President Donald Trump‘s threat to defund universities and colleges that do not take concrete measures to fight antisemitism has already had the desired effect. In recent weeks, Columbia University, Barnard College, and Brown University have agreed to settle cases related to Title VI violations of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, with additional settlements said to be in the pipeline.

Title VI prohibits discrimination based on race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance. In 2019, Trump, during his first White House term, signed an executive order that added antisemitic acts to the list of Title VI violations.

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Six years later, Education Secretary Linda McMahon touted the second Trump administration’s legal approach as a success.

“Restoring our nation’s higher education institutions to places dedicated to truth-seeking, academic merit, and civil debate — where all students can learn free from discrimination and harassment — will be a lasting legacy of the Trump administration, one that will benefit students and American society for generations to come,” McMahon said in response to the July 30 Brown settlement.

A week earlier, Columbia’s jaw-dropping $221 million settlement sent a chill down the spines of college administrators all around the country. The agreement, announced on July 23, allows the university, which has become synonymous with pro-Palestinian activism and a hostile environment for Jewish students and faculty, to access hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen federal grants and other federal funding.

In return, Columbia agreed to pay a $200 million fine to the federal government and $21 million to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which will be distributed to Jewish students. The university also reportedly suspended or expelled nearly 80 students and vowed to proactively fight antisemitism through several concrete measures.

Although the settlement does not include an admission of wrongdoing, Columbia acting President Claire Shipman referred to the “difficult issues regarding discrimination and harassment we’ve seen on our campuses” in an email she wrote to the Columbia community.

“A significant part of our community has been deeply affected in negative ways,” she added.

“We have seen not only $400 million in federal grants frozen, but also the majority of our $1.3 billion a year in federal funding placed on hold,” Shipman wrote, explaining the university’s decision to settle. “The prospect of that continuing indefinitely, along with the potential loss of top scientists, would jeopardize our status as a world-leading research institution.”

Many colleges and universities tried to settle antisemitism complaints before Trump started his second term on Jan. 20. While a few cases were resolved before Inauguration Day, dozens of other files remain open. Just six weeks after Trump resumed office, the Department of Education warned Columbia and 59 other colleges and universities that they would face “potential enforcement actions” if they did not fulfill their obligations under Title VI to protect Jewish students on campus.

Now that schools such as Columbia and Brown (whose $50 million settlement addresses antisemitism, diversity, equity, and inclusion and gender in sports, programing, as well as facilities and housing) have agreed to shell out significant sums to see their federal aid reinstated, “other schools should see these settlements as a wake-up call,” said Jaclyn Clark, counsel at the Lawfare Project, which provides pro bono legal services to protect the civil and human rights of Jewish people.  

So far, Columbia’s agreement “is the largest settlement of its kind, other than settlements related to sexual violence, that a university has paid for misconduct. All schools, whether facing a federal investigation or not, should be auditing themselves,” Clark said.

Some universities have more to lose than others. For Harvard University, the government’s decision to withhold $2.6 billion in federal funding due to allegations of discrimination against its Jewish students and faculty and the administration’s determination to get rid of DEI policies has affected everything from student financial aid to research funding. The university may need to pay up to $500 million to receive federal funding, according to media reports.  

“Harvard wants to settle, but I think Columbia handled it better,” Trump told reporters at the White House on July 25, before flying to Scotland. Although a federal judge nominated by former President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate is overseeing Harvard’s case, Trump said, “ultimately we [will] win that case.”

Jewish groups that monitor campus antisemitism said the administration’s tough stance on Title VI violations appears to be making a difference, but the situation is far from resolved.

A Hillel International study released last month found that antisemitic incidents reached “their highest-ever” level during the 2024-2025 school year, a 10-fold increase over the 2022-2023 school year. While the number of pro-Palestinian encampments and incidents involving physical violence, threats, vandalism, and graffiti decreased, online harassment against Jewish students soared.

“What we saw this past year was there was a penalty for antisemitism at many universities, and so what it did is it took a lot of these incidents that would have happened on campus, and it moved them online,” Jon Falk, Hillel’s vice president of Israel engagement and confronting antisemitism, told the Jewish News of Northern California.

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As more schools begin to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, mandate expert-led antisemitism training for students and staff, improve data collection for complaints, set limits on when and where demonstrations can take place, and hire Title VI coordinators specifically tasked with monitoring compliance, the Anti-Defamation League is looking toward enforcement.

“Enforcing these policies, ensuring that complaints are processed and people are properly trained, is foundational in changing the climate on campus,” said Shira Goodman, the Anti-Defamation League’s vice president for advocacy. “You also need the will to prioritize, you need the resources, you need to make sure that students know how to access these policies and procedures.” Ultimately, “there must be a will to not tolerate antisemitism on campus.”

Michele Chabin is a journalist whose work has appeared in Cosmopolitan, the Forward, Religion News Service, Science, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, and the Washington Post.