The Trump administration’s deadline to Columbia University to make changes is set for the end of the day Thursday.
If Columbia doesn’t make the changes requested by the Trump administration, $400 million in federal funding will be withheld.
Last week, Trump administration officials sent a letter to Columbia’s interim president Katrina Armstrong demanding that the university make changes with “immediate compliance” or the funding would be withheld. Demands range from inside the classroom and out, a mask ban and a third-party review of their Middle East, South Asian and African studies curriculum.
The Trump administration included in the letter that Columbia “failed to protect students and faculty from antisemitic violence and harassment,” and made clear that its involvement in university practices doesn’t end with compliance to the initial list of demands.
“We hope to open a conversation about immediate and long-term structural reforms,” Trump administration officials wrote.
Armstrong wrote a letter to the Columbia community Wednesday saying the university will “engage in constructive dialogue with our federal regulators,” but also added the university “will not waver from our principles and the values of academic freedom and free expression that have guided this institution for the last 270 years.”
“If we’re willing to treat academic instruction with creating a hostile environment, then I don’t know what comes next,” law professor Derek Black of the University of South Carolina said. “The federal government is prohibited, technically speaking, from interfering with the curriculum of K-12 and higher education. All they can do is can prohibit discrimination.”
Students sound off
Columbia students told CBS News New York they feel used.
“Trump is using us as a tool,” one student said.
“I do think he’s weaponizing antisemitism and wants to use it to consolidate more power, and go after people that he perceives as leftist, like this ‘woke’ culture that has taken over academia,” student Bettino Weisser said.
“The issue isn’t just one single university,” another student said. “Of course, we’re the epicenter of everything. But that grew into a global movement.”
