Trump admin gives Columbia 'next steps' for bringing school into compliance with policies against antisemitism on campus

Columbia University in the City of New York is on notice. The General Services Administration, along with the Department of Education and Health and Human Services, has sent a letter to the school's Interim President, Katrina Armstrong, to advise as to the "next steps" after the federal government terminated some $400 million in funding to the school.

"US taxpayers," the letter reads, "invest enormously in US colleges and universities, including Columbia University, and it is the responsibility of the federal government to ensure that all recipients are responsible stewards of federal funds. Columbia University, however, has fundamentally failed to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence and harassment in addition to other alleged violations of Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964." The letter then details the next steps the school can take to get back in the good graces of the federal government.

The school must, the letter states, "Enforce existing disciplinary policies," meaning that the school must expel or enact multi-year suspensions for those students who occupied Hamilton Hall in April 2024. They did not leave until forced to do so by the NYPD. The GSA requires that the school "abolish the University Judicial Board and centralize all disciplinary processes under the Office of the President. 

The school must, per the GSA, implement rules to prevent protests from disrupting teaching, research and campus life as well as implement a mask ban so that student protesters cannot be anonymous in their actions. Student groups, as well, must be held accountable. The protests over Gaza and Israel were organized by Columbia University Apartheid Divest. The letter states that student groups that violate University policy must be "held accountable through formal investigations, disciplinary proceedings, and expulsion as appropriate."

A definition of antisemitism must be formalized, per the Executive Order 13899, linking Anti-Zionism to antisemitism, and the school must "empower internal law enforcement" so that the school security officers can arrest and remove "agitators who foster an unsafe or hostile work or study environment, or otherwise interfere with classroom instruction or the functioning of the university."

Many faculty members were involved in the protests and praised the students for walking out of class and disrupting the campus. As such, the letter states that the Middle East, South Asian and African Studies department must be placed into Academic Receivership for no less than five years. "The University must provide a full plan, with date certain deliverables, by the March 20, 2025 deadline."

Finally, the letter states that the school must "deliver a plan for comprehensive admissions reform. This must "include a strategy to reform undergraduate admissions, internal recruiting, and graduate admissions practices to conform with federal law and policy."

After violent protests rocked the campus in April 2024, in which both students, faculty and outside agitators occupied the campus quad and Hamilton Hall to take up the side of Palestinian terror group Hamas after their pogrom against Israel on Oct. 7, the school was told to put a stop to the antisemitism on campus.

They undertook some investigations, suspended some students, got rid of their university president and installed an interim head, but they have not put an end to the protests or the antisemitism. Students at Barnard College, Columbia's sister school across the street, occupied a library and interrupted classes to distribute anti-Israel leaflets. 

One former graduate student, Mahmoud Khalil, who was in the US studying on a green card for one year, was arrested by DHS and his green card revoked over his participation in the student protests. He served as a spokesperson for the agitators and is a Syrian-born Palestinian man with Algerian citizenship.