The clock is ticking for Columbia University to respond to a series of demands from the Trump administration, which set a March 20 deadline for the school.
The administration indicated that implementation of a series of reforms, including a ban on masked protests and the enforcement of disciplinary policies, would serve as a jumping-off point for negotiations between the university and the administration about the restoration of $430 million in federal funds.
Columbia’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, issued a letter on Wednesday that gave no indication of whether the school would meet the administration’s requests. Addressed to “fellow members of the Columbia community,” the letter acknowledges the Trump administration’s “preconditions for ‘continued financial relationships with the United States government'” as well as internal questions about “how we will respond.”
Columbia, Armstrong wrote, is “committed to doing what’s right.” She provided no further detail beyond a pledge to “engage in constructive dialogue with our federal regulators,” but did tout “the creation of a new Office of Institutional Equity.”
The letter came shortly after the Wall Street Journal reported that Columbia “is getting close to yielding to President Trump’s demands in negotiations to restore $400 million in federal funding.” Sources familiar with the process, however, told the Washington Free Beacon that the parties are nowhere near a deal that would lead to the resumption of funding.
The Trump administration’s “preconditions,” laid out in a March 13 letter to Armstrong, include a mask ban, an implementation of permanent “time, place, and manner rules” governing protests, and an academic receivership for Columbia’s Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department. But agreeing to those demands would not guarantee the return of federal funds. Instead, the administration’s letter calls on Columbia to “ensure and document compliance” with the policies by Thursday to unlock negotiations on “long-term structural reforms.”
The demands have set Columbia’s left-wing journalism school on edge, pitting professors against each other, according to Breaker. They prompted internal meetings in which one professor, Nina Berman, accused her colleagues of “doxxing” and another, former journalism school dean Nick Lemann, physically collapsed and was rushed to the hospital.
Armstrong nonetheless closed her letter by touting “the progress on our campus.”
“We are working around the clock to secure the future of this extraordinary University,” she wrote. “As we move forward, we will always be guided by our principles of free expression, academic freedom and the pursuit of excellence, and we will never waver in our abiding commitment to Columbia’s mission of teaching, creating, and advancing knowledge.”