Columbia College has agreed to an inventory of calls for laid down by United States President Donald Trump in return for negotiations to reinstate its $400m federal funding which he revoked final month citing “a failure to guard Jewish college students from antisemitic harassment”.
Amongst different concessions, the college has agreed to ban face masks and to empower 36 campus law enforcement officials with particular powers to arrest college students.
A brand new senior provost will even be put in to supervise the division of Center East, South Asian and African Research and the Middle for Palestine Research.
So what occurred and what has Columbia agreed to do?
Why has the US authorities made calls for of Columbia?
Final yr, the college was a serious hub throughout a wave of campus protests that swept the US as Israel’s conflict on Gaza escalated. On April 30, a bunch of scholars, employees and alumni occupied Hamilton Corridor, a tutorial constructing on campus at Columbia, earlier than being forcibly cleared by New York police on the request of the college’s management.
Trump’s administration has taken a hardline method to these concerned within the demonstrations final yr, pledging in its first week to deport college students concerned. Earlier this month, it revoked Columbia’s federal funding and issued an inventory of calls for the college should comply with earlier than the funding could be reinstated.
This month, Columbia pupil Mahmoud Khalil, 29, who performed a key function in organising the pro-Palestine protests, was arrested from his college residence in New York’s higher Manhattan by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brokers who stated they might revoke his inexperienced card – everlasting residency – following an order from the Division of State.
“It’s a privilege to be granted a visa to dwell and research in the USA of America. If you advocate for violence and terrorism that privilege needs to be revoked, and also you shouldn’t be on this nation,” Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem stated in a information launch concerning the arrest.
On March 10, US authorities despatched a letter to 60 tutorial establishments, together with Columbia, informing them they have been underneath investigation for “antisemitic harassment and discrimination” and warning them of potential legislation enforcement actions if they don’t “shield Jewish college students”. The letter additionally threatened additional funding cuts. In response, Columbia stated it had expelled, suspended or revoked the levels of scholars concerned within the Hamilton Corridor occupation.
As a deadline for Columbia to satisfy the remainder of the federal government’s calls for approached on Friday evening, the college despatched a brand new memo to the US administration, saying it had additionally agreed to them. Critics say the transfer may basically alter tutorial freedom and the precise to free speech in the USA.
What has Columbia agreed to do?
In its memo to the Trump administration on Friday evening, Columbia College listed the brand new guidelines and insurance policies which can now apply on its campus and laid out plans to reform its disciplinary processes.
Face masks might be banned, protesters might be required to establish themselves, safety officers with particular powers to arrest college students are to be appointed and departments providing programs on the Center East are to be reviewed and overseen by a brand new senior provost.
The Trump administration had demanded that the college place the Center Japanese, South Asian and African Research division into “tutorial receivership” for 5 years – a step which could be taken by a college’s administration to take management of a division it deems to be dysfunctional away from the college.
Within the memo, the college stated: “All of those steps have been underway and are supposed to additional Columbia’s fundamental mission: to supply a secure and thriving atmosphere for analysis and training whereas preserving our dedication to tutorial freedom and institutional integrity.”
Within the lead-up to Friday’s deadline to satisfy the federal government’s calls for, US media reported that Columbia’s trustees had been assembly behind closed doorways for a number of days, with some board members “deeply involved the college is buying and selling away its ethical authority and tutorial independence for federal funds”, whereas others stated that the college has restricted choices, in line with The Wall Avenue Journal.
Agreeing to the calls for doesn’t assure the return of federal funds. The Trump administration stated assembly its calls for was merely a “precondition for formal negotiations”.
NEW letter to Columbia from Trump admin lists calls for for “continued monetary relationship” with the US authorities”:
—Droop or expel college students for Hamilton Corridor protest
—“Time, place, and method guidelines”
—Masks ban
—Deal with “anti-Zionist” discrimination
—Reform admissions
—MORE pic.twitter.com/djCc31Vq2Q— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) March 14, 2025
How have activists and lecturers responded?
Critics say the federal government’s calls for go far past conventional compliance or conduct insurance policies and that they quantity to an try and stifle pro-Palestinian voices.
Sarah Leah Whitson, government director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), stated these circumstances quantity to political management over how universities operate, what they train and who’s allowed to talk.
She emphasised the hazard of such federal overreach, saying Columbia’s compliance with these calls for would “set a horrible precedent and eviscerate tutorial freedom all through the USA”.
“By no means earlier than in US historical past have we seen such an unbridled assault on American civil society, together with our constitutional freedoms and protections,” Whitson advised Al Jazeera.
In keeping with her, the worst factor universities can do now’s “keep quiet and assume they gained’t be subsequent”. Complying with the federal government’s calls for “will open the door for an identical actions in opposition to each different college within the nation”, she added.
She stated the way forward for tutorial discourse itself is now at stake.
“The central driving mission of those assaults is at the start to silence not simply speech however even research of Palestinian rights and historical past,” she stated. “It’s about creating an atmosphere the place universities can train solely content material {that a} explicit administration deems acceptable.”
Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a US coverage fellow at Al-Shabaka: The Palestine Coverage Community, known as the administration’s transfer “completely absurd” and added that the college is “successfully promoting away its legitimacy and independence as a tutorial establishment”.
“For an administration that’s supposedly so devoted to shrinking the affect of the federal authorities within the personal affairs of all the things from universities to girls’s our bodies, to now be interfering within the issues of college conduct is a transparent instance of authoritarian overreach,” Kenney-Shawa advised Al Jazeera.
He argued that the Trump administration and its pro-Israel supporters are “dropping the controversy about Israel” on faculty campuses and are resorting to forcing them to close down discussions totally.
“There isn’t any doubt that Trump is making use of a template that his administration will use in opposition to anybody who opposes its far-right agenda,” he stated. “However it’s important to focus on that it is a deliberate focusing on of those that advocate for Palestinian rights and criticise Israel.”
Professor Jonathan Zimmerman, a graduate of Columbia and now a historian of training on the College of Pennsylvania, advised Reuters it was “a tragic day for the college”. He stated: “Traditionally, there is no such thing as a precedent for this. The federal government is utilizing the cash as a cudgel to micromanage a college.”
Todd Wolfson, president of the American Affiliation of College Professors, stated the transfer was “arguably the best incursion into tutorial freedom, freedom of speech and institutional autonomy that we’ve seen because the McCarthy period. It units a horrible precedent.”
Will college students be deported?
The federal government is actually making efforts to do that however will face authorized challenges.
In latest weeks, stories of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brokers showing on campus have unsettled many and advocacy teams say the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil is a part of a broader sample to focus on protesters. Khalil, who’s a everlasting resident of the US and whose American spouse is eight months pregnant, was positioned in immigration detention, first in New York and, later, Louisiana. The Trump administration stated it plans to strip him of his inexperienced card.
Khalil has mounted a authorized problem, arguing that the trouble to deport him violates his rights to free speech and due course of, that are assured underneath the US Structure. This week, a federal courtroom rejected Trump’s try and have the case dismissed.
“These are severe allegations and arguments that, little question, warrant cautious evaluate by a courtroom of legislation; the basic constitutional precept that every one individuals in the USA are entitled to due means of legislation calls for no much less,” Decide Jesse Fruman wrote in his ruling.
Final week, a second Columbia College pupil protester, Leqaa Kordia, was arrested and accused of overstaying her F-1 pupil visa. She was detained by ICE brokers and detained for deportation. One other overseas pupil, Ranjani Srinivasan of India, had her pupil visa revoked for taking part “in actions supporting Hammas”, a misspelling of the Palestinian armed group Hamas.
Earlier this week, authorities brokers detained Badar Khan Suri, an Indian postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Middle for Muslim-Christian Understanding. He’s being held in Louisiana for deportation for “spreading Hamas propaganda and selling antisemitism” on social media, Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary on the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS), stated on Wednesday.
Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown who focuses on Palestinian-Israel affairs, stated the enforcement efforts seem like getting into “a distinct realm with this case”, extending past protest exercise.
“This individual appears to have been focused, not for his activism,” he stated, “however merely for being suspected of holding sure views.”
Authorized efforts to forestall universities from sharing details about college students with the federal government are underneath means.
Earlier this week, the US District Court docket for the Southern District of New York granted the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)’s request for a authorized injunction barring Columbia from sharing pupil data with federal companies with out due course of. The ruling comes amid mounting issues that universities could also be pressured into handing over delicate information on college students, notably these from Muslim or Arab backgrounds.
