NEW YORK (AP) — Columbia University agreed Friday to put its Middle East studies department under new supervision and overhaul its rules for protests and student discipline, acquiescing to an extraordinary ultimatum by the Trump administration to implement those and other changes or risk losing billions of dollars in federal funding.
As part of the sweeping reforms, the university will also adopt a new definition of antisemitism and expand “intellectual diversity” by staffing up its Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, according to a letter published Friday by the interim president, Katrina Armstrong.
The announcement drew immediate condemnation from some faculty and free speech groups, who accused the university of caving to President Donald Trump’s largely unprecedented intrusion upon the school’s academic freedom.
“Columbia’s capitulation endangers academic freedom and campus expression nationwide,” Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration pulled $400 million in research grants and other funding over the university’s handling of protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. As a precondition to restoring those funds — along with billions more in future grants — federal officials last week demanded the university immediately enact nine separate reforms to its academic and security policies.