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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Few seem to love Columbia's deal with Trump
Columbia University's decision to comply with Trump administration demands in exchange for federal funding has caused shockwaves, with many voices on both sides of the issue expressing anger and frustration. In its agreement, Columbia will pay $220 million in legal fees to the Trump administration, along with implementing several policy changes regarding speech and student protections on campus. Following this, they will receive $400 million in withheld federal funds. Some critics of the decision argue that it will affect the independence of the university and will effectively silence pro-Palestinian speech. Others say the decision does not go far enough in protecting Jewish students on campus. David Hozen, a law professor at Columbia, criticized the reforms, calling them 'as unprincipled as they are unprecedented' and arguing that the deal was a 'legal form to an extortion scheme.' Elisha Baker, co-chair of the pro-Israel student group Aryeh, was also critical, writing to the Columbia University Spectator that the reported deal 'would completely ignore the structural and cultural reforms we need and effectively tell the world of higher education that discrimination is okay if they can afford it.' Sabiya Ahamed, a staff attorney at Palestine Legal, chastised Columbia for 'choosing to pander to a lawless administration' and not protecting students and staff who 'are bravely speaking out against a genocide.' Ahamed, who has worked with several Columbia students facing disciplinary measures, also accused the university of 'agreeing to operate like an arm of the state to censor and punish speech the Trump administration doesn't like.' Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, blamed Columbia for the deal existing at all. 'The need for a federal settlement underscores Columbia's lack of institutional willingness to effectively respond to antisemitism,' Walberg said in a statement. Walberg said the committee will 'closely monitor Columbia's purported commitment' to the deal and would 'develop legislative solutions to address antisemitism.' Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., meanwhile, called the decision an 'outrageous and embarrassing $200 million capitulation' and a 'repugnant extortion scheme' in a post on X. Nadler said that 'Columbia needs to do a better job at protecting its students against antisemitism on campus,' but said the deal 'will not, in any way, improve the situation on campus for Jewish students. Columbia's students, faculty, staff, and larger community deserve better than this cowardly decision.' One voice of support for the deal came from economist and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who called it an 'excellent template for agreements with other institutions including Harvard,' in a social media post. Summers said the deal lets Columbia keep its 'academic autonomy,' praised its 'ongoing reform with respect to anti-Semitism,' and claimed that 'normality is restored' at the campus. Acting school President Claire Shipman, in an email sent last week to the university community, suggested that any such deal with the Trump administration would be the beginning of a broader effort to address issues on campus. 'In my view, any government agreement we reach is only a starting point for change,' she wrote. The post Few seem to love Columbia's deal with Trump appeared first on
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
Where did Trump's children go to college? See which schools they attended
Since taking office, President Donald Trump has steadily escalated his administration's battles against several elite universities, threatening billions in federal funding, challenging First Amendment protections, and stoking broader conversations over academic freedoms. Columbia University said on July 23 it reached a $200 million settlement with the Trump administration to halt federal investigations into alleged civil rights violations over on-campus Israel-Hamas war protests. Meanwhile, Harvard University is embroiled in a court case in a bid to win back more than $2 billion in federal funding for research the Trump administration froze, claiming the university has failed to address antisemitism. The administration has announced pauses or threatened to revoke federal funding to other top universities as well. They include Brown, Cornell, Northwestern, Princeton and the alma mater of the president himself and three of his five children, the University of Pennsylvania. Where did Trump's children go to college? Trump's youngest son, Barron Trump, broke family tradition when he chose New York University for his undergraduate studies, where he currently attends. Trump's other children either went to Georgetown or the University of Pennsylvania. Donald Trump Jr. went to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. He graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor of Science in economics with a concentration in marketing and real estate, according to the university paper. Ivanka Trump, the president's eldest daughter, graduated from the same college in 2004, also with a bachelor's degree in economics. She did spend her first two years of college at McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Eric Trump graduated from Georgetown University in 2006, making him the second of Trump's children to not attend his alma mater. Eric earned a degree in finance and management. Tiffany Trump resumed the family tradition when she graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in sociology in 2016, before attending Georgetown Law School. She graduated in 2020 with her Juris Doctor. Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her atkapalmer@ and on X @KathrynPlmr.
