\n<\/p>\n
Columbia University has agreed to a $200\u00a0million settlement with the federal government after months of scrutiny over how it handled pro-Palestinian student protests and campus antisemitism.<\/p>\n
The long-rumored deal was announced by acting president Claire Shipman Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis agreement marks an important step forward after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty,\u201d Shipman said. \u201cThe 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. Importantly, it safeguards our independence, a critical condition for academic excellence and scholarly exploration, work that is vital to the public interest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Columbia will also pay another $21\u00a0million to settle investigations by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The university also agreed to codify reforms it announced in March that include overhauling disciplinary processes and appointing a new senior vice provost to oversee academic programs focused on the Middle East, among other changes.<\/p>\n
The university will pay out the settlement over three years.<\/p>\n
The settlement is intended to bring an end to months of scrutiny by the Trump administration and restore hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen federal research funding. Access to \u201cbillions of dollars in current and future grants\u201d will also be restored, according to the university statement.<\/p>\n
Board members emphasized the university\u2019s commitment to academic freedom in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s agreement with the federal government affirms Columbia\u2019s unyielding commitment to academic freedom, freedom of expression, and open inquiry. It confirms the changes already underway at Columbia to meaningfully address antisemitism on our campus and allows the University to continue to undertake its transformative research and scholarship,\u201d Columbia Board of Trustees co-chairs David Greenwald and Jeh Johnson said Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
News of the deal came one day after Columbia announced that it had disciplined numerous pro-Palestinian protesters for disruptive activities in spring 2024 and in May of this year. Though the university did not specify how many students were disciplined, the student activist group CU Apartheid Divest alleged that as many as 80 were suspended or expelled.<\/p>\n
Columbia\u2019s settlement prompted strong reactions from academics on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is heartbreaking to see Columbia capitulating to the Trump Administration’s attacks on higher education and democracy,\u201d Columbia professor Alex Hertel-Fernandez wrote in a\u00a0post on Bluesky. \u201cNot only does this legitimize the offensive against civil society and pressure other universities to fold, but it feels like madness to trust the Administration to keep a deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Columbia lecturer Scott Horton called the move \u201ca total betrayal\u201d by administrators in a\u00a0social media post\u00a0calling for the removal of Shipman and Greenwald over the settlement.<\/p>\n
The AAUP took aim at the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can never bend the knee enough to appease an authoritarian bully,\u201d the organization posted on Bluesky. \u201cThis is a devastating blow to academic freedom & freedom of speech at Columbia. Never in the history of this nation has there been an administration so intent on the utter destruction of higher education as we know it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump administration officials, however, celebrated the news.<\/p>\n
\u201cColumbia\u2019s reforms are a roadmap for elite universities that wish to regain the confidence of the American public by renewing their commitment to truth-seeking, merit, and civil debate. I believe they will ripple across the higher education sector and change the course of campus culture for years to come,\u201d Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement about the settlement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Columbia University has agreed to a $200\u00a0million settlement with the federal government after months of scrutiny over how it handled pro-Palestinian student protests and campus antisemitism. The long-rumored deal was announced by acting president Claire Shipman Wednesday night. \u201cThis agreement marks an important step forward after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty,\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[794,5298,2571,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-12034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-administration","9":"tag-columbia","10":"tag-settles","11":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}