Columbia able to work with Trump to bolster disciplinary course of that was ‘solely on paper’

Columbia College seems to be prepared and prepared to work with President Donald Trump and his administration. The college’s interim president. Katrina Armstrong, issued a letter on Friday in response to the Trump administration slicing $400 million in federal grants to the college. Federal businesses that severed their ties with Columbia mentioned it was due to the Ivy League establishment’s “continued inaction within the face of persistent harassment of Jewish college students.”

Armstrong says in her letter that the funding cuts will “instantly impression analysis and different vital capabilities,” however she doesn’t dismiss the Trump administration’s claims. Fairly, Armstrong writes that the college takes the cuts “very severely” and is ready to work with the federal government on its “official issues.”

Scholar protesters march round their encampment on the Columbia College campus, Monday, April 29, 2024, in New York.  (AP Photograph/Stefan Jeremiah)

TRUMP CUTS MORE THAN $400 MILLION IN GRANTS TO COLUMBIA OVER ANTISEMITISM CONCERNS, POTENTIALLY MORE TO COME

“Once I accepted the function of Interim President in August 2024, I knew Columbia wanted a reset from the earlier 12 months and the chaos of encampments and protests on our campus,” Armstrong wrote. “The College additionally wanted to acknowledge and restore the harm to our Jewish college students, who had been focused, harassed, and made to really feel unsafe or unwelcome on our campus final spring.”

In a telling portion of her letter, Armstrong admits that Columbia College’s disciplinary course of “beforehand solely existed on paper,” seemingly taking a jab at former Columbia President Minouche Shafik.

In August 2024, Shafik resigned after the college was rocked by months of anti-Israel protests, together with a big encampment on the middle of its campus and the takeover of a constructing.

A professional-Palestine rally is held on the steps of Lowe Library on the grounds of Columbia College on April 22, 2024, in New York Metropolis. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Photographs)

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On Friday, the Trump administration introduced it might rescind roughly $400 million in federal grants to Columbia over the college’s dealing with of antisemitism.

The White Home later posted a tweet with the phrase “Shalom Columbia,” probably a nod to a message Trump despatched to Hamas earlier within the week.

The fund slashing got here just some days after the Departments of Well being and Human Providers (HHS), Justice (DOJ), Training (DoE) and the U.S. Normal Providers Administration (GSA) introduced the initiation of a “complete evaluate” of federal grants to Columbia. The businesses cited the not too long ago shaped Joint Job Power to Fight Antisemitism’s investigation into whether or not Columbia violated the Civil Rights Act with its inaction on the harassment of Jewish college students. 

“For too lengthy, Columbia has deserted that obligation to Jewish college students finding out on its campus,” Secretary of Training Linda McMahon wrote in a press release. “Immediately, we display to Columbia and different universities that we’ll not tolerate their appalling inaction any longer.”

Members of an anti-Israel mob broke into Hamilton Corridor at Columbia College on April 30, 2024.  (Alex Kent/Getty Photographs)

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Columbia College has skilled renewed anti-Israel exercise in the previous few weeks. In January, college students barged into an Israeli historical past class and distributed flyers with antisemitic and hateful rhetoric.

The scholars had been later expelled, sparking protests at Columbia’s sister faculty, Barnard. A number of protesters had been arrested after they took over the Barnard School library in protest of the expulsions.