Atlantic
an hour ago
- Atlantic
Columbia's Dangerous Agreement With the Trump Administration
Exhausted and demoralized, Columbia University agreed last night to pay the Trump administration $221 million in exchange for peace. By early next week, it will deposit the first of three installments into the U.S. Treasury, as part of a settlement that ends the government's investigations into the school's failure to protect Jewish students from discrimination. By paying tribute to the administration—and making other concessions aimed at shifting its campus culture ideologically—Columbia hopes to ensure that research grants will begin to flow again, and that the threat of deep cuts will be lifted. In the context of the administration's assault on American higher education, Columbia will feel as if it has dodged the worst. A large swath of the university community, including trustees who yearned for reform of their broken institution, may even be quietly grateful: When past presidents attempted to take even minor steps to address the problem of campus anti-Semitism, they faced resistance from faculty and obstreperous administrators. Ongoing federal monitoring of Columbia's civil-rights compliance, arguably the most significant component of the deal, will almost certainly compel the university to act more decisively in response to claims of anti-Jewish bias. Franklin Foer: Columbia University's anti-Semitism problem Columbia's decision to settle is understandable, but it's also evidence of how badly the Trump era has numbed the conscience of the American elite. To protect its funding, Columbia sacrificed its freedom. The settlement is contingent on Columbia following through on a series of promises that it made in March, when the Trump administration revoked $400 million in grants. The university agreed to install a vice provost to review academic programs focused on the Middle East to ensure they are 'balanced.' It also pledged to hire new faculty for the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies. As it happens, I agree: Many of Columbia's programs espouse an unabashedly partisan view of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and more faculty at the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies would be a welcome development. The fields that will receive scrutiny have professors with documented records of bigotry. Columbia has long nurtured a coterie of activist academics who regard Israel's very existence as a moral offense. Some have been accused of belittling students who challenged their views—and their example helped shape the culture of the institution. In time, students mimicked their teachers, ostracizing classmates who identified as Zionists or who simply happened to be born in Israel. After October 7, 2023, life on campus became unbearable for a meaningful number of Jewish students. But in the government's ideological intervention into campus culture, a precedent has been set: What Secretary of Education Linda McMahon calls 'a roadmap for elite universities' is a threat to the free exchange of ideas on campuses across the country, and abuse of that map is painfully easy to contemplate. In part, many people at Columbia have shrugged at the settlement's troubling provisions regulating the ideological composition of academic departments because the university already announced those steps in the spring. But it's chilling to see them enshrined in a court document—signed by the university's acting president, Claire Shipman, along with Attorney General Pam Bondi and two other Cabinet secretaries. The university's deal with the Trump administration 'was carefully crafted to protect the values that define us,' Shipman said in a statement. The settlement contains a line meant to allay critics who worry about the loss of academic freedom: 'No provision of this Agreement, individually or taken together, shall be construed as giving the United States authority to dictate faculty hiring, university admissions decisions, or the content of academic speech.' If the government doesn't like whom Columbia hires, it can raise its concerns with a mutually agreed-upon 'monitor' named Bart Schwartz, a former prosecutor who worked under Rudy Giuliani during his tenure as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who will ostensibly render a neutral verdict. Schwartz's ruling, however, won't be binding. And if the government remains dissatisfied with Columbia's conduct, it reserves the right to open a new investigation. But Shipman's protestations of independence ring hollow. The university has already agreed, under duress, to alter the ideological contours of its faculty. And even if I happen to support those particular changes, I can't ignore the principle they establish. The tactics now being used to achieve outcomes I favor can just as easily be turned toward results I find abhorrent. That's the nature of the American culture war. One side unearths a novel tactic; the other side applies it as retribution. The Trump administration is likely to take the Columbia template and press it more aggressively upon other schools. It will transpose this victory into other contexts, using it to pursue broader purges of its perceived enemies. There's no need to speculate about hidden motives: Both Donald Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance have been explicit about their desire to diminish the power and prestige of the American university, to strip it of its ability to inculcate ideas they find abhorrent. They are trying to tame a profession they regard as a cultural adversary. 'This is a monumental victory for conservatives who wanted to do things on these elite campuses for a long time because we had such far-left-leaning professors,' McMahon told Fox Business. Universities are desperately in need of reform. The paucity of intellectual pluralism in the academy undermines the integrity of the pursuit of knowledge. Failure of university trustees and presidents to make these changes on their own terms has invited government intervention. But the government has a new toehold in faculty rooms, not just at Columbia, but at every private university in the country.
