{"id":87581,"date":"2025-07-24T03:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T03:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/87581\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T03:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T03:09:09","slug":"columbia-university-reaches-a-deal-with-trump-to-restore-federal-research-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/87581\/","title":{"rendered":"Columbia University reaches a deal with Trump to restore federal research funds"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Columbia University announced Wednesday it has reached a deal with the Trump administration to pay more than $220 million to the federal government to restore federal research money<\/a> that was canceled in the name of combating antisemitism on campus.<\/p>\n

Under the agreement, the Ivy League school will pay a $200 million settlement over three years, the university said. It will also pay $21 million to resolve alleged civil rights violations against Jewish employees that occurred following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, the White House said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis agreement marks an important step forward after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty,\u201d acting University President Claire Shipman said.<\/p>\n

The school had been threatened with the potential loss of billions of dollars in government support, including more than $400 million in grants canceled earlier this year. The administration pulled the funding<\/a> because of what it described as the university\u2019s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus during the Israel-Hamas war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Columbia has since agreed to a series of demands<\/a> laid out by the Republican administration, including overhauling the university\u2019s student disciplinary process and applying a contentious, federally endorsed definition of antisemitism<\/a> not only to teaching but to a disciplinary committee that has been investigating students critical of Israel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s agreement \u2014 which does not include an admission of wrongdoing \u2014 codifies those reforms while preserving the university\u2019s autonomy, Shipman said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Columbia\u2019s reforms are a roadmap,\u2019 Trump administration says<\/p>\n

Education Secretary Linda McMahon called the deal \u201ca seismic shift in our nation\u2019s fight to hold institutions that accept American taxpayer dollars accountable for antisemitic discrimination and harassment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cColumbia\u2019s reforms are a roadmap for elite universities that wish to regain the confidence of the American public by renewing their commitment to truth-seeking, merit, and civil debate,\u201d McMahon said in a statement. <\/p>\n

As part of the agreement, Columbia agreed to a series of changes previously announced in March, including reviewing its Middle East curriculum to make sure it was \u201ccomprehensive and balanced\u201d and appointing new faculty to its Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies. It also promised to end programs \u201cthat promote unlawful efforts to achieve race-based outcomes, quotes, diversity targets or similar efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The university will also have to issue a report to a monitor assuring that its programs \u201cdo not promote unlawful DEI goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a post Wednesday night on his Truth Social platform, President Donald Trump said Columbia had \u201ccommitted to ending their ridiculous DEI policies, admitting students based ONLY on MERIT, and protecting the Civil Liberties of their students on campus.\u201d <\/p>\n

He also warned, without being specific, \u201cNumerous 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crackdown follows Columbia protests<\/p>\n

The pact comes after months of uncertainty and fraught negotiations at the more than 270-year-old university. It was among the first targets<\/a> of Trump\u2019s crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus protests and on colleges that he asserts have allowed Jewish students be threatened and harassed.<\/p>\n

Columbia\u2019s own antisemitism task force found last summer<\/a> that Jewish students had faced verbal abuse, ostracism and classroom humiliation during the spring 2024 demonstrations.<\/p>\n

Other Jewish students took part in the protests, however, and protest leaders maintain they aren\u2019t targeting Jews but rather criticizing the Israeli government and its war in Gaza. <\/p>\n

Columbia\u2019s leadership \u2014 a revolving door of three interim presidents<\/a> in the last year \u2014 has declared that the campus climate needs to change. <\/p>\n

Columbia agrees to question international students<\/p>\n

Also in the settlement is an agreement to ask prospective international students \u201cquestions designed to elicit their reasons for wishing to study in the United States,\u201d and establishes processes to make sure all students are committed to \u201ccivil discourse.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a move that would potentially make it easier for the Trump administration to deport students who participate in protests, Columbia promised to provide the government with information, upon request, of disciplinary actions involving student-visa holders resulting in expulsions or suspensions.<\/p>\n

Columbia on Tuesday<\/a> announced it would suspend, expel or revoke degrees from more than 70 students who participated in a pro-Palestinian demonstration<\/a> inside the main library in May and an encampment during alumni weekend last year.<\/p>\n

The pressure on Columbia began with a series of funding cuts. Then Mahmoud Khalil<\/a>, a former graduate student who had been a visible figure in the protests, became the first<\/a> person detained in the Trump administration\u2019s push to deport pro-Palestinian activists<\/a> who aren\u2019t U.S. citizens. <\/p>\n

Next came searches of some university residences amid a federal Justice Department investigation<\/a> into whether Columbia concealed \u201cillegal aliens\u201d on campus. The interim president at the time responded that the university was committed to upholding the law. <\/p>\n

University oversight expands<\/p>\n

Columbia was an early test case for the Trump administration as it sought closer oversight of universities that the Republican president views as bastions of liberalism. Yet it soon was overshadowed by Harvard University, which became the first higher education institution to defy Trump\u2019s demands and fight back in court<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has used federal research funding<\/a> as its primary lever in its campaign to reshape higher education. More than $2 billion in total has also been frozen at Cornell, Northwestern, Brown and Princeton universities.<\/p>\n

Administration officials pulled $175 million from the University of Pennsylvania<\/a> in March over a dispute around women\u2019s sports. They restored it when school officials agreed to update records set by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and change their policies.<\/p>\n

The administration also is looking beyond private universities. University of Virginia President James Ryan agreed to resign<\/a> in June under pressure from a U.S. Justice Department investigation into diversity, equity and inclusion practices. A similar investigation was opened this month at George Mason University<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Columbia University announced Wednesday it has reached a deal with the Trump administration to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":87582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[97,12648,413,58818,285,16720,12575,12576,12514,69,407,4934,19121,57,325,4527,118,99,3462,373,28103,1612,17845,8335,405,403,404,50,406,80,402,2068,4217,94,61,67,370,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-87581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-2024-2025-mideast-wars","10":"tag-antisemitism","11":"tag-civil-rights","12":"tag-claire-shipman","13":"tag-climate-change","14":"tag-colleges-and-universities","15":"tag-colombia","16":"tag-colombia-government","17":"tag-diversity","18":"tag-donald-trump","19":"tag-education","20":"tag-education-funding","21":"tag-equity-and-inclusion","22":"tag-general-news","23":"tag-government-budgets","24":"tag-hamas","25":"tag-human-rights","26":"tag-israel","27":"tag-israel-government","28":"tag-israel-hamas-war","29":"tag-jim-ryan","30":"tag-latin-america","31":"tag-linda-mcmahon","32":"tag-mahmoud-khalil","33":"tag-new-york","34":"tag-new-york-city","35":"tag-new-york-city-wire","36":"tag-news","37":"tag-ny-state-wire","38":"tag-politics","39":"tag-protests-and-demonstrations","40":"tag-race-and-ethnicity","41":"tag-south-america","42":"tag-u-s-department-of-justice","43":"tag-u-s-news","44":"tag-united-states","45":"tag-united-states-government","46":"tag-unitedstates","47":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}