As Columbia surrendered to Trump’s demands to return funds in the amount of $ 400 million | News of education
The Columbia University agreed with a list of requests set by the United States Donald Trump in exchange for negotiations on re -establishing its funding in the amount of $ 400 million, which he abolished last month, citing “failure to protect Jewish students from anti -Semitic harassment.”
Among other concessions, the University agreed to ban face masks and strengthen 36 police officers in the campus with special powers for students’ arrest.
The new senior provist will also be installed for the supervision of the Department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies and the Palestine Studies Center.
So what happened and what did Columbia agree to do?
Why did the US government set up Columbia demands?
Last year the school was the main center during the wave of protests at the campus that swallowed the US as Israeli war against gauze escalated. April 30 occupied a group of students, staff and alumni Hamilton HallAcademic building at Campus in Columbia, before the New York police forcibly cleaned it at the request of the University leadership.
Trump’s administration took over hard access to those who participated in the demonstrations last year, promising in their first week to deport students involved. Earlier this month, he seized the funding of Columbia and published a list of requests to which the University must agree before the financing is returned.
This month Student Columbia Mahmoud Khalil29, who played a key role in organizing pro-Palestinian protests, was arrested from the university residence in New York Gornji Manhattan by the agents of immigration and customs implementation (ICE) who said he would take his green map-stal stay-attack of the State Department’s order.
“The privilege is to get a visa for life and study in the United States. When you advocate violence and terrorism, the privilege should be seized, and you should not be in this country,” said Homeland Security Security Security, Kristi Noem in a statement for arrest.
On March 10, US authorities sent a letter of 60 academic institutions, including Columbia, informing them that they were under investigation for “anti -Semitic harassment and discrimination” and warned them of potential actions to implement the law if not “protecting Jewish students”. The letter also threatened with a further reduction in financing. In response, Columbia said it was expelled, suspended or seized degrees students involved in the occupation of Hamilton Hall.
As a deadline for Columbia to fulfill the rest of the Government requests that approached Friday night, the University sent a new memorandum to the US administration, saying that it also agreed to them. Critics say the move could basically change academic freedom and the right to freedom of speech in the United States.
What did Columbia agree to do?
In his letter to Trump’s administration on Friday night, Columbia University listed new rules and rules that will now be applied on its campus and set aside plans for reform of its disciplinary processes.
Face masks will be forbidden, protesters will need to identify, Safety Officers with Special Students’ arrest powers will be appointed, and departments offered courses in the Middle East should be reviewed and supervised by a new senior leader.
Trump’s administration requested that the school set up a Ministry of Studies Close, South Asia and African Studies on the “Academic Reception” for five years – a step that can take a university administration to take control of the department, which she considers to be dysfunctional from the faculty.
In the memoranda, the University said: “All these steps are ongoing and are intended for further Colombian basic mission: to ensure a safe and successful environment for research and education with the preservation of our dedication to academic freedom and institutional integrity.”
In the lead to the deadline on Friday to meet the government’s requests, US media reported that Columbia guardians had met behind closed doors for several days, and some members of the Committee “deeply concerned, the University traded with their moral authority and academic independence for federal funds”, while others said the school had limited options, according to Wall Street Journal.
Agreeing to the requirements does not guarantee the return of federal funds. Trump’s administration said that fulfillment of his demands is only a “prerequisite for formal negotiations.”
The new letter of Columbia of the Trump administrator cites requests for “continuous financial relations” with the US Government “:
-Spendnd or exel students to protest Hamilton Hall
– “Rules of Time, Place and Mode”
– Some ban
–Address “anti-national” discrimination
“Receiving admission.”
-MORE pic.twitter.com/djcc31VQ2Q– Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) March 14, 2025
How did activists and academics answered?
Critics say that government demands go beyond traditional compliance policies or implementation and that they represent an attempt to suffocate the Pro-Palestinian voices.
Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director of Democracy for the Arab world now (dawn), said these conditions represent political control over the functioning of the University, which they teach and to whom it is allowed to speak.
