Columbia University will pay a $200 million fine to settle allegations from the Trump administration that it failed to do enough to stop the harassment of Jewish students, part of a sweeping deal reached on Wednesday to restore the university’s federal research funding, according to a statement from the university.
In exchange for the return of hundreds of millions in research grants, Columbia will also pledge to follow laws banning the consideration of race in admissions and hiring, and follow through on other commitments to reduce antisemitism and unrest on campus that it agreed to in March.
The deal, which settles more than a half-dozen open civil rights investigations into the university, will be overseen by an independent monitor agreed to by both sides who will report to the government on its progress every six months.
The deal is a significant milestone in the Trump administration’s quest to bring elite universities to heel. Columbia is the first university to reach a negotiated settlement over antisemitism claims. Harvard, which has sued the administration over funding cuts, is also negotiating for restoration of its federal money. The expectation is that the Columbia settlement will provide a template for future deals.
The federal government is agreeing to restore grants terminated by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services, and allow money to start flowing again to grants that had been frozen but were not canceled. Columbia can also compete on equal footing for new grants. The university will pay the $200 million in three installments over three years.
The loss of funding for scientific research had become an urgent matter for Columbia, imperiling decades of work and bringing Columbia to the “tipping point” of preserving its research excellence, the university said.
But making a deal with the White House brings its own risks for Columbia, challenging the limits of the private university’s independence and lending legitimacy to the Trump administration’s strategy of weaponizing research funding to accomplish an unrelated aim of reining in campus unrest.
The federal government announced on March 7 that it was canceling $400 million in grants and contracts to Columbia, an extraordinary step that made the university the first to be punished by the Trump administration with a freeze on research funding for allegedly failing to protect Jewish students from harassment. Other schools, including Harvard, Cornell and Northwestern, soon followed.
As weeks passed, it became evident that the damage to Columbia’s research enterprise went further than the original $400 million cut. The National Institutes of Health, the government’s key medical research funder, froze nearly all research funding flowing to Columbia, including for reimbursement of research grants that were still active.
Grant Watch, a project run by research scientists who compiled information on the grants pulled by the Trump administration, estimated that about $1.2 billion in unspent funding from the N.I.H. to Columbia had been terminated or frozen. Other federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation, also pulled grants. Columbia, in all, receives $1.3 billion in government grant revenue annually, the school said.
About a week after the administration pulled the $400 million, a Trump antisemitism task force sent Columbia a list of nine demands that the university had to satisfy to begin talks to get the money back. Columbia largely complied with the demands, many of which are reflected in Thursday’s agreement.
The deal, which will be in effect for three years, is between Columbia and several federal agencies, including the Justice and Education Departments. Like many legal settlements, it states that it is being entered into to avoid the burdens of litigation, not as an admission of wrongdoing.
It includes a statement affirming that Columbia will maintain its academic independence, stating that none of its provisions give the federal government “the authority to dictate faculty hiring, university hiring, admissions decisions or the content of academic speech.”
The terms of the agreement will be enforced by an independent monitor who will be appointed and paid for by Columbia, and provide regular compliance reports to the government.
Some of the terms simply codify what was pledged by Columbia in March. Those commitments include the appointment of a senior vice provost to oversee the Middle Eastern studies department and other departments; the maintenance of restrictions on protests; and the appointment of three dozen public safety officers with arrest powers.
There are also new commitments to existing laws and executive orders that align with the Trump administration’s priorities. Columbia will follow the law and not “maintain programs that promote unlawful efforts” on diversity, equity and inclusion. The university will abide by court rulings not to use affirmative action in admissions, and it will provide the independent monitor with admissions data to affirm that it is complying.
For international students, Columbia, like all schools, already had to inform the Department of Homeland Security when students were suspended or expelled. It will now also notify the department when they are arrested. The university will also follow laws on the transparency of foreign funding.
The deal is designed to bring to rest months of difficulty at Columbia, which chose to negotiate with the Trump administration rather than sue.
The university came under fire for capitulating. But over the months, as it became clear how much was at stake, some of the pushback on campus over the decision to negotiate lessened.
Claire Shipman, a former television journalist who led the negotiations for Columbia, stepped into the role of acting president in late March after serving as the co-chair of its board of trustees. She defended the university’s decision to deal with the White House rather than litigate, the road Harvard had taken.
“Following the law and attempting to resolve a complaint is not capitulation,” she wrote in June. “We decide who teaches at our institution, what they teach and which students we admit. Any agreement we might reach must align with those values.”