After letting its campus become a hotbed of riots and antisemitic attacks on students, faculty, and staff, Columbia officials have acquiesced to the Trump administration’s demand that it pay “the largest religious discrimination harassment settlement” ever.
[UPDATE] Columbia University has conceded to demands by the Trump administration to stop antisemitism on its campuses, agreeing to pay $221 million in the settlement for civil rights violations committed against Jewish faculty and students as well as discriminatory practices by the university.
The resolution features extensive provisions pertaining to mitigating campus unrest, eliminating discrimination in hiring and admissions practices, ensuring sex-segregated sports and housing for women, and monitoring foreign visa holders on campus.
As part of the settlement Columbia will pay the United States government $200 million and will pay $21 million to settle claims of employment discrimination against Jewish faculty.
In return the Trump administration will unfreeze federal funding and grant funding to Columbia.
In an interview with The Free Press, Andrea Lucas, acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which conducted the investigations, called Columbia’s payout “the largest religious discrimination harassment settlement that we’ve ever achieved in our 60-year history.”
She added that “This was a really grave civil-rights violation at a really large scale.”
In March, the Trump administration rescinded $400 million in grants and contracts to Columbia after the university continued to allow pro-Hamas protesters to engage in violent and disruptive antisemitic protests on campus and physically and verbally harass and assault Jewish students and faculty.
The entirety of Columbia’s $1.3 billion per year in federal funding would have been rescinded had it refused to reach an agreement.
Some of the items in the resolution include:
- Conduct a review of the school’s Center for Palestine Studies; the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies; Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies; the Middle East Institute; the Tel Aviv and Amman global hubs; the School of International and Public Affairs Middle East Policy major; and other university programs on the Middle East.
- Appoint a liaison to Jewish students for issues of antisemitism.
- Eliminate any efforts to use race-based hiring and admissions practices or diversity quotas.
- Ensure female students have access to sex-segregated housing and all-female sports, locker rooms, and showering facilities.
- Socialize all students to ensure that all students are committed to the principles of civil discourse, free inquiry, open debate, equality, and respect. Columbia will also decrease financial dependence on foreign student enrollment.
- Columbia will comply with requests for immigration information and will report to the US government any disciplinary actions or criminal activity involving visa-holders.
- Ban the use of face coverings intended to conceal the identity of protesters.
- Ban protests in academic buildings.
- Maintain a security force of at least 36 trained officers and coordinate with the New York Police Department.
As part of the agreement, Columbia has also disciplined 70 students for their involvement in on-campus riots, which included the takeover of Butler Library. Among the punishments given were expulsions and suspensions of one to three years.
Both the Trump administration and Columbia characterized the agreement as a win for their side.
Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement, “The Trump Administration’s deal with Columbia University is a seismic shift in our nation’s fight to hold institutions that accept American taxpayer dollars accountable for antisemitic discrimination and harassment.”
She continued, “Columbia’s 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.”
Acting Columbia President Claire Shipman said that the university did not admit to any wrongdoing, but Columbia is not denying “the very serious and painful challenges our institution has faced with antisemitism.”
Though Columbia has received criticism from the left and other universities for agreeing to the deal, Shipman says it saves Columbia’s federal funding and allows the university to return to its academic mission.
As campus unrest swept the nation following Hamas’s attacks on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, Columbia emerged as the epicenter of riots and campus antisemitism.
Following Columbia’s settlement with the Trump administration, it also reached a settlement with two maintenance workers who were physically assaulted and held hostage by rioters who took over Hamilton Hall on April 29, 2024.
The men were terrorized into the hours of April 30, as the rioters bombarded the men with antisemitic slogans expressing support for Hamas and accusing the men of being “Jew-lovers.” The maintenance workers later filed a complaint with the EEOC, claiming Columbia failed to take sufficient action against rioters.
ORIGINAL STORY
{Published on March 10, 2025} Over the last week, the Trump administration made it clear that the time for talk is over as it begins carrying out its promise to defund universities that don’t quell disruptive pro-terrorist and antisemitic campus activities and revoke green cards and visas held by foreign students leading such activities.
On Friday, the Department of Justice and other cabinet agencies rescinded $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University, while over the weekend, the State Department confirmed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities have arrested and begun deportation proceedings against Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University who has led “activities aligned with Hamas.”
In the 18 months since Hamas’s horrific October 7 attacks on Israeli civilians, America’s top colleges have been home to pro-Hamas riots and unfettered antisemitism. In most cases, the leaders of those universities have been unable or unwilling to put a stop to attacks on Jewish students and other pro-Hamas chaos, interrupting students’ ability to learn or even attend classes.
