Columbia agrees to Trump administration’s demands to address campus antisemitism
University to limit masking, give up faculty control over Mideast studies department in bid to regain $400 million in federal funds it lost for its response to anti-Israel activity
Columbia University has agreed to a series of changes demanded by the Trump Administration as a precondition for restoring $400 million in federal funding the government pulled this month over the school’s handling of antisemitism on campus amid pro-Palestinian protests against Israel.
The university released a memo outlining its agreement with US President Donald Trump’s administration hours before an extended deadline set by the government was to expire.
Columbia acquiesced to most of the administration’s demands, including restricting face masks on campus, empowering security officers to remove or arrest individuals, and taking away control of the department that offers courses on the Middle East from its faculty.
The Ivy League university’s response is being watched by other universities that the administration has sanctioned as it advances its policy objectives in areas ranging from campus protests to transgender sports and diversity initiatives.
The administration has warned at least 60 other universities of possible action over alleged failure to comply with federal civil rights laws related to antisemitism, which has spiked since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, terror onslaught in Israel and subsequent war in Gaza.
The White House had yet to respond to Columbia’s memo as of Friday evening, and the status of the $400 million in frozen funds remained unclear.
Among the most contentious of the nine demands, Columbia agreed to place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department under a new official, the memo said, taking control away from its faculty.
The university will appoint a new senior administrator to review the curriculum and faculty to make sure they are balanced, and to provide fresh leadership at the department, which offers courses on Middle Eastern politics and related subjects.
The demand had raised alarm among professors at Columbia and elsewhere, who worried that permitting the federal government to dictate how a department is run would set a dangerous precedent.
Republican lawmakers in the US House of Representatives last year criticized professors in the department for comments expressing support for Palestinian terror groups and praising the October 7 atrocities, during which thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251 to Gaza.
The school has also hired three dozen special officers who have the power to arrest people on campus and has revised its anti-discrimination policies, including its authority to sanction campus organizations, the memo said.
Face masks to conceal identities are no longer allowed, and any protesters must now identify themselves when asked, the memo said.
The school also said it is searching for new faculty members to “ensure intellectual diversity.” Columbia plans to fill joint positions in the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and the international affairs school in an effort to ensure “excellence and fairness in Middle East studies,” the memo said.
“The way Columbia and Columbians have been portrayed is hard to reckon with,” Interim President Katrina Armstrong wrote in a letter announcing the changes. “We have challenges, yes, but they do not define us. We are a community of scholars who have deep respect for each other and our mission. We teach the brightest, most creative students in the world, and we care deeply for each and every one of them. I have every faith in our ability to overcome the greatest of challenges. We stand resilient and brilliant.”
Armstrong added, “At all times, we are guided by our values, putting academic freedom, free expression, open inquiry, and respect for all at the fore of every decision we make.”
The sudden shutdown of millions of dollars in federal funding to Columbia University this month was already disrupting medical and scientific research at the school, researchers said.
Critics of the Trump administration’s intervention at Columbia, including thousands of Jewish academics who signed a protest letter this week, say the crackdown there and at other universities reflects an inappropriate incursion on academic freedom and uses fears of antisemitism to justify repression.
The administration’s supporters, who include some pro-Israel students, say the moves are necessary to improve the climate for Jewish students at Columbia, which was the first university to see students form a pro-Palestinian encampment in the spring of 2024.
“This is a huge win for Jewish safety at Columbia,” tweeted Eliana Goldin, who is enrolled in Columbia’s joint program with the Jewish Theological Seminary and a leader in the campus Zionist group Aryeh, on Friday. “I’m looking forward to seeing how the university improves these coming weeks.”
The Times of Israel Community.