Columbia University agrees to pay more than US$220M in deal with Trump to restore federal funding

Students sit on the front steps of Low Memorial Library on the Columbia University campus in New York City, Feb. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)

NEW YORK — Columbia University announced Wednesday it has reached a deal with the Trump administration to pay more than US$220 million to the federal government to restore federal research money that was canceled in the name of combating antisemitism on campus.

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.

“This agreement marks an important step forward after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty,” acting University President Claire Shipman said.

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 because of what it described as the university’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus during the Israel-Hamas war.

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

Wednesday’s agreement — which does not include an admission of wrongdoing — codifies those reforms while preserving the university’s autonomy, Shipman said.

‘Columbia’s reforms are a roadmap,’ Trump administration says

Education Secretary Linda McMahon called the deal “a seismic shift in our nation’s fight to hold institutions that accept American taxpayer dollars accountable for antisemitic discrimination and harassment.”

“Columbia’s 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,” McMahon said in a statement.

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 “comprehensive and balanced” and appointing new faculty to its Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies. It also promised to end programs “that promote unlawful efforts to achieve race-based outcomes, quotes, diversity targets or similar efforts.”

The university will also have to issue a report to a monitor assuring that its programs “do not promote unlawful DEI goals.”

In a post Wednesday night on his Truth Social platform, U.S. President Donald Trump said Columbia had “committed to ending their ridiculous DEI policies, admitting students based ONLY on MERIT, and protecting the Civil Liberties of their students on campus.”

He also warned, without being specific, “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.”

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 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.