Trump admin slashes another $30 MILLION in federal grants to Columbia University: report

On Friday, the Trump administration reportedly cut another $30 million in federal grants to Columbia University. This comes as the administration has cut millions of grants going to the school as it has reviewed all the federal funds going to Columbia.  

The Trump administration is reviewing Columbia’s $5 billion in federal funding. The new cuts follow the administration’s decision to cancel $400 million in grants and contracts to the university announced earlier this month. 

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the $30 million in grants came from the Department of Health and Human Services, which took action as a member of the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism. 

The outlet reported that one of the Columbia faculty members expected to be impacted by the cuts to the Ivy League school is Jeanine D’Armiento, the chairwoman of the University Senate Executive Committee. She reportedly pushed back against the school’s efforts to discipline students involved in riots and targeting Jewish students on campus. Grants supporting D’Armiento’s work reportedly account for approximately $2 million of the $30 million in new cuts. 

According to text messages obtained by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, D’Armiento told former Columbia president Minouche Shafik, and one of her advisers, that Shafik must engage in "dialogue" with the students, "including them in even the planning and discussions around the rules that will ultimately govern them." 

Board of Trustees vice chairwoman Wanda Holland-Greene wrote to co-chairwoman Claire Shipman, "She is clearly and closely connected to the students who are leading the protest. She says that we are fighting an ideological battle (anti-war) with logic (threats of discipline). What I heard her say is that we need to either speak to their idealism or prepare for their continued and coordinated escalation." 

During a May 3, 2024 University Senate meeting, D'Armiento cut the microphone of Columbia professor Carol Ewing Garber, as Garber said there were "groups who are supporting terrorists" on campus. D'Armiento claimed at the time, "There is danger in that statement. I am trying to take our community a level down and that word is not going to do it. Maybe I broke the rules … but I cannot allow that kind of thing in a time like this." 

On Thursday, the Trump administration sent Columbia a letter outlining steps that the university must take in order to enter into discussions with the White House about the restoration of the funds.