NEW YORK: Columbia University has agreed to a series of changes demanded by the Trump Administration as a precondition for restoring US$400 million in federal funding the government pulled this month amid allegations that the school tolerated antisemitism on campus.
The university released a memo outlining its agreement with President Donald Trump’s administration hours before an extended deadline set by the government was to expire.
Columbia acquiesced to most of the administration’s demands in a memo that laid out measures including banning face masks on campus, empowering security officers to remove or arrest individuals, and taking control of the department that offers courses on the Middle East from its faculty.
The Ivy League university’s response is being watched by other universities that the administration has sanctioned as it advances its policy objectives in areas ranging from campus protests to transgender sports and diversity initiatives.
The administration has warned at least 60 other universities of possible action over alleged failure to comply with federal civil rights laws related to antisemitism. It has also targeted at least three law firms that the president says helped his political opponents or helped prosecute him unfairly.
Among the most contentious of the nine demands, Columbia agreed to place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department under a new official, the memo said, taking control away from its faculty.
The university will appoint a new senior administrator to review curriculum and faculty to make sure they are balanced, to and provide fresh leadership at the department, which offers courses on Middle Eastern politics and related subjects.
The demand had raised alarm among professors at Columbia and elsewhere, who worried that permitting the federal government to dictate how a department is run would set a dangerous precedent.
