Following on the heels of Penn and Paramount, Columbia becomes the latest to cave to a legally specious attack from the Trump Administration (which the New York Times describes as part of Trump’s effort to bring elite universities to “heel,” as if that is the proper role for a President). Here is the settlement agreement; here is the statement by Interim President Claire Shipman.
Michael Dorf (who used to teach at Columbia) crunches the numbers in the settlement (headline figure of $ 200k, but another $ 21k to the EEOC, and future costs) comes from and whether it is a good deal. He concludes it has no basis in Columbia’s actual prospective legal liability but is a good deal as a ransom payment.
David Pozen (who teaches at Columbia) describes this as the latest example of “regulation by deal”–government regulates persons/entities in an ad hoc manner, without following ordinary lawmaking processes, imposing arbitrary obligations or restrictions that it could not constitutionally impose via legal rule. He calls it “a mode of regulation that is not only inimical to the ideal of the university as a site of critical thinking but also corrosive to the democratic order and to law itself.” This post is a must-read, grounded in general concerns about what is happening to universities (and law firms and newspapers and businesses), apart from the specifics of this agreement.
The agreement is out of any proportion to any actual legal liability Columbia might have faced. Accept that some antisemitic harassment occurred on campus and that Columbia did not do enough to stop it (although not as much of either as the government suggests). That could not have been the basis for Columbia losing $ 1.3 billion in funding–a number that far exceeds actual injury to the government or the cost of violations (under a “substantial compliance” statute) and affects parts of the university uninvolved in any of the supposed violations. Columbia agreed to many Administration (and general right-wing) pet concerns about higher ed having nothing to do with that–“merit-based” hiring and admissions (code for “hire and admit more white people”), “all-female sports,” commitment to “civil discourse,” etc. To prove it, Linda McMahon said the quiet part out loud on Fox News this morning; she called it 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,” before remembering this is about protecting Jews and throwing that in there.
Columbia is betting everything on ¶ 5: “No provision of this agreement, individually or taken together, shall be construed as giving the United States authority to dictate faculty hiring, university hiring, admissions decisions, or the content of academic speech.” Shipman’s statement insisted that retaining control over academic and operational decisions “was our north star, and we did not waver from it. Columbia’s governance remains in our control. The federal government will not dictate what we teach, who teaches, or which students we admit.” Shipman reiterated the point in a CNN interview this morning.
But the agreement also includes:
¶ 12: Comprehensive review of regional studies programs beginning with the Middle East–including ensuring those programs are “balanced” and yanking curricular control from the unit.
¶ 13: Hiring in specific areas
¶ 14: Create a position to make sure Jewish students feel supported and protected against antisemitism (which now includes much criticism of Israeli government and policy).
¶ 15: Eliminate programs to provide “benefits” to any group. (Good luck reconciling these adjacent provisions).
¶ 16: No use of personal statements, diversity narratives, or any applicant reference to racial identity in admissions. (Note that SFFA expressly allows schools to do this). “Merits-based” admissions policies only.
¶ 18: Submitting and publicizing annual reports on the demographics of the admitted class, likely to set-up complaints and lawsuits about whether they admitted too many non-white people.
¶ 19: Submitting annual reports about the demographic of hiring for “comprehensive auditing.”
¶ 22: Ensuring that all students “are committed to the longstanding traditions of American universities, including civil discourse, free inquiry, open debate, and the fundamental values of equality and respect.” Any honest person must acknowledge this is code. Especially when the supposed animating event was obnoxious-but-protected speech critical of Israel (“river to the sea,” “globalize the intifada,” “this is genocide”). And especially in light of ¶ 7, which does not uncancel those grants that were terminated because they use “bad” words or do not align with administration priorities. Free inquiry and open debate only seems to go one way under this deal.
¶ 22: Decrease dependence on international students.
¶ 26: University control over student discipline. I have watched discipline and academic standing move from unit to university at my institution; it does produce good results.
¶ 27: Specific rules about campus protests and police presence, including a “show your papers” requirement.
• Adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism into its institutional equity office.
One can decide the merits of each as an institutional choice; the agreement codifies many things Columbia already had announced, including with respect to the powers of campus police. But there is a qualitative difference between a university choosing to organize and conduct its operations on these principles and the government dictating those choices and the appointment of an outside person to monitor those choices.
In any event, these provisions (and others) unquestionably affect “faculty hiring, university hiring, admissions decisions, or the content of academic speech.” Maybe they do not “dictate” those things, as ¶ 5 says. But they impose limits and obligations with respect to those things; they subject decisions to outside review and publicity; they influence how Columbia carries out those things; and thus they affect what the Columbia student body, faculty, and academic environment look like. Shipman’s “north star” is word play–Columbia has (and will maintain) less governance over hiring, admissions, and academic speech than it did on Monday.
Plus, everything Columbia does in hiring, admissions, and academic speech will draw bad-faith challenges and complaints of non-compliance. Expect a wave of complaints the next time a keffiyeh-wearing protester shouts about genocide; the next time one faculty member takes an unpopular position in her writing; the next time a white applicant is denied admission. And expect a new round of government investigations on the slightest bad-faith complaint (see ¶ 6, which authorizes the bully to seek more ransom).
This is bad. And if you need more convincing that it is bad, Lawrence Summers believes it an “excellent template” for Harvard to follow.
Posted by Howard Wasserman on July 24, 2025 at 12:44 PM