Columbia University may bow to Trumps demands over campus antisemitism as $400M federal funding deadline looms: report

Columbia University is reportedly considering capitulating to President Trump’s demands — including a mask ban and a major crackdown on campus anti-Israel protests — as a deadline looms to comply or risk losing some $400 million in federal funding.Claiming the Ivy League school has failed to follow anti-discrimination laws, the Trump administration announced plans earlier this month to claw back the grants and contracts — representing roughly 8% of its US-taxpayer funding — pending a review period, which ends on Thursday.Citing unnamed university officials, the Wall Street Journal described a schism developing among the school’s board of trustees, with some in favor of giving in to the demands and others voicing concern that acquiescing would mean Columbia was “trading away its moral authority and academic independence for federal funds.”In a March 19 letter, interim CU president Katrina Armstrong acknowledged that the past two years “have highlighted real cracks in our existing structures” — and pledged the school would “never compromise our values of pedagogical independence, our commitment to academic freedom, or our obligation to follow the law.”She highlighted efforts the university has taken in recent weeks — including announcing a new policy against doxxing and online harassment — but stopped short of offering a definitive statement about how the school would ultimately respond to the administration’s dictates.A Columbia spokesperson declined to comment on the matter beyond Armstrong’s letter.The administration is imposing nine specific demands as a “precondition for formal negotiations” regarding the elite school’s “continued financial relationship with the United States government,” which representatives of the General Services Administration, the Education Department and Health and Human Services detailed in a March 13 letter.Among them, Columbia is being instructed to “enforce existing disciplinary policies,�...