NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration has delivered an extraordinary ultimatum to Columbia University, threatening to permanently end federal funding to the school unless it cedes control of an international studies department and implements sweeping changes to other campus policies.
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In a letter sent Thursday night, federal officials said the university must immediately place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under “academic receivership for a minimum of five years.”
It must also ban masks on campus that are meant to conceal the wearer’s identity “or intimidate others,” adopt a new definition of antisemitism and abolish its current process for administering discipline to students.
The letter described those changes and others as “preconditions” in order to begin ”formal negotiations regarding Columbia University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government.”
“We expect your immediate compliance with these critical next steps,” officials from the Department of Education, General Services Administration and Department of Health and Human Services wrote in the letter.
The letter marked a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s efforts to impose extensive changes on academic institutions. It comes as federal immigration officials have also targeted specific student protesters, including Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist who was arrested over the weekend for his role in Columbia University demonstrations against Israel.
In a notice to the student body Thursday, Columbia University officials said agents with the Department of Homeland Security searched two additional university residences with a warrant Thursday evening. No one was arrested or detained, according to the university’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, who said she was “heartbroken” by the news.
“Columbia continues to make every effort to ensure that our campus, students, faculty, and staff are safe,” Armstrong said in a statement. “Columbia is committed to upholding the law, and we expect city, state, and federal agencies to do the same.”
The university did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the Trump administration’s demands.
Of all very important things President Trump is doing and plan on getting done, thanking care of major American universities is most important, because they indoctrinate the next generation of our law makers and that’s very dangerous, I hope & pray he’s successful.
Wonder if the university ‘s president is also interested in following the law when it comes to protecting Jewish students.
She says she is “heartbroken” over the searches. What about being heartbroken for the Jewish students who were terrorized for months by these animals?
Columbia University has no interst in following the law, and has broadly supported the teaching of Islamofascism on its campus. The whole of the university should be shut down and its very expnsive reeaste should be taken under emminent domain and used for something useful… like a Sewer plant.
When will every acknowledge that this piece of DREK Kahlil is not Paestinian. He was born & raised in Syria by Syrian parents, the only connection to Pali he has is his Pali grandfather who immigrated to Syria before his miserable self was conceived. He is an avowed terrorist & deservised to be deported back to Damascus from whence he came.
I did my share of protesting on the Diag in Ann Arbor. Government needs to stay out of the hallowed spaces of Diags, Commons, Lawns, and Squares and especially classrooms
This is too much. This is infringing on civil rights. This time to our benefit, but it won’t be when the Democrats are in power and do the exact same thing for their purposes