By JENNIFER PELTZ | Related Press
NEW YORK — The Trump administration stated Friday that it’s pulling $400 million from Columbia College, canceling grants and contracts due to what the federal government describes because the Ivy League faculty’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus.
The discover got here 5 days after federal companies introduced they have been contemplating orders to cease work on $51 million in contracts with the New York Metropolis college and reviewing its eligibility for over $5 billion in federal grants going ahead. And it got here after Columbia arrange a brand new disciplinary committee and ramped up its personal investigations into college students important of Israel, alarming free speech advocates.
However Columbia’s efforts evidently didn’t go far sufficient for the federal authorities.
REALTED: U.S. Division of Justice launches investigation into UC over ‘antisemitic hostile’ office
“Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding. For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus,” Training Secretary Linda McMahon stated in a press release Friday.
Columbia vowed to work with the federal government to attempt to get the cash again.
“We take Columbia’s legal obligations seriously and understand how serious this announcement is and are committed to combatting antisemitism and ensuring the safety and well-being of our students, faculty and staff,” the college stated in a press release.
It isn’t clear which analysis, tasks or actions shall be affected at Columbia, which operates a medical heart amongst many different features. The college stated it was reviewing the announcement. An inquiry was despatched to the federal Training Division, which issued Friday’s announcement together with the Well being and Justice departments and the Common Companies Administration.
Columbia has turn out to be the primary goal in President Donald Trump’s marketing campaign to chop federal cash to high schools accused of tolerating antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas warfare that started in October 2023.
The college was on the forefront of U.S. campus protests over the warfare final spring. Professional-Palestinian demonstrators arrange an encampment in April and impressed a wave of comparable protests. Protesters at Columbia went on to grab a campus constructing, leading to dozens of arrests when police cleared the constructing.
In current days, a a lot smaller contingent of demonstrators have staged transient occupations of buildings at Columbia-affiliated Barnard School to protest the expulsion of two college students accused of disrupting an Israeli historical past class. A number of college students have been arrested following an hourslong takeover of a constructing Wednesday.
Many individuals concerned within the protests stated there’s nothing antisemitic about criticizing Israel over its actions in Gaza or expressing solidarity with Palestinians.
Columbia has acknowledged issues about antisemitism: A college process pressure stated final summer season that Jews and Israelis on the faculty have been ostracized from pupil teams, humiliated in school rooms and subjected to verbal abuse amid the spring demonstrations.
Some college students, and an lawyer advising them, see its new disciplinary crackdown as an effort to mollify the federal government by suppressing pro-Palestinian speech.
Columbia was certainly one of 5 faculties that has come beneath new federal antisemitism investigations, and it’s certainly one of 10 being visited by a process pressure in response to allegations that the universities have failed to guard Jewish college students.
Others beneath investigation embrace the College of California, Berkeley; the College of Minnesota; Northwestern College; and Portland State College.
Initially Revealed: March 7, 2025 at 11:22 AM PST
