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Columbia Walked a Tightrope on Its Way to a $200 Million Settlement With Trump

Talks in Washington. An expert on negotiation. A balancing act. The university chose cooperation over litigation, a strategy both pilloried and praised.

As the Trump administration sought to bring elite universities to heel, Columbia University feared that most of its $1.3 billion in federal research funding could be imperiled.Credit...Karsten Moran for The New York Times

As the Trump administration sought to bring elite universities to heel, Columbia University feared that most of its $1.3 billion in federal research funding could be imperiled.Credit...Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Just after Memorial Day, Claire Shipman, the acting president of Columbia University, went to see Linda E. McMahon, President Trump’s education secretary. The institution and the Trump administration were in a standoff over antisemitism on campus, and most of Columbia’s $1.3 billion in federal research funding was in jeopardy.

It was a tough meeting, but there were some surprisingly collaborative moments. Ms. McMahon said she wasn’t interested in destroying the university. She empathized with how hard it was to run a large organization. She wanted to talk about issues beyond antisemitism, like the need to tolerate a spectrum of voices on campuses.

Rather than dismiss those concerns out of hand, Ms. Shipman, a former journalist who was co-chair of Columbia’s board of trustees before stepping in as acting president, listened.

It was a telling moment that helped produce the seismic events of Wednesday.

On that evening, it was revealed that Columbia and the Trump administration had reached a settlement that allows hundreds of millions of dollars of federal research funding to begin flowing again to Columbia. The deal ends civil rights investigations into antisemitism at the university. In exchange, Columbia will pay a fine of $200 million to the government, and an additional $21 million to settle employment discrimination claims. An independent monitor will report to the government about the university’s compliance with the deal.


Claire Shipman, the acting president of Columbia University, leaves Butler Library, wearing a blue and white striped shirt and a dark blue jacket. Eyeglasses hang from her shirt. She carries objects in her left hand. Police officers flank her on either side.
Claire Shipman stepped into the Columbia presidency in March and into the controversy engulfing the university. In May, she visited the school’s main library after pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupied it.Credit...Bing Guan for The New York Times

 

Though there were things on which they did not see eye to eye, Ms. Shipman and other Columbia leaders largely agreed with Washington that an antisemitism problem existed on campus. According to a recent survey commissioned by Columbia, 62 percent of Jewish students last year said that they did not feel accepted for their religious identity at the university. There was also a broader problem of intolerance, some felt, with too many people choosing to shut out, rather than engage with, other points of view.

So Ms. Shipman sought what she called the “seeds” of truth in matters cited by the White House, including what it perceived as an academic orthodoxy on campus or an inability to hear other voices. She and Columbia’s other leaders told themselves that they could negotiate a deal with Trump to address things on campus that they agreed were broken, so long as it didn’t cross their red lines and compromise academic freedom.

The settlement was instantly pilloried by many inside Columbia and beyond as caving in to the Trump administration. The very tactic of withholding scientific research money to pressure Columbia over campus unrest was probably illegal, a Massachusetts judge had already found. But some on campus, particularly those concerned about the fate of scientific research, welcomed the deal, which they hoped would let Columbia regain its footing.

 


Tents — some green, others white and blue — on the Columbia University campus. Palestinian flags are in the foreground. University buildings are in the background.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators established an encampment on Columbia’s campus in April 2024.Credit...Bing Guan for The New York Times

 

“I completely understand the desire for a simple narrative: capitulation versus courage, or talking versus fighting,” Ms. Shipman said in an interview with The New York Times on Wednesday. “Look, as a former journalist, I gravitate toward those themes myself. But I guess we all know that real-life situations are deeply complex. And I really would argue that protecting our principles, slowly and carefully while we stabilize the institution, requires courage too and is far from capitulation.”

This account of how and why Columbia decided to come to a deal with the Trump administration rather than to litigate is drawn from interviews with six people with knowledge of the negotiations, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Columbia has struggled with unrest on campus since the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. The explosion of sentiment from the pro-Palestinian side