Columbia University to pay $220M to restore federal funding pulled amid antisemitism accusations

Crackdown follows Columbia protests

The pact comes after months of uncertainty and fraught negotiations at the more than 270-year-old university. It was among the first targets of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus protests and on colleges that he asserts have allowed Jewish students be threatened and harassed.

Columbia’s own antisemitism task force found last summer that Jewish students had faced verbal abuse, ostracism and classroom humiliation during the spring 2024 demonstrations.

Other Jewish students took part in the protests, however, and protest leaders maintain they aren’t targeting Jews but rather criticizing the Israeli government and its war in Gaza.

Columbia’s leadership — a revolving door of three interim presidents in the last year — has declared that the campus climate needs to change.

Columbia agrees to question international students

Also in the settlement is an agreement to ask prospective international students “questions designed to elicit their reasons for wishing to study in the United States,” and establishes processes to make sure all students are committed to “civil discourse.”

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.

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

The pressure on Columbia began with a series of funding cuts. Then Mahmoud Khalil, a former graduate student who had been a visible figure in the protests, became the first person detained in the Trump administration’s push to deport pro-Palestinian activists who aren’t U.S. citizens.

Next came searches of some university residences amid a federal Justice Department investigation into whether Columbia concealed “illegal aliens” on campus. The interim president at the time responded that the university was committed to upholding the law.

University oversight expands

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’s demands and fight back in court.

The Trump administration has used federal research funding 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.

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

The administration also is looking beyond private universities. University of Virginia President James Ryan agreed to resign 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.

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