Trump Administration Cancels $400 Million in Federal Funds to Columbia College

The Trump administration introduced on Friday that it had canceled $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia College, a unprecedented step that it mentioned was needed due to what it described as the varsity’s failure to guard Jewish college students from harassment.

The announcement escalated the administration’s focusing on of Columbia, the place protests final yr over the battle in Gaza set off a nationwide debate over free speech, campus policing and antisemitism, and led to related demonstrations at faculties nationwide.

The transfer additionally represents the newest in a sequence of assaults by Trump-aligned Republicans geared toward elite increased academic establishments, following final yr’s congressional hearings that resulted within the departure of the presidents of Harvard and the College of Pennsylvania. It comes after current govt orders barring range, fairness and inclusion packages in any respect academic establishments that obtain federal funds.

A warning issued Monday by Linda McMahon, the newly confirmed secretary of schooling, made clear that the administration had its sights set on Columbia. Ms. McMahon warned that Columbia would face the lack of federal funding, the lifeblood of main analysis universities, if it didn’t take extra motion to fight antisemitism on campus.

In a universitywide e mail on Friday night time, Katrina Armstrong, the interim president, mentioned Columbia was going by way of a “time of nice danger to our college” and that the cutoff of presidency funds could be felt in “practically each nook” of the varsity.

“There isn’t a query that the cancellation of those funds will instantly affect analysis and different crucial features of the College, impacting college students, college, employees, analysis, and affected person care,” Ms. Armstrong wrote.