On March 7, the Department of Education notified Columbia University that over $400 million in federal grants and contracts were cancelled. This action was taken by a joint Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, that includes representatives from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Justice, the General Services Administration (GSA), and the Department of Education, “in light of ongoing investigations for potential violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.” The amount at issue is estimated to total $400 million per year, about 8% of the $5 billion in federal grant commitments Columbia currently holds.
Background
Congress enacted Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which protects individuals and groups from discrimination on the basis of their race, color, and national origin in programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. In May 2023, the Department of Education interpreted the law to include discrimination based upon ethnic heritage including Islamophobic or Anti-Semitic bias.
In Spring 2024, pro-Palestine protesters staged an “encampment” tent city on the Columbia campus. The protest developed intoan occupation of Hamilton Hall, which led Columbia to call the police to remove the protesters. At this time, protesters blocked Jewish students who attempted to access the Columbia campus.
In wake of these protests, Speaker Mike Johnson and Congressional Republicans visited then-Columbia President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik calling for her resignation. Shafik later resigned.
On May 31, 2024, Columbia held a reunion panel discussion “Jewish Life on Campus: Past, Present and Future.” The Dean of Columbia College and three of his deputies were in attendance. However, the national media managed to capture photos of one of their cell phones, revealing text messages that “disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes.” Although the Dean was allowed to keep his job, the other three resigned.
On March 4, President Trump wrote on Truth Social,
“All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS!”
On Saturday, March 8, police arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia student activist, who allegedly led the Pro-Palestine campus protests. During the Spring 2024 Columbia encampment, Khalil was a negotiator on behalf of students and met frequently with Columbia administrators. The State Department revoked his student visa and green card. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Khalil is being detained in Louisiana and will be deported, despite his permanent resident status. A federal judge then enjoined his deportation.
Columbia’s Current Crisis
The current crisis started on the Barnard campus, which is across the street from Columbia. Historically, Barnard is a separate women-only college, but the two schools now share classes, and Columbia now admits its own female students. On January 21, the first day of the spring semester, students disrupted the first session of a course entitled “History of Modern Israel.” Two Barnard students were later expelled for the disruption. In opposition to these expulsions, Pro-Palestine protesters held building occupations demanding amnesty for the students.
“[A]s a matter of principle and policy, Barnard will always take decisive action to protect our community as a place where learning thrives, individuals feel safe, and higher education is celebrated,” Barnard President Laura Rosenbury wrote. “This means upholding the highest standards and acting when those standards are threatened.”
On Tuesday, March 4, Columbia Hillel sponsored a panel discussion moderated by Keren Yarhi-Milo, dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, and featuring former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. During the panel, over a hundred protesters gathered outside of the campus gates to protest the presence of Bennett.
The next day, protestors harassed Dean Yarhi-Milo as she walked across campus for ““host[ing] a war criminal last night”.
On Wednesday, March 5, students occupied the Milstein Center for Teaching and Learning at Barnard. Following a call that a bomb was in that building, the police cleared the premises and arrested nine students.
In response, the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism instructed the GSA to issue “stop work” orders under a number of Columbia’s federal contracts and grants.
In response to the current cut-off, Columbia University issued the following statement:
“We are reviewing the announcement from the federal agencies and pledge to work with the federal government to restore Columbia’s federal funding. We take Columbia’s legal obligations seriously and understand how serious this announcement is and are committed to combating antisemitism and ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our students, faculty, and staff.”
Columbia’s legal recourse in response to the cancellation is not clear, because the Antisemitism Task Force is made up of separate federal agencies each with its own appeals procedures. After exhausting administrative agency procedures, Columbia can sue in Federal District Court to enjoin the cancellation or recover its economic loss from the withdrawn contracts or grants.
Reportedly, $400 million represents about 8% of the total federal grants and contracts with Columbia. The government’s press release did not specify how the cancelled grants or contracts were selected or identified. Although pro-Palestine activism appears to be focused in the humanities, much of Columbia’s research grants are for medicine and STEM. The NSF reports on national research funding trends and tracks the Columbia Teachers College separately from Columbia University. The Presbyterian Hospital and the New York State Psychiatric Institute operate separately from the Columbia Medical School. So, the impact of canceling specific grants is unknown. Nor can anyone know the impact of this action on the award of additional future grants or contracts to Columbia.
The government’s press release raised the prospect of taking similar action at other universities. “Americans have watched in horror for more than a year now, as Jewish students have been assaulted and harassed on elite university campuses—repeatedly overrun by antisemitic students and agitators. Unlawful encampments and demonstrations have completely paralyzed day-to-day campus operations, depriving Jewish students of learning opportunities to which they are entitled,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement last week.