Last Tuesday, President Trump wrote a warning to colleges and protesters on Truth Social, saying, “All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
According to Axios, Secretary of State Marco Rubio also discussed plans to use artificial intelligence (AI) to help identify foreign students who show support for terrorist organizations. The department will then revoke the foreign students’ visas.
In a document released by the White House, Trump is quoted as saying, “To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you. I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”
It is very clear now the President was not bluffing.
In announcing its punitive measures against Columbia, the Trump administration noted that it is not only cutting $400 million in grant funding but also reviewing the school’s other $5 billion in federal grants and contracts as a result of its inability or refusal to stop pro-Hamas disruptions on its campus.
“On March 3, the Task Force notified the Acting President of Columbia University that it would conduct a comprehensive review of the university’s federal contracts and grants in light of ongoing investigations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act,” stated a press release from the DoED. “Chaos and anti-Semitic harassment have continued on and near campus in the days since. Columbia has not responded to the Task Force.”
The release refers to ongoing chaos on Columbia and Barnard College campuses in New York City. Barnard College, a private women’s university that is affiliated with Columbia and located across the street, has had repeated incidents related to pro-Hamas protesters.
In January on the first day of the semester, pro-Hamas activists demonstrated on the campuses as two activists interrupted a Columbia History of Modern Israel lecture to hand out flyers and pamphlets that featured antisemitic, violent, and pro-Hamas verbiage and images. One of the pamphlets included Hamas propaganda called “Our Narrative,” which comes from Hamas’s press group and justifies the October 7 attacks.
The two students were expelled, which then led to a sit-in and occupation at Barnard that turned violent and led to the hospitalization of a university employee. As school officials tried to engage in conversations with the protestors and offered mediation, the students booed, shouted them down, and refused to cooperate.
Photos of October 7 architect Yanyah Sinwar were placed all over campus and handed out, and students also made a doll of Barnard President Laura Rosenberry and hung it in effigy from the side of a building and issued a wanted poster for one of the deans.
Several Barnard and Columbia students have spoken out about their frustration with the universities’ coddling of pro-Hamas protesters, who for more than a year have disrupted classes and occupied buildings.
Columbia student Shoshana Aufzien stated,
“The university condemned the incident. I thought their words were a little lackluster. I’m not looking for lip service. I want action.
I literally just want to go to class. It’s midterm season right now. [My parents] are paying $95,000 a year for me to be educated and I can’t even access that education. It’s pathetic.
Protesters took a dean hostage. They refused to let her go to the bathroom. And they impeded students from accessing an education. That should be grounds for not just condemnation, but real change. And that’s what I want to see, and I haven’t seen it yet.”
It seems the Trump administration is ready to see real change as well. Newly confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon, in one of her first statements in office, said:
“Since October 7, Jewish students have faced relentless violence, intimidation, and anti-Semitic harassment on their campuses — only to be ignored by those who are supposed to protect them. Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding. For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus. Today, we demonstrate to Columbia and other universities that we will not tolerate their appalling inaction any longer.”
Meanwhile, in first announcing that it had revoked the first student visa of a foreign student for supporting Hamas, later confirmed to be Khalil, the State Department said that the student will soon be deported. In a post on X, Rubio stated:
“Those who support designated terrorist organizations, including Hamas, threaten our national security. The United States has zero tolerance for foreign visitors who support terrorists. Violators of U.S. law — including international students — face visa denial or revocation, and deportation.”
This is how you fix the violent, pro-terrorism plague on college campuses. It’s not just about antisemitism, however. It’s also about the anti-Americanism that has been fueled within our academic institutions by two ideologies: radical Marxism and Islamic jihadism.
For years, many colleges have become Marxist indoctrination facilities that brainwash students to hate their country, Christianity and Judaism, white people and Jews, capitalism, the nuclear family, and Western society.
That has mixed perfectly with an influx of students from Middle Eastern countries who share their hatred for Jews and Christians, America, and Western values. Currently, woke college students around the United States are being used by Iran, Hamas, and Islamic groups around the world to promote their propaganda and to target their enemies: Israel and the United States.
It is no surprise that Columbia has become the hotbed of the activism. Columbia is where German critical scholars founded the Frankfurt School to spread Marxism throughout the United States. The seeds of their efforts have germinated and grown into a university that can no longer see the difference between right and wrong.
With its sudden punitive actions, the new administration is sending a strong message: The cancer of antisemitism and anti-Americanism will not be tolerated any longer — and not a moment too soon.
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