Columbia University faces ultimatum from Trump administration to keep federal funding

Columbia University received a daunting laundry list of tasks Thursday from the Trump administration: Suspend or expel protesters. Enact a mask ban. Give university security “full law enforcement authority.”

The Ivy League institution must comply with these and other demands by March 20 or further endanger its “continued financial relationship with the United States government,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by multiple news sources. 

Last week, the Trump administration’s newly created Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism canceled $400 million of Columbia’s federal grants and contracts, alleging the university had failed to take action “in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” It also noted that Columbia has $5 billion in federal grant commitments at stake.

The stunning move came only four days after the task force opened an antisemitism investigation into the university.

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education also sent warnings to 60 colleges — including Columbia — that it could take punitive action if it determines they aren’t sufficiently protecting Jewish students from discrimination or harassment.

In Thursday’s letter, Trump administration officials said they expected Columbia’s “immediate compliance” after which they hope to “open a conversation about immediate and long-term structural reforms that will return Columbia to its original mission of innovative research and academic excellence.” 

The letter’s edicts are just the latest in a series of decisions made by the Trump administration and Columbia officials that have put the well-known New York institution into a tailspin.

Strong language, few details

Officials at the Education Department, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and U.S. General Services Administration sent Columbia Interim President Dr. Katrina Armstrong nine policy changes the Trump administration expects the university to make to retain federal funding.

The agencies — all of which are part of the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force — accused Columbia of failing “to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence and harassment,” along with other alleged violations of civil rights laws. 

But despite the high stakes, the task force’s demands are ambiguous. 

For example, its letter orders the university to deliver a plan on “comprehensive admissions reform.”

“The plan must include a strategy to reform undergraduate admissions, international recruiting, and graduate admissions practices to conform with federal law and policy,” it said.

The task force’s letter offers no further insight into what it expects Columbia to change or how it believes the university is out of line with federal standards.

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The letter goes far beyond what is appropriate for the government to mandate and will chill campus discourse.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

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The GSA directed an emailed request for comment to the Education Department. Neither the Education Department nor HHS responded to inquiries Friday.

The task force also ordered the university to ban masks that “are intended to conceal identity or intimidate others,” while offering exceptions for religious and health reasons. But it did not give criteria to determine why someone is wearing a mask.

“We are reviewing the letter from the Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and General Services Administration,” a spokesperson for Columbia said Friday. “We are committed at all times to advancing our mission, supporting our students, and addressing all forms of discrimination and hatred on our campus.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a civil rights watchdog, criticized the federal officials’ demands Friday. 

While the group has been critical of Columbia’s handling of student protesters, it said the letter does not follow “the normal procedure for revocation of federal financial assistance for violations of Title VI.” Title VI refers to the law barring discrimination on race, color and national origin at federally funded educational institutions. 

“While these include some policy steps that Columbia should already have taken, the letter goes far beyond what is appropriate for the government to mandate and will chill campus discourse,” FIRE said in a statement.

A change in due process

The Trump administration’s task force is demanding Columbia complete ongoing disciplinary proceedings against pro-Palestinian protesters who occupied campus buildings and organized encampments last year. The university must dole out meaningful discipline — meaning expulsions or multi-year suspensions — the letter said.

The same day the task force’s letter is dated, Columbia announced it had issued “multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions” related to the occupation of Hamilton Hall.

In April 2024, pro-Palestinian protesters occupied the university’s Hamilton Hall after then-President Minouche Shafik announced Columbia would not divest from companies with ties to Israel. 

Columbia brought New York City Police onto its private campus for the second time that month — and only the second time since 1968 — against the authority of the University Senate. Officers arrested more than 100 people. 

The disciplinary rulings from Columbia’s University Judicial Board, the panel that reviews misconduct cases and issues sanctions, came 11 months later. 

It is unclear if the UJB issued its rulings before or after Columbia received the task force’s letter. And a university spokesperson said in an email Friday that Columbia could not confirm who or how many protesters had been sanctioned due to student privacy laws.

Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of student organizations that helped organize the protests, said on social media Thursday that 22 students had been disciplined.

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Columbia University’s immediate submission and betrayal of the core mission of higher education reflects cowardice and capitulation to a government that seems intent on destroying US higher education.

Todd Wolfson

President of the American Association of University Professors

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And the United Auto Workers union announced that the university had expelled Grant Miner, president of UAW Local 2710, which represents student workers at Columbia.

The move, effectively firing Miner, came “one day before contract negotiations were set to open with the University,” the union said in a statement.

“It is no accident that this comes days after the federal government froze Columbia’s funding, and threatened to pull funding from 60 other universities across the country,” it said. “It is no accident that the University is targeting a union leader whose local went on strike in the last round of bargaining.”

Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, condemned Columbia’s decision against Miner as “a severe violation of student and worker rights aimed at silencing all voices of dissent who have spoken out for peace and against the war in Gaza.”

He also accused the university of being willing to “sacrifice its own students to the demands of an authoritarian government.”

“Columbia University’s immediate submission and betrayal of the core mission of higher education reflects cowardice and capitulation to a government that seems intent on destroying US higher education,” he said in a Friday statement.

The task force also told Columbia to dissolve UJB. The five-member board includes representatives from the faculty, student body and the university’s noninstructional employees such as librarians and administrative staff.

In lieu of this due process system, the letter instructed the institution to shift its disciplinary proceedings entirely under Armstong’s office.

Columbia must enact “primacy of the president in disciplinary matters,” giving the president’s office unilateral power to suspend and expel students and oversee the appeals process, the letter said.

Law enforcement on campus

The Trump administration also demanded that Columbia give its security force the power to arrest and remove “agitators who foster an unsafe or hostile work or study environment” or interfere with classroom instruction.

President Donald Trump has sought to crack down on campus demonstrations, threatening to pull federal funding from colleges that allow “illegal protests” and to arrest, deport and expel student demonstrators.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took the first step toward fulfilling that promise last week, again putting Columbia at the center of a firestorm.

On Saturday, ICE agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia student who completed his graduate studies in December, in his university housing.

Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident who holds a green card, served as a driving force behind the pro-Palestinian protests on Columbia’s campus and represented student activists in negotiations with the university’s administration.

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson alleged that he “led activities aligned to Hamas,” according to The Associated Press. 

Khalil’s arrest and continued detention by ICE immediately drew condemnation from free speech and civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, which joined his legal team this week.

His detainment, which is shaping up to be a landmark civil rights case, has not deterred the Trump administration.

An official at the U.S. Department of Justice, which is also on the antisemitism task force, said Friday that the agency is investigating if campus protesters broke federal anti-terrorism laws and whether Columbia’s handling of earlier incidents violated civil rights laws.

“This is long overdue,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a press conference.

And on Thursday, agents from Homeland Security searched two on-campus residences at Columbia, according to Armstrong.

“The University requires that law enforcement have a judicial warrant to enter non-public University areas, including residential University buildings,” she said in a statement. “Tonight, that threshold was met, and the University is obligated to comply with the law.”

No one was arrested or detained, and nothing was taken from the residents, Armstrong said. 

“I understand the immense stress our community is under,” Armstrong said. She closed the letter with counseling and well-being resources for students and, in a separate statement that day, reiterated Columbia’s commitment to its international community.

On Friday, over 100 demonstrators gathered outside of the campus’ gates to protest the sanctions against the Hamilton Hall occupiers and the university’s response to Khalil’s detainment, according to the Columbia Daily Spectator.