New York (AP) -Columbia University announced on Wednesday that it has concluded a contract with the Trump government to pay the federal government more than 220 million US dollars to restore the federal research allowance that was canceled in the name of combating anti -Semitism on campus.
As part of the agreement, the Ivy League School will pay an agreement of $ 200 million over three years, the university said. It will also pay 21 million US dollars to solve alleged violations of civil rights against Jewish employees who took place after October 7, 2023, said the Hamas attack on Israel, said the White House.
“This agreement is an important step forward after a time of the continuing investigation by the federal government and institutional uncertainty,” said Claire Shipman, President of the acting university.
The school had been threatened with the potential loss of billions of dollars of government support, including more than 400 million US dollars in grants that were canceled at the beginning of this year. The government drew the financing because it described the university’s failure to suppress anti-Semitism on campus during the Israel Hamas War.
Since then, Columbia has agreed to a number of claims that have been determined by the Republican administration, including the revision of the disciplinary process of the university and the application of a controversial, approved definition of anti -Semitism not only for teaching, but for a disciplinary committee, the students were examined in which students are critically against Israel.
The agreement on Wednesday, which does not include admission of misconduct, codifies these reforms and preserves the autonomy of the university, said Shipman.
“The Reforms Columbia are a roadmap,” says Trump Administration
Minister of Education Linda McMahon called the deal “a seismic change in our nation’s struggle, institutions that blame American taxpayers responsible for anti -Semitic discrimination and harassment”.
“The reforms Columbia are a roadmap for elite universities that want to regain the trust of the American public by renewing their commitment to the factual truth, earnings and civil law debate,” said McMahon in a statement.
As part of the agreement, Columbia agreed to a number of changes that were previously announced in March, including the review of the curriculum of the Middle East to ensure that it was “comprehensive and balanced” and the up-to-date faculty of its institute for Israel and Jewish studies. It also promised to end programs, “promote illegal efforts to achieve racial -based results, quotes, variety or similar efforts.”
The university must also show a report to a monitor in which it is assured that its programs “do not promote illegal DEI goals”.
In a post on Wednesday evening on his social platform of truth, President Donald Trump said that Columbia had “committed to ending her ridiculous Dei policy, only admitting students to merit and protecting the bourgeois freedom of their students on campus”.
He also warned without being specific:
The procedure follows Columbia protests
The pact takes place after months of uncertainties and the low negotiations at the more than 270 -year -old university. It was one of the first goals of Trump’s approach to Pro-Palestinian campus protests and on Colleges, of which he claims that they had threatened and harassed Jewish students.
The Task Force for anti -Semitism -Atzask Force in Columbia found last summer that Jewish students were exposed to demonstrations with verbal abuse, exclusion and humiliation in the classroom in the spring of 2024.
However, other Jewish students took part in the protests, and protest leader claim that they do not aim at Jews, but criticized the Israeli government and their war in Gaza.
The leadership of Columbia – a rotating door of three interim presidents last year – said that the campus climate has to change.
Columbia agrees to question international students
Also in the settlement is an agreement to provide potential international students, “questions that should cause their reasons for studying in the United States” and to determine processes to ensure that all students have committed themselves to “civil discourse”.
In a step that would possibly make it easier for the Trump administration to deport students who participate in protests, Columbia, on request, promised to provide disciplinary measures in which student visa owners were involved, which led to expenses or suspensions.
On Tuesday, Columbia announced that it would be exposed to more than 70 students, excluding or revoked that took part in a pro-Palestinian demonstration in the main library in May, and a warehouse on the alumni weekend last year.
The pressure on Columbia started with a number of financing cuts. Then Mahmoud Khalil, a former doctoral student who had been a noticeable personality in the protests, became the first person who was stated in the urge of the Trump government to deport pro-Palestinian activists who are not US citizens.
Next came the search for some university residences in the middle of an investigation by the Federal Ministry of Justice, whether Columbia hided on the “Illegal foreigners” campus. At that time, the interim president replied that the university had committed to maintaining the law.
The supervision of the university expanded
Columbia was an early test case for the Trump government because it applied for a more precise monitoring of the universities that the Republican president considered bastion of liberalism. However, it was soon overshadowed by Harvard University, which was the first university facility to resist Trump’s demands and came back to court.
The Trump administration used the federal research financing as the main lifter in its campaign to redesign university formation. In Cornell, Northwestern, Brown and Princeton Universities, a total of more than 2 billion US dollars were frozen.
In March, administrative officials ran 175 million US dollars from the University of Pennsylvania for a dispute over women’s sports. They restored it as a school officer agreed to update the data sets defined by transgender swimmers Lia Thomas and to change their guidelines.
The administration also looks beyond private universities. James Ryan, President of the University of Virginia, agreed to withdraw on diversity, justice and inclusion in June under the pressure of an investigation by the US Ministry of Justice. A similar investigation was opened this month at George Mason University.
