New York City-based Columbia University has agreed to pay $221m to settle claims by US President Donald Trump’s administration that it failed to curb anti-Semitism on campus, in exchange for the reinstatement of billions of dollars in federal funding.
The deal, agreed on Wednesday, comes after sweeping university campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza during the spring and summer of 2024 and this year were criticised as veering into anti-Semitism.
In February, the government cut $400m in federal research funding for Columbia in a bid to force its administrators to respond to alleged harassment of Jewish students and faculty.
The unprecedented agreement marks a victory in Trump’s efforts to exert greater control over higher education, including campus activism, and could offer a framework for future deals with other universities.
What’s in the deal Trump has struck with Columbia?
Columbia has agreed to pay $200m to the government over three years, as well as making a separate $21m payment to settle claims by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
In exchange, the “vast majority” of the frozen $400m in federal funding will be reinstated, the university said. Columbia will also regain access to billions of dollars’ worth of current and future grants under the deal.
Columbia is required, within 30 days, to appoint an administrator who will report to the university president and will be responsible for overseeing the deal’s compliance. This includes verifying that the institution ends programmes that promote “unlawful efforts to achieve race-based outcomes, quotas [and] diversity targets”.
Additionally, Columbia must review its Middle East curriculum to make sure it is “comprehensive and balanced” and appoint new faculty staff to its Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies.
Columbia said the agreement establishes Bart Schwartz, of the compliance firm Guidepost Solutions, as an independent monitor who will report to the government on its progress every six months.
The university will be expected to compile a report for the monitor to ensure its programmes “do not promote unlawful DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] goals”.
Why have they come to this agreement?
Columbia said the agreement formalises already-announced reforms to address harassment of Jewish students and staff, including the hiring of additional public safety personnel, changes to disciplinary processes, and efforts to foster “an inclusive and respectful learning environment”.
The dispute between Columbia and the Trump administration began after Jewish students and faculty complained of harassment on campus by pro-Palestine demonstrators, while pro-Palestinian advocates accused critics of often wrongly conflating opposition to Israel with the hatred of Jews.
Columbia’s acting president, Claire Shipman, said the agreement marked “an important step forward after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty”.
“The settlement was carefully crafted to protect the values that define us and allow our essential research partnership with the federal government to get back on track. Importantly, it safeguards our independence, a critical condition for academic excellence and scholarly exploration, work that is vital to the public interest,” she added.
Trump hailed the settlement as “historic” in a post on his Truth Social platform. “Numerous other Higher Education Institutions that have hurt so many, and been so unfair and unjust, and have wrongly spent federal money, much of it from our government, are upcoming,” he wrote.
How have students and activists reacted?
Student activist group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) slammed the settlement as “a bribe”. “Imagine selling your students out just so you can pay Trump $221 million dollars and keep funding genocide,” the group wrote on X.
It added that Columbia’s disciplinary action against students, including suspensions and expulsions, this week was a punishment that “hugely” exceeded the precedent for non-Palestine-related demonstrations.
Non-governmental organisation Palestine Legal accused Columbia of “weaponising claims of antisemitism to punish those calling for freedom for Palestinians”.
“It is clear that Columbia’s desire to create a community ‘where all feel welcome’ doesn’t extend to students who call for an end to Israel’s genocide,” the group posted on X.
Hasan Piker, a left-wing activist, political commentator and a critic of Trump, said the US president was “underwater on everything and Columbia is still caving to Trump on everything”, adding “it seems like some of these institutions were looking for the pretext to go right”.
What steps has Columbia already taken to pacify the Trump administration?
In March, Columbia agreed to a list of demands laid down by Trump in return for negotiations to reinstate its $400m federal funding, which he had revoked a month before, citing “a failure to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment”.
Among other concessions, the university agreed to ban face mask coverings during protests, as well as to install 36 campus police officers with special powers to arrest students.
Earlier this month, Columbia adopted a controversial definition of anti-Semitism drafted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which has been criticised for what some say is conflating criticism of the state of Israel and Zionism with anti-Semitism.
Critics have warned that the definition could be used to stifle dissent and curb academic freedom. In a letter sent to the United Nations in 2023, 60 human and civil rights organisations said the definition should not be used.
“The IHRA definition has often been used to wrongly label criticism of Israel as antisemitic, and thus chill and sometimes suppress, non-violent protest, activism and speech critical of Israel and/or Zionism, including in the US and Europe,” they wrote.
On Tuesday, Columbia also announced it would suspend, expel or revoke degrees for nearly 80 students who participated in a Butler Library demonstration on its campus on May 7, 2025 and a “Revolt for Rafah” encampment on May 31, 2024 during the university’s annual alumni weekend.
During protests, students demanded that the university’s $14.8bn endowment stop investing in weapons makers and other companies that support Israel.
Protest organiser and former student Mahmoud Khalil, 29, was the first person to be detained during the Trump administration’s push to deport pro-Palestinian activists who are not US citizens.
The school also said it would no longer engage with pro-Palestinian group CUAD.
Which other universities has Trump set his sights on, and why?
The Trump administration is focusing attention on 10 universities that it deems noteworthy in its campaign to root out anti-Semitism. These are Columbia; George Washington University; Harvard; Johns Hopkins University; New York University; Northwestern; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Minnesota; and the University of Southern California.
Columbia University was the first college to see its funding slashed, but several Ivy League schools have been subjected to or threatened with funding cuts since Trump took office in January 2024.
More than $2bn in total was frozen for Cornell, Northwestern, Brown and Princeton universities.
In April, the administration also threatened to freeze $510m in grants to Brown University over alleged violations “relating to antisemitic harassment and discrimination”.
Harvard University was the first – and has so far been the only – major higher education institution to defy Trump’s demands and fight back in federal court.
This week, it argued in federal court that the Trump administration had illegally cut $2.6bn in funding in what were politically motivated attempts to reshape the institution.
Are deals with other universities expected as well?
Some universities are also believed to be in talks with the Trump administration, so more deals could be forthcoming.
In particular, US news outlets have reported that officials from the Trump administration and Harvard are continuing negotiations, despite the court case brought by Harvard.
Source: Aljazeera
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