Columbia University deserved it
But there is nothing 'extraordinary' about it.
The government funds were ordered to be pulled after an investigation by the Department of Justice's newly-created Task Force to Combat Antisemitism determined that Columbia has not sufficiently protected its Jewish students from discrimination. Under applicable US federal law, namely Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, universities that do not provide adequate civil rights protections are at risk of losing federal funds, theoretically in their entirety.
Finding that Columbia inadequately protected Jewish students will hardly have taken much detective work. Since Hamas's Oct 7 2023, attack on Israel, a number of elite US universities, including Columbia, witnessed openly anti-Semitic protests that called for the destruction of Israel, the death of Jews, praise for Hamas and terrorism in general, and numerous incidents of verbal and physical harassment that would easily fall under any legal or administrative understanding of discriminatory conduct. The protests also included a range of related crimes that American institutions have the power to prevent and police themselves, as well as the ability to call in local, state, and federal authorities.
When invited to a Congressional hearing on the issue of campus anti-Semitism held in early December 2023, Columbia's then-president Minouche Shafik gave it a miss, pleading a scheduling conflict. Three presidents of other elite institutions who did testify beclowned themselves with testimony in which they failed to state unequivocally that their institutions' codes of conduct prohibited calling for the genocide of Jews.
Just four days later, University of Pennsylvania president M Elizabeth Magill was out the door. Within a month, Harvard's president Claudine Gay followed her in disgrace, having reportedly lost her institution as much as $1 billion in charitable donations; she also faced large-scale accusations of plagiarism in her academic work.
Columbia appeared to learn no lessons, even as prominent alumni withdrew support, with one donor, the billionaire investor Leon Cooperman, pronouncing on national television that students 'have s— for brains'. In the spring of 2024, renewed protests rocked Columbia's campus, again including assaults and a violent building occupation by protesters.
Columbia appeared to implement minimal disciplinary measures, suspending a handful of student protesters and investigating several faculty members for misconduct. Several deans who were revealed to have engaged in apparently anti-Semitic banter over text message were removed from their posts.
But seemingly unable to guarantee campus security, Columbia moved many of its spring 2024 semester classes online and cancelled last year's main commencement ceremony. Shafik finally appeared before Congress to answer for the climate at her institution but was judged to perform poorly. Last August she resigned, after just 13 months on the job, and became an international development adviser to British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who, perhaps fittingly, had come into office a few weeks earlier touting a pronounced anti-Israel line.
Shafik's temporary replacement Katrina Armstrong has fared little better. Faced with renewed protests in recent weeks, she appears not to have acted any more decisively than the unfortunate Shafik. That was until Columbia received a letter from the Justice Department, now led by Donald Trump's Attorney General Pam Bondi, announcing a civil rights investigation to determine whether Columbia was in violation of the law, a measure Joe Biden's administration appears never to have considered. Only at that point, it seems, did Armstrong find the courage to begin expelling disruptive students, the first time Columbia had expelled students since 1968, at the height of the violent anti-Vietnam War protests.
But it was too little, too late. The Trump administration announced the dramatic funding cut, with newly confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon issuing a factual statement that 'universities must comply with all federal anti-discrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding'.
The Trump administration also arrested and initiated legal proceedings to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian national who, as a Columbia student, led on-campus pro-Palestinian protests. His was the 'first arrest of many to come', Trump announced on his Truth Social platform. Nevertheless, his press secretary Karoline Leavitt alleged at a press briefing that Columbia was refusing to cooperate with other Department of Homeland Security inquiries into its student body and stated that the president is 'not going to tolerate that'.
As for imperilled university funds, the Trump administration literally doubled down on Tuesday, withdrawing $800 million from Johns Hopkins University. This decision appears connected to the elimination of funds provided by the recently gutted United States Agency for International Development (USAid), but it followed an announcement that 60 American institutions of higher education, including Johns Hopkins, are now under Justice Department investigation for failing to prevent campus discrimination.
Armstrong, Columbia's interim president, suggested in a public message that she has finally seen the light about what she now prudently calls the administration's 'legitimate concerns'. Whether she and her fellow university presidents can grovel convincingly enough to get their funds back, however, is anyone's guess. But in a country where only 36 per cent of the public has a great deal of confidence in higher education, their battle will be an uphill one.
Paul du Quenoy is President of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute
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