She emphasized the danger of such federal exceeding, saying that the compliance of Columbia with these demands “would” set up a terrible precedent and eradicate academic freedom throughout the United States. “
“We have never seen such an unrestrained attack on American civil society in American history, including our constitutional freedom and protection,” Whitson told Al Jazeera.
According to her, the worst thing universities can do now is “to stay quiet and think they won’t be next.” In accordance with the Government’s requests “will open doors for identical actions against every other university in the country,” she added.
She said it was now the future of the academic discourse.
“The central driving mission of these attacks is primarily silenced not only by speech, but even the study of Palestinian rights and history,” she said. “It is about creating an environment in which universities can only teach the content that a particular administration considers acceptable.”
Tariq Kenney-Shawa, an associate of American politics in Al-Shabaki: Palestinian Policy Network, called the administration move “absurd” and added that the University “effectively sells its legitimacy and independence as an academic institution.”
“For an administration that is allegedly so dedicated to reducing the influence of the federal government in private affairs of everything, from the university to women’s bodies, to now interfere with university behavior issues, an example of authoritarian exceeding,” Kenney-Shaw told Al Jazeera.
He claimed that Trump’s administration and its pro-Israeli supporters “lose discussion of Israel” at the faculty campuses and resort to them forcing them to completely exclude discussions.
“There is no doubt that Trump is using a template that his administration will use against everyone who opposes his end right program,” he said. “But it is crucial to point out that this is a deliberate target of those who are committed to Palestinian rights and criticizing Israel.”
Professor Jonathan Zimmerman, graduate Columbia, and now he is a historian of education at Pennsylvania University, told Reuters that he is “a sad day for the University.” He said, “Historically, there is no precedent for that. The government uses money as Cudgel for the Micropanation of the University.”
Todd Wolfson, president of the American University Professor Association, said the move was “probably the biggest incursion to academic freedom, freedom of speech and institutional autonomy we saw from McCarthy era. It sets a terrible precedent.”
Will students be deported?
The government is sure to make efforts to do so, but will face legal challenges.
In recent weeks, reports on immigration agents and customs implementation (ICE) that appear in the campus have been messed up with many, and the advocacy groups have said that the arrest of Mahmoud Khalili has made part of a wider pattern to target protesters. Khalil, who is the USA’s permanent resident, whose US wife has been pregnant eight months, was housed in immigration custody, the first in New York and later Louisiana. Trump’s administration said he was planning to give up on his green card.
Khalil has set a legal challenge, claiming that the effort to deport him is violated by his right to freedom of speech and procedure, guaranteed by the US Constitution. This week, federal court rejected Trump’s attempt to reject the case.
“These are also serious allegations, which, without a doubt, require a careful re -examination of the court; the basic constitutional principle that not all persons in the United States are not entitled to the procedure of the law of the law,” Judge Jesse Fruman wrote in his judgment.
Last week was the second student protester of the University of Columbia, Leqaa Kordia arrested and accused of exceeding her student Visa F-1. It was closed by ice agents and detained for deportation. The other side of a student, India, wounded by India, invited her student visa for participating in the “activities supported by Hammas”, missed the Palestinian armed group Hamas.
Earlier this week, government agents arrested Badar Khan Suri, an Indian postdoctoral associate in Georgetown Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian understanding. In Louisiani, he is deported to the “expansion of Hamas propaganda and promoting anti -Semitism” on social media, said Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary at the Ministry of Internal Security (DHS) on Wednesday.
Khaled Elgindy, a guest scholar in Georgetown who focuses on Palestinian-Israeli affairs, said that the efforts to implement the implementation of the “different area with this case” seem, which extends beyond protest activities.
“It seems that this person is targeted, not because of his activism,” he said, “but simply on suspicion of retaining certain views.”
Legal efforts are underway to prevent universities to share information about students with the Government.
Earlier this week, the US District Court for Southern District of New York approved the US-Islamic Relations Council (CAIR) for a legal prohibition request that has banned Columbia to share data on students with federal agencies without the correct procedure. The verdict comes due to high concerns that universities can press to submit sensitive information about students, especially those from Muslim or Arabic background.
