Columbia U Agrees To Deal With Trump, Prays He Will Not Alter It Further
Surely this will be the last time the extortionist demands more!
In what it hopes will be the last time it has to knuckle under to the demands of the Trump administration, Columbia University on Wednesday agreed to pay $200 million to the government in a deal that should — if the administration abides by the agreement — end several bogus investigations into the university and free up some $400 million in research grants that the administration had frozen in its campaign of accusing Columbia of “antisemitism” for not eliminating students’ free speech rights.
Back in March, the administration held up the grants, claiming that Columbia had to stop being woke forever if it ever wanted to be left alone. The university — remember, it’s a private institution, and supposedly autonomous — had already acquiesced to several Trump demands, like allowing ICE agents on campus to arrest Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent US resident. Kahlil was subsequently jailed for months and faces deportation, even though he was never charged with a crime. But Marco Rubio decided that Khalil could be deported because his thoughts were dangerous to America. Khalil was eventually released in June, but still faces deportation proceedings.
Columbia in March agreed to a bunch of demands from the administration, including a ban on masks at protests, expanding the number of campus security guards and allowing them to arrest students, and making sure professors in the Middle East studies program wouldn’t say anything that might sound pro-Palestinian. Big surprise: The administration still didn’t release the embargoed research grants.
And now, having been successfully extorted once, Columbia thinks this time might stop the extortionist from asking for more!
In a statement, Columbia said the $200 million payment, over three years, will “resolve multiple federal agency investigations into alleged violations of federal anti-discrimination laws,” over bogus administration claims that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies “discriminate” against white people. A separate payment of $21 million will supposedly make similar investigations by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission go away.
In return, the statement says,
a vast majority of the federal grants which were terminated or paused in March 2025 will be reinstated, and Columbia’s access to billions of dollars in current and future grants will be restored.
That will include the resumption of most grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services, which the Trump administration cancelled illegally anyway, but thank you for restoring them, Sir, if you do. Changes to disciplinary policies and limits on students’ rights will remain in place, and the university will enshrine in its policy a definition of antisemitism that the administration demanded, in accordance with a Trump executive order.
Columbia’s acting President Claire Shipman — the last one resigned a week after the university capitulated the last time; Trump also forced a University of Virginia president to resign for “woke” — said that the settlement “safeguards our independence, a critical condition for academic excellence and scholarly exploration.” Why, Columbia doesn’t even have to admit to any wrongdoing, although it did agree to establish a “jointly selected independent monitor who will assess the implementation of the resolution” and make sure Columbia keeps its nose clean:
The University will provide regular reports to the monitor, documenting its adherence to the agreement and its continued compliance with applicable federal laws and regulations pertaining to admissions, hiring, and international students. These provisions reflect Columbia’s broader commitment to transparency, institutional accountability, and sustained progress on our commitments.
Nothing in there about the monitor having the ability to make sure the Trump administration keeps its end of the deal, because you don’t go putting conditions on a king. Trump said on his fake Twitter (archive link) that it was a great victory, and never mind that “no admission of wrongdoing” stuff, either. He crowed that Columbia had
agreed to pay a penalty of $200 Million Dollars to the United States Government for violating Federal Law, in addition to over $20 Million to their Jewish employees who were unlawfully targeted and harassed.
None of which Columbia actually said, but truth is what Mad King Donald declares it to be. He followed that by threatening that his war on higher education is far from over, although he appears to have left out some words:
Numerous other Higher Education Institutions that have hurt so many, and been so unfair and unjust, and have wrongly spent federal money, much of it from our government, are upcoming.
Those institutions sure are upcoming, you bet. Then the MAGA Chuds complained in the replies that no taxpayer funds should go to Columbia or any other university, because leftists hate America and medical research actually kills people with vaccines.
In case you were wondering whether this is a good deal or more appeasement of an autocrat, we’ll point out that Larry Freaking Summers considers it an “excellent template” for future agreements between the Trump administration and “other institutions including Harvard.”
Also too, here’s Education Secretary Linda McMahon, completely forgetting the official script about how Columbia supposedly had to be brought to heel to protect Jewish students:
McMahon called the agreement a “monumental victory for conservatives who wanted to do things on these elite campuses for a long time because we had such far left-leaning professors,” and also we need to get rid of all those foreign students who pay the full price of tuition and subsidize scholarships for Americans. (She did, at the very end of the clip, say that campuses are no places for “left-leaning riots and antisemitism,” so good save there, an A-1 response.)
In any event, now that Columbia has ceded the Sudetenland, we’re certain that Herr Trump will be satisfied and all will be well.
Now the only thing the university has to worry about is the lawsuit against it filed today by Columbia Sportswear, claiming that the university is infringing on the clothing company’s trademark by selling clothes with just the word “Columbia” on them, not “Columbia University,” thus violating a 2023 agreement between the two Columbias.
[NBC News / Columbia University / Fox 12 Oregon
Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please become a paid subscriber, or if you’d prefer to make a one-time donation, this button even works in the District of Columbia.
South Park has more balls than Columbia board will ever ever have. 1.5 billion on the line and they went full steam ahead. Columbia folded over what amount to a rounding error in its total endowment.
Fuck Columbia. Buncha ass kissers and reprobates.