The Trump administration cancels $ 400 million in grants and contracts with Columbia University – The Mercury News

By Jennifer Peltz | Associated Press

NEW YORK – Trump administration said on Friday that it was pulling $ 400 million from Columbia University, canceling subsidies and contracts due to what the government describes as the failure of the Ivy League school to fail anti -Semitism on campus.

The opinion came five days after federal agencies announced that they were considering the order to stop working on $ 51 million in contracts with the New York City University and to revise its eligibility for more than $ 5 billion in federal subsidies in the future. And he came after Columbia created a new disciplinary committee and increased his own investigations on critical students with regard to Israel, alarming the defenders of freedom of expression.

But Columbia’s efforts obviously did not go far enough for the federal government.

Realted: The American Ministry of Justice is launching an investigation into UC in the “hostile anti -Semitic” workplace

“Universities must comply with all the federal laws of anti -discrimination if they must receive federal funding. For too long, Columbia abandoned this obligation to Jewish students who study on his campus, “said Linda McMahon, secretary to education on Friday.

Columbia promised to work with the government to try to recover the money.

“We take seriously the legal obligations of Columbia and understand how serious this announcement is and we are committed to fighting anti-Semitism and ensuring the safety and well-being of our students, our teachers and our staff,” the university said in a statement.

It is not clear what research, projects or activities will be assigned to Columbia, which operates a medical center among many other functions. The university said it was examining the announcement. An investigation was sent to the Federal Department of Education, which published the announcement on Friday as well as the health and justice services and the General Services Administration.

Columbia became the first target of President Donald Trump’s campaign aimed at reducing federal money to colleges accused of tolerating anti-Semitism in the midst of the War of Israel-Hamas which began in October 2023.

The university was at the forefront of American campus protests against war last spring. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up a camp in April and inspired a wave of similar demonstrations. Columbia demonstrators followed a campus building, which resulted in dozens of arrests when the police released the building.

In recent days, a much smaller contingent of demonstrators has organized brief buildings of buildings at the Barnard College affiliated in Columbia to protest against the expulsion of two students accused of having disrupted an Israeli history class. Several students were arrested following a takeover of a building of a building on Wednesday.

Many people involved in the demonstrations said that there was nothing anti -Semitic to criticize Israel on its actions in Gaza or to express its solidarity with the Palestinians.

Columbia recognized the concerns about anti -Semitism: a university working group said last summer that the Jews and the Israelis of the school were ostracized in groups of students, humiliated in classrooms and subject to verbal abuses in the midst of spring demonstrations.

Some students and a lawyer advise them, see their new disciplinary repression as an effort to appease the government by suppressing the pro-Palestinian discourse.

Columbia was one of the five colleges that has been the subject of new federal surveys on anti -Semitism, and this is one of the 10 people visited by a working group in response to the allegations that colleges did not protected Jewish students.

Among the other survey, include the University of California in Berkeley; the University of Minnesota; Northwestern University; and Portland State University.

Originally published: March 7, 2025 at 11:22 a.m. PST