Leo Terrell, the head of the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism said in a Fox News interview, “”I am going to visit 13 schools with an army of lawyers, army of FBI agents, army of individuals from HHS, Education Department, with Linda McMahon and the Department of Justice telling these universities, clean up your act now, immediately. And if we have to get injunctive relief, court orders, we’re going to do it.”
On February 3, the Department of Education announced new antisemitism investigations into Columbia as well as Northwestern University, Portland State University, The University of California, Berkeley, and The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
Finally, on March 13, Columbia’s University Judicial Board announced the punishments it assessed for both the 2024 protests as well as recent events. Twenty-two students were expelled, suspended or had their degree revoked. The Columbia students expelled included the president of its graduate student union. Barnard reportedly expelled two students in February for participation in the disruption of the class History of Modern Israel, and reportedly expelled a third for participation in the occupation of Hamilton.
Other Dept. of Ed Investigations Under Biden
While Columbia was the most visible case of college antisemitism, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in the Department of Education started dozens of formal investigations into “National Origin Discrimination involving religion or common heritage.” The website lists 144 investigations into either anti-Arab or antisemitic episodes. The Biden Administration resolved some of these cases with a consent agreement where the university promised to do a better job curbing such actions, but most cases remained unresolved.
On March 7, the Department of Education issued a press release that it will work to resolve the backlog of antisemitism cases started under the Biden administration.
“After the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7, American institutions of higher education erupted with antisemitic harassment and violence that denied Jewish students their right to equal access to learning, school activities, and campus facilities. Many college and university presidents took little or no credible action, and the Biden Education Department’s OCR political leadership inexplicably accumulated a backlog of complaints,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor. “For the relatively few complaints actually resolved, the prior Administration’s Assistant Secretary signed off on toothless resolution agreements that provided little to no remedy for Jewish students to this day. The Trump Administration will not permit antisemitic protesters and antagonists to take over campus facilities and terrorize Jewish students and staff with impunity.”
However, on March 11, the Trump Administration announced deep staff cuts in the Department of Education, including its OCR.
Implications for Cornell
The Department of Education OCR has an antisemitism complaint pending against Cornell for the past year. However, there is no indication that Cornell will be one of the 13 schools to be targeted by the Antisemitism Task Force.
RELATED: The Moral Rot of Cornell
In the meantime, Cornell adopted the Interim Expressive Activity Policy that sets time, place and manner limits on protests. Cornell has also suspended five students who participated in the Spring 2024 encampment and the Fall 2024 ILR job fair disruption.
Traditionally, the Cornell community has resisted government efforts to regulate speech on campus based upon content. For example, during the McCarthy era, Cornell resisted efforts to “cancel” people based upon their alleged advocacy of Communism. However, federal action against Columbia appears to be carefully targeted to focus upon actions such as protesters blocking Jewish students from campus and harassment of administrators.
The federal sanctions against Columbia should raise a number of red flags for Cornell. Typically, Day Hall (in the form of the President’s Advisors on Diversity and Equity (PADE)) claims expertise on what learning environment the federal government expects from universities, perhaps to the point of advocating strong Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) measures. PADE’s advice was based on the assumption that the federal government supported DEI and that the front line staff in the Department of Education was also in favor of those causes. So, although Cornell’s federal contracts have a clause allowing cancellation if Cornell failed to comply with Title VI, very few thought that this would actually happen. Cornell failed to act against antisemitism because it believed that protecting free speech required great restraint even when the activists were hateful/.
In contrast with the Biden Administration, Trump has issued Executive Orders banning DEI and has cancelled Columbia’s federal contracts. The new administration is looking for concrete steps to prevent the intimidation of Jewish students, faculty and staff. Sweeping such bias incidents under the rug will no longer work.
Cornell must advocate for academic freedom and free expression consistently. However, Cornell loses credibility when it only raises concerns when the government is advancing political positions that PADE members personally oppose.
In the case of the Cornell Graduate Students United (CGSU-EU), the union has officially adopted pro-Palestine resolutions yet is negotiating with Cornell to protect graduate students from any economic consequences of these actions, including pay reductions in the event of federal contract cancellations. It also tried to negotiate a reversal of a suspension of graduate students imposed due to their pro-Palestine protests.
While Cornell should continue to use shared governance groups to regulate conduct, Cornell must remain mindful of current Federal policies. Cornell cannot blindly follow PADE’s distorted interpretation of the rapidly evolving environment.
