Door #1: Lose at least $400 million in federal grants.
Door #2: Lose at least $221 million and your institutional autonomy.
Not an enviable choice for any university.
Columbia University just chose Door #2 (as at least one professor warned it would, a few months back), and with that choice comes the risks of appeasement, not to mention a fair amount of uncertainty.
The agreement Columbia has made with the Trump administration gives the government considerable oversight over the university, and furthermore, “Nothing in this Agreement prevents the United States (even during the period of the Agreement) from conducting subsequent compliance reviews, investigations, or litigation” (sec. 17).
The agreement requires the university to, among other things:
- “conduct a thorough review of the portfolio of programs in regional areas across the University, starting with the Middle East”
- “appoint new faculty members with joint positions in both the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and
the departments or fields of economics, political science, or SIPA [School of International and Public Affairs]” - “add an additional administrator… who will serve as a liaison to students concerning antisemitism issues, advise the University’s agreement Administrator and other University leaders and make recommendations to University leaders about ways to improve and to support Jewish students”
- “not maintain programs that promote unlawful efforts to achieve race-based outcomes, quotas, diversity targets, or similar efforts”
- “not use personal statements, diversity narratives, or any applicant reference to racial identity” in admissions
- “provide the Resolution Monitor and the United States with admissions data… showing both rejected and admitted students broken down by race, color, grade point average, and performance on standardized tests”
- “provide that all hiring and promotion practices for faculty and administrative roles are grounded solely in individual qualifications and academic and professional merit, and shall not use of race, color, sex, or national origin as a factor-implicit or explicit-in hiring decisions across all schools, departments, and programs”
- not “use personal statements, diversity narratives, or any applicant reference to racial identity” in hiring
- “undertake a comprehensive review of its international admissions processes and policies and will ensure that international student-applicants are asked questions designed to elicit their reasons for wishing to study in the United States.”
- “take steps to decrease financial dependence on international student enrollment”
- “comply with all requests for immigration information” regarding participants in its student exchange program
- “promptly provide the United States, upon request, with all disciplinary actions involving student visa-holders
resulting in expulsions or suspensions, and arrest records that Columbia is aware of for criminal activity, including trespass or other violation of law” - ban “demonstrations and other protest activities that occur inside academic buildings and places where academic activities take place”
- provide “the United States and its consultants and agents [with] access to all Columbia staff, employees, facilities, documents, and data related to the Agreement”
- “issue public semi-annual reports comprehensively documenting its progress and activities in implementing this Agreement”
- “bear all costs associated with implementing the terms of this Agreement”
You can read the whole agreement here, or below. Discussion welcome.
View archived embedded resource on Daily Nous
