Already reeling from multiple threats and attacks by the federal government, Columbia University was hit with a new blow on Thursday when the Trump administration sent it a letter detailing several conditions for continuing to receive federal funding, including the restoration of $4oo million that’s been canceled over charges of antisemitism.
The letter, addressed to interim University President Katrina Armstrong and Columbia Board of Trustees Co-Chairs David Greenwald and Claire Shipman
sets out nine steps the university must take “as a precondition for formal negotiations regarding Columbia University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government.” It gives the university until the close of business on Wednesday, March 20, 2025 to document its compliance with the demands.
The letter was sent by Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, Sean R. Keveney, acting general counsel for the Department of Health and Human Services, and Thomas E. Wheeler, acting general counsel for the Department of Education.
Included in the letter’s ultimatums are requirements that Columbia:
- abolish its University Judicial Board, centralize all disciplinary processes under the 0ffice of the president, and give the president the power to expel or suspend students;
- institute a ban against masks that are “intended to conceal identity or intimidate others, with exceptions for religious and health reasons;”
- place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under academic receivership for at least five years;
- grant “full law enforcement authority, including arrest and removal of agitators” to public safety officers;
- complete disciplinary proceedings for students involved in last year’s occupation of Hamilton Hall and other encampments, adding that “meaningful discipline means expulsion or multi-year suspension;”
- implement permanent time, place, and manner rules to prevent disruption of teaching, research, and campus life;
- deliver a plan to hold all student groups accountable through formal investigations, disciplinary proceedings, and expulsion as appropriate;
- adopt a definition of antisemitism that’s reflects President Trump’s Executive Order 13899’s reliance on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition;
- develop a plan to reform undergraduate admissions, international recruiting, and graduate admissions practices to conform with federal law and policy.
Columbia already appears to have complied with some of the conditions. For example, the University Judicial Board has issued expulsions, multi-year suspensions, and temporary degree revocations for an unspecified number of students who took part in the Hamilton occupation.
However, many of the demands represent a level of government intrusion into the operation of a university that’s never been attempted before. Ordering an institution how to organize its academic departments or indicating which departments it’s permitted to operate is a radical strike at the core of institutional independence and academic freedom. Dictating how a private university formulates and applies its criteria for admission is rife with legal problems and the risks of political interference.
Academics took immediate notice, sounding the alarm.
“It’s an escalation of a kind that is unheard of,” said Joan Scott, a historian and member of the academic freedom committee of the American Association of University Professors, according to the AP. “Even during the McCarthy period in the United States, this was not done.”
Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia, described the letter in a social media post as essentially saying, “We’ll destroy Columbia unless you destroy it first.”
“This is an assault on the very foundation of higher education,” said Alex Abdo, the Knight First Amendment Institute’s litigation director. “With only very narrow exceptions, the First Amendment gives private universities the right to shape their own expressive environments, including by deciding what speech and debate to allow on their campuses. Institutions of higher education must speak with one voice in condemning this attack on their missions and values.”
Columbia’s official response was an attempt at moderation, saying in a statement that it was reviewing the Trump administration’s letter, and adding, “We are committed at all times to advancing our mission, supporting our students, and addressing all forms of discrimination and hatred on our campus.”
The letter ramps up what many higher education officials see as a particularly ominous step by the Trump administration against the independence of American universities, even those like Columbia, that are private. The attitude was succinctly captured in a 2021 speech at the National Conservatism Conference by J.D. Vance entitled “The Universities are the Enemy.”
President Trump has made no secret of his disdain for universities and his desire to reclaim them from “wokeness,” punishing those that engage in what he’s called “left-wing indoctrination” along the way. Dismantling the Education Department, slashing billions in university research funding, and launching sweeping investigations into dozens of universities over perceived antisemitic discrimination or claims of impermissible race-based decisions are the most recent attempts to bring colleges to heel.
Administration officials insist that their actions are ultimately necessary to be sure universities are being responsible stewards of federal funds and protecting students from antisemitic harassment or other violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
However, targeting an elite university like Columbia is exactly the tactic that some conservatives have urged the administration to take. In a paper entitled “Comprehensive Guide to Overhauling Higher Education,” Max Eden, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, recommended that “to scare universities straight,” Education SecretaryLinda McMahon “should start by taking a prize scalp. She should simply destroy Columbia University.”
No wonder then that academics view these recent developments as an attempt by the Trump administration to execute a hostile takeover of higher education.
Lee Bollinger, the former long-time president of Columbia University told The Chronicle of Higher Education, “we’re in the midst of an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government,” adding that “the strategy is to create an illiberal democracy or an authoritarian democracy or a strongman democracy. That’s what we’re experiencing.”
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, criticized the letter as an “outrageous” example of “extreme federal overreach,” in Inside Higher Education.
“It’s perfectly reasonable for the federal government to hold all of those institutions accountable to civil rights laws, and we expect that,” Mitchell said. “But for the government to prescribe changes in academic structure, changes essentially in curriculum and to curtail research, that’s beyond the pale.”
College presidents face an increasingly urgent dilemma. Do they attempt to defend their institutions against escalating government intimidation and controls, or do they try to appease the administration through compliance and cooperation. Like it or not, the battle lines are being drawn, and the ultimate stakes — just how far into society can federal coercion extend — will not be limited to higher education.