurt so many, and been so unfair and unjust, and have wrongly spent federal money, much of it from our government, are upcoming.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">One month after Trump was sworn into office, his administration stripped Columbia of $400m in federal funding over allegations of antisemitism. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The frozen funds posed an immediate threat to the university&#8217;s research, leading Ms Shipman to say in June that things had reached a &#8220;tipping point&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The White House&#8217;s decision led Columbia to enact campus rule changes demanded by the administration, including the re-organisation of its Middle Eastern studies department, and hiring a team of &#8220;special officers&#8221; empowered to remove students from campus and make arrests.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Columbia said as part of its monetary settlement, a vast majority of the cancelled or paused grants would be reinstated. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The agreement codifies many changes the college has already announced and includes that a jointly selected independent monitor will be appointed to assess implementation of the agreement. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Some of those adjustments include disciplining students who were part of the encampment on the university&#8217;s campus as part of the Gaza protests, requiring protesters to show campus ID, not allowing face masks during demonstrations, providing greater oversight of student groups, and an expansion of officers on campus. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The university said the settlement was not an admission of wrongdoing. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This agreement marks an important step forward after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty,&#8221; Shipman said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The settlement was carefully crafted to protect the values that define us and allow our essential research partnership with the federal government to get back on track.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She added that the terms of the agreement would safeguard the school&#8217;s independence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Columbia&#8217;s willingness to comply with the university in March was met with intense criticism from some who felt the Ivy League college had conceded its independence. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Harvard has taken the opposite approach. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Although the government has suspended billions in funding from the university and moved to end its ability to enrol international students, Harvard is suing the administration. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cj9vkve298no\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hearings in the case<\/a> between Harvard, the richest university in the country, and the White House, the nation&#8217;s highest branch of government, began on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Trump administration has signalled it is hoping schools go more in the direction of Columbia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In her statement, McMahon called Columbia&#8217;s reforms &#8220;a roadmap for elite universities that wish to regain the confidence of the American public&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I believe they will ripple across the higher education sector and change the course of campus culture for years to come,&#8221; she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The deal with Columbia University is &#8220;a seismic shift in our nation&#8217;s fight&#8221; to hold universities accountable, Education&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-286873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114906059426629128","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}