Elite universities cannot treat antisemitic harassment and campus chaos as the price of doing business. President Trump’s pressure campaign is forcing a reckoning: taxpayer-supported institutions must protect students, enforce lawful order, and distinguish protected speech from intimidation and violence.
The Point
Taxpayer support is not a blank check. Universities must protect Jewish students from unlawful harassment, intimidation, and disruption. Government must also distinguish illegal conduct from protected political speech. Equal enforcement – not censorship, and not surrender – is the standard.
Update (May 31, 2026): The confrontation has moved beyond the initial March 2025 funding cuts. In July 2025, Columbia University reached a federal resolution agreement: The university agreed to pay $200 million to the federal government and $21 million to settle Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigations, while the vast majority of terminated or paused grants were reinstated and access to future research funding was restored. Columbia did not admit wrongdoing. Mahmoud Khalil’s deportation fight also remains unresolved: A federal appeals court has temporarily placed its ruling on hold while he seeks Supreme Court review. The Trump administration’s broader campaign continues as well: The Justice Department sued Harvard University in March and the University of California in May, alleging failures to protect Jewish and Israeli students from antisemitic harassment.
Original: Taxpayer support is not a blank check. Universities must protect Jewish students from unlawful harassment, intimidation, and disruption. Government must also distinguish illegal conduct from protected political speech. Equal enforcement — not censorship, and not surrender — is the standard.
In March 2025, the Trump administration made clear that the time for talk was over as it began pressuring universities that failed to confront disruptive antisemitic conduct and pursuing immigration consequences in cases involving certain noncitizens.
On March 7, the Department of Justice and partner agencies canceled approximately $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University, citing persistent harassment of Jewish students. Around the same time, immigration authorities detained Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia graduate student and lawful permanent resident, beginning a legal battle over the administration’s effort to deport him.
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.”
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 Yahya Sinwar were placed all over campus and handed out, and students also made a doll of Barnard President Laura Rosenbury 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. 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.”
Ordered Liberty, Not Censorship
The administration’s actions put elite universities on notice: Federal support is not an entitlement for institutions that fail to protect students or enforce lawful order. When antisemitic harassment, intimidation, or disruption is excused as activism, universities abandon their duty to educate and protect their students.
Romans 13 teaches that civil authority is charged with restraining wrongdoing. That duty is not a license for censorship; it is a mandate for equal enforcement under the law.
Universities should safeguard lawful protest and vigorous debate while acting decisively against threats, harassment, violence, trespass, and disruption. The answer is neither passivity nor censorship. It is ordered liberty. The Trump administration is right to insist that taxpayer-supported institutions meet that standard.
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