Jewish advocacy group calls on DOJ to defund Columbia, Barnard as anti-Israel protests resume for second day

President Trump’s administration should yank federal funding from Columbia University and Barnard College, advocates urged Thursday — arguing the elite Manhattan schools have not done enough to protect Jewish students, including during disruptive and at times violent campus protests.In addition to pulling funding, advocacy group StopAntisemitism called for the Justice Department to take action to curtail future campus disruptions, including by launching an investigation into the Students for Justice in Palestine organization.“The university administration has completely failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students, faculty, and staff, allowing a hostile and dangerous environment to fester unchecked,” StopAntisemitism’s executive director, Liora Rez, wrote in a letter to Leo Terrell, who is helming the Trump admin’s new task force to combat antisemitism.Columbia received some $1.3 billion in federal grants in 2024 alone, accounting for around 20% of its operating budget, according to the Columbia Daily Spectator, the Ivy League university’s student newspaper.The letter also calls on the DOJ to revoke visas and deport foreign students engaged in violent protests on campus, and hold school administrators accountable for allowing the “lawlessness” to continue.The plea followed an SJP-organized protest at Barnard’s Milbank Hall Wednesday, in which a school security guard was assaulted, officials said.An unruly mob of anti-Israel protesters took over the college building hall to protest the expulsion of a pair of masked students who stormed a Columbia class on modern Israel in January and tossed around antisemitic leaflets.By Thursday afternoon, the protests reignited, with around 100 anti-Israel demonstrators gathering in front of the entrance to Barnard, once again clad in masks and keffiyehs and chanting “free Palestine” and “one solution, intifada revolution” while calling out the $66,000-per-year private college with slogans like “your ...