Columbia University to pay Trump admin $200m to settle dispute

The University of Columbia agreed to pay $ 200 million (147 million pounds Sterling) to the Trump administration concerning accusations that she had not protected her Jewish students.

The regulation, which will be paid to the federal government for three years, was announced on Wednesday in a statement by the university.

In exchange, the government has agreed to return some of the $ 400 million in federal subsidies which it frozen or terminated in March.

Columbia was the first school targeted by the administration for his alleged failures to slow anti-Semitism in the midst of demonstrations of the Israel-Gaza war last year on his New York campus. He had already accepted a set of White House requests in April.

The agreement with Columbia University is “a seismic change in our country’s fight” to hold responsible universities, said education secretary Linda McMahon.

Claire Shipman, interim president of Columbia, said in a press release: “This agreement marks an important before after a period of sustained federal control and institutional uncertainty.”

Columbia is part of a list of universities that have been continued by the Trump administration concerning demonstrations against the Israel war campaign in Gaza and other questions, including transgender athletes and diversity, equity and inclusion programs (DEI).

The Government has targeted more than 4,000 subsistence grants in more than 600 universities and colleges in the United States, totaling around 8 billion dollars, according to a Tracker from the Center for American Progress, a liberal reflection group.

A month after Trump was sworn in, his administration stripped Columbia $ 400 million in federal funding for anti -Semitism allegations.

The frozen funds were an immediate threat to university research, which led Ms. Shipman to say in June that things had reached a “shift”.

The Decision of the White House led Columbia to adopt the changes of the campus rule required by the administration, including the reorganization of his Middle East Study Department, and the hiring of a team of special officers authorized to remove the students from the campus and to make arrests.

Columbia said that as part of its monetary regulations, a large majority of canceled or interrupted subsidies would be restored.

The agreement codifies many changes that the college has already announced and understands that an independent instructor selected jointly will be appointed to assess the implementation of the agreement.

Some of these adjustments include the discipline of students who were part of the University campus campus as part of the Gaza demonstrations, forcing demonstrators to show an identity document of the campus, without authorizing masks opposite during the demonstrations, offering greater monitoring of student groups and an expansion of officers on the campus.

The university said that the regulation was not an admission of reprehensible acts.

“This agreement marks an important before after a period of supported federal control and institutional uncertainty,” said Shipman.

“The regulations have been carefully designed to protect the values that define us and allow our essential research partnership with the federal government to get back on the right track.”

She added that the terms of the agreement would protect the independence of the school.

Columbia’s desire to comply with the University in March was criticized for intense criticism of some who estimated that the Ivy League College had conceded its independence.

Harvard adopted the opposite approach.

Although the government has suspended billions of university funds and has moved to end its ability to register international students, Harvard continues the administration.

The hearings in the case between Harvard, the richest university in the country, and the White House, the largest branch of the country’s government, began on Monday.

The Trump administration noted that he hoped that schools are going more in the direction of Columbia.

In his statement, McMahon described the Columbia reforms “a roadmap for elite universities who wish to regain the confidence of the American public”.

“I believe they will reverse the higher education sector and change the campus culture course for the coming years,” she said.