Columbia Agrees to $200 Million Fine to Settle White House Fight

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4 days ago

(Bloomberg) -- Columbia University reached a landmark deal with the Trump administration to restore federal funding for research, easing a crisis that has rattled the school's finances and upended its leadership.
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The Ivy League school will pay a $200 million penalty over three years to resolve multiple civil rights investigations, clearing the way for the reinstatement of the majority of more than $400 million in canceled grants and contracts, as well as access to billions of dollars in future grants.
Columbia will pay another $21 million to settle claims that Jewish faculty and staff faced unlawful workplace discrimination following the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, according to the agreement.
The school also made a series of commitments intended to increase transparency and compliance with federal civil rights law, and said it would strengthen its oversight of international students and bolster campus safety.
The requirements highlight a new era of federal scrutiny of higher education in the US, with little assurance that the pressure is over. While the deal gives Columbia immediate relief from the Trump administration's hardball tactics, it leaves open the possibility of renewed investigations or future funding freezes.
It also imposes years of oversight by a jointly approved resolution monitor, who will keep tabs on how the deal is being carried out and receive regular reports from the university. The terms amount to a sweeping set of commitments for a school that, in the text of the agreement, denied any wrongdoing — and a potential sign of a continuing role the Trump administration may play in shaping university policy.
'We've seen with this administration that no decision is permanent,' said Marcel Agueros, an astronomy professor at Columbia and the secretary of the university's chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
Center of Controversy
Columbia's deal will potentially act as a template for other colleges negotiating with the US government, including Harvard University, which has also been hit by a flurry of actions cutting off funding and targeting its ability to enroll foreign students.
Robert Kelchen, a professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, said the agreement 'increases the pressure on other universities' to settle.
President Donald Trump said Wednesday on social media that deals with other schools are 'upcoming.'
Columbia has been at the center of controversy since pro-Palestinian protests roiled its New York City campus over the war in Gaza following the Oct. 7 attack. Lawmakers hammered the school for fostering antisemitism on its campus, but after Trump was elected to a second term, criticisms broadened to include efforts to promote diversity and objections to the number of foreign students admitted to campus. Foreigners make up almost 40% of the New York school's student body and contribute a significant portion of its revenue.
In March, multiple federal agencies canceled more than 300 grants and contracts to researchers at Columbia as a result of its 'continued inaction' in the face of a surge in complaints of antisemitism from Jewish students. Columbia said in a statement Wednesday that under the deal, paused payments on active research will be reinstated, including grants from the National Institutes of Health and Department of Health and Human Services.
'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,' said Acting Columbia President Claire Shipman in a statement. 'Importantly, it safeguards our independence, a critical condition for academic excellence and scholarly exploration, work that is vital to the public interest.'
In a letter to students and staff on Wednesday night, Shipman highlighted the agreement's assurances that the government would have no authority to control faculty hiring, admissions decisions or permitted academic speech and classroom topics.
'The federal government will not dictate what we teach, who teaches, or which students we admit,' she wrote.
Still, Agueros said that he had 'very mixed feelings' about the settlement, but that chief among them was 'demoralization.'
'It's hard not to feel like we have just caved to the bullying of this administration, which has now seen that it can in fact successfully use these tools to make a private university follow its wishes,' Agueros said.
Broad Turmoil
The broad turmoil at Columbia since 2023 has contributed to the departures of president Minouche Shafik and interim leader Katrina Armstrong, who resigned in March after she appeared on a Zoom call with faculty to downplay reforms agreed with the White House. Armstrong had agreed to a partial ban on masks, increased policing on campus and oversight of Columbia's Middle East studies department.
Under the final agreement, the university will share more detailed information with federal agencies about hiring and admissions decisions, restructure how it oversees student protests, and tighten rules against disruptive or masked demonstrations. Face masks for the purpose of concealing one's identity while violating school policy are also banned. The deal also requires a review of Columbia's regional programs, beginning with those related to the Middle East.
Oversight of the agreement will be handled by resolution monitor Bart Schwartz, the founder of Guidepost Solutions, and an administrator.
Columbia will also strengthen its oversight of international students by assessing applicants' reasons for studying in the US, sharing data with the federal government, and reducing the school's financial dependence on foreign students.
A senior White House official described the $21 million payment for workplace discrimination claims as the largest public employment-discrimination settlement in nearly two decades, and the biggest ever tied to antisemitism or for workers of any religion.
Government Probe
Columbia agreed to the arrangement following a government probe that found the Ivy League school violated federal civil rights law by acting 'with deliberate indifference' toward the harassment of its Jewish students.
Shipman said Wednesday the school has not admitted wrongdoing and disagrees with the government's conclusion, but that it does not deny 'the very serious and painful challenges our institution has faced with antisemitism.'
To Brian Cohen, executive director at Columbia's Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life, the deal 'is an important recognition of what Jewish students and their families have expressed with increasing urgency: antisemitism on campus is real, and it has had a tangible impact on Jewish students' sense of safety and belonging and, in turn, their civil rights.'
He added that he's hopeful the deal 'marks the beginning of real, sustained change.'
In a post on X, Columbia University Apartheid Divest — a coalition of pro-Palestinian student groups behind the campus protests — denounced the school for 'selling your students out.'
Earlier this month, the school said it would adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism and pledged to appoint coordinators to respond to and report allegations of civil rights violations. The school also said it would partner with Jewish organizations for mandatory anti-discrimination training.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon described the deal as a 'roadmap for elite universities' and said in an interview with Fox Business on Thursday that she hoped a settlement with Harvard would likewise come 'outside of the courtroom.'
--With assistance from John Harney.
(Updates with Columbia's comment on civil rights violation, and comment from Education Secretary in last paragraph.)
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