4 federal businesses introduced Friday they’re instantly canceling $400 million of grants and contracts to Columbia College over what they described because the Ivy League establishment’s “continued inaction within the face of persistent harassment of Jewish college students.”
The cancellation of the grants and contracts comes simply 4 days after the Trump administration’s newly created Joint Activity Pressure to Fight Anti-Semitism introduced a probe into Columbia.
The 4 businesses — the U.S. Division of Justice, U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies, U.S. Division of Training and U.S. Normal Companies Administration — mentioned extra cancellations will comply with. The college has over $5 billion in federal grant commitments, in line with the announcement.
“Universities should adjust to all federal antidiscrimination legal guidelines if they’ll obtain federal funding,” U.S. Training Secretary Linda McMahon mentioned in a Friday assertion. “For too lengthy, Columbia has deserted that obligation to Jewish college students learning on its campus. At the moment, we show to Columbia and different universities that we are going to not tolerate their appalling inaction any longer.”
A Columbia spokesperson mentioned Friday that officers are reviewing the announcement and plan to work with the federal authorities to revive the funding.
“We take Columbia’s authorized obligations severely and perceive how severe this announcement is and are dedicated to combatting antisemitism and guaranteeing the security and wellbeing of our college students, college, and workers,” the spokesperson mentioned.
The 4 businesses threatened to take related actions towards different schools.
“The decisive motion by the DOJ, HHS, ED, and GSA to cancel Columbia’s grants and contracts serves as a discover to each college and college that receives federal {dollars} that this Administration will use all of the instruments at its disposal to guard Jewish college students and finish anti-Semitism on school campuses,” they mentioned in Friday’s announcement.
The antisemitism job power is already poised to evaluation a number of different high-profile schools. Final week, the Justice Division mentioned the group would go to 10 school campuses, together with Columbia, the place antisemitic incidents have been reported since October 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel.
The opposite campuses are George Washington College, Harvard College, Johns Hopkins College, New York College, Northwestern College, College of California, Los Angeles, College of California, Berkeley, College of Minnesota and College of Southern California.
Much more lately, the duty power on Wednesday introduced a probe into the College of California over allegations that it discriminated towards workers by not doing sufficient to forestall an antisemitic and hostile work surroundings.
Teams increase issues over free speech
Columbia has drawn Republican policymakers’ ire for months over the best way college directors have responded to pro-Palestinian protests on its campus. Protesters erected an encampment on the college’s garden in April, sparking related demonstrations nationwide that led to a whole bunch of pupil arrests.
This previous fall, many schools tightened their protest guidelines to discourage encampments. Since then, Columbia and different high-profile establishments largely haven’t seen the identical long-running encampments that rocked their campuses final spring, although protesters have held sit-ins and different demonstrations.
Columbia itself has made a number of coverage modifications — together with some which have attracted criticism from free speech students.
The college’s Workplace of Institutional Fairness — a newly created committee — has lately been bringing disciplinary instances towards college students who’ve criticized Israel, the Related Press reported earlier this week.
“Based mostly on how these instances have proceeded, the college now seems to be responding to governmental strain to suppress and chill protected speech,” Amy Greer, an legal professional advising the scholars underneath evaluation, advised AP.
In line with Columbia’s web site, the college has additionally employed extra public security officers, elevated campus patrols, restricted entry to the principle campus, and streamlined the method for submitting complaints about discrimination and harassment.
The canceled grants, in the meantime, comply with by way of on President Donald Trump’s guarantees to crack down on universities for the best way they’ve dealt with pupil protests over the Israel-Hamas warfare.
Trump supercharged these threats this week in a Reality Social put up, saying his administration would pull funding from “any Faculty, College, or College that enables unlawful protests.” He additionally threatened to deport or imprison college students concerned in demonstrations.
Free speech and civil liberties teams have slammed the put up.
In an open letter, the American Civil Liberties Union this week urged school leaders to not bow to strain from policymakers to curtail free speech at their campuses.
“Trump’s newest coercion marketing campaign, making an attempt to show college directors towards their very own college students and college, harkens again to the McCarthy period and is at odds with American constitutional values and the fundamental mission of universities,” Cecillia Wang, authorized director of the ACLU and the letter’s co-author, mentioned in an announcement.
The Basis for Particular person Rights and Expression additionally took challenge with Trump’s put up, arguing that the president couldn’t revoke federal funding over civil rights violations with out the federal government taking schools to federal court docket or holding administrative hearings.
“As FIRE is aware of too properly from our work defending pupil and college rights underneath the Obama and Biden administrations, threatening colleges with the lack of federal funding will lead to a crackdown on lawful speech,” the group mentioned in an online put up Tuesday. “Colleges will censor first and ask questions later.
