The US Department of Education, General Services Administration, and the Department of Health and Human Services have announced a "comprehensive review" of Columbia University's federal contracts. This decision comes as part of an ongoing investigation into the university’s compliance with Title VI, a federal law prohibiting discrimination based on ethnicity or ancestry. The review follows a tumultuous period for Columbia, marked by the resignation of its president, Minouche Shafik, just four months after significant protests disrupted the campus.
US President Donald Trump has taken a firm stance, declaring that "all federal funding will STOP" for educational institutions permitting students to engage in what he terms "illegal" protests. However, he has yet to define what constitutes such activities. Notably, Trump's new Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, emphasized that the right to protest is enshrined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which broadly protects this freedom.
Massive student protests against Israel's military actions in Gaza have reverberated across US campuses, including Columbia University in New York and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). At Columbia, tensions escalated when the university authorized New York Police Department officers to intervene, resulting in the arrest of approximately 100 students occupying a campus building.
The education department now faces potential halts in work orders amounting to $51.4 million in contracts with Columbia University. Moreover, the department plans to scrutinize over $5 billion in grant commitments to the New York City-based institution. This heightened scrutiny coincides with a federal task force's initiative to visit ten prominent universities embroiled in anti-Semitic incidents.
In January, President Trump signed an executive order advocating for the deportation of foreign students involved in protests. A White House fact sheet on this order underscored efforts to "monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff," while also promoting free speech on college campuses. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has criticized Trump's announcement, arguing that his policies "cast an impermissible chill on student protests about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
