Columbia University announced a much-anticipated deal with the Trump administration to pay more than $220m, an agreement meant to bring a resolution to the threat of massive funding cuts to the school, but certain to rankle critics given the extraordinary concessions made by the Ivy League university.
Under the agreement, the school will pay a $200m settlement over three years to the federal government, the university said. It will also pay $21m to settle investigations brought by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
“This agreement marks an important step forward after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty,” acting university president Claire Shipman said.
The administration pulled the funding because of what it described as the university’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus during the Israel-Gaza war that began in October 2023.
Columbia first agreed to a series of demands laid out by the Republican administration, including overhauling the university’s student disciplinary process and adopting a new definition of antisemitism.
Wednesday’s agreement codifies those reforms, Shipman said.
The deal is the first between a university and a presidential administration that has described higher education institutions as “the enemy” and launched an unprecedented campaign to reshape them. The government has withheld billions in grants and contracts from schools in an effort to force university administrators to abide by a sweeping list of demands.
In exchange for Columbia’s concessions, the White House will reinstate $400m in federal funding it had stripped from the university earlier this year over allegations that it allowed antisemitism to fester on campus.
But while the Trump administration is likely to hail the agreement as a victory in its battle against universities, the deal fell short of some of the most restrictive measures the administration had sought, like a legally binding consent decree and an overhaul of Columbia’s governance structure.
Earlier this month, the university announced a host of new measures to further combat antisemitism on campus, including the adoption of the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition and additional antisemitism training. The measures add to several similar ones introduced as the university has come under mounting criticism over the last two years by students, alumni and lawmakers who accused it of failing to stop pro-Palestinian protests on campus that they deemed antisemitic.
The deal, which settles a bevy of open civil rights investigations into the university, will be overseen by an independent monitor agreed to by both sides and who will report to the government on its progress every six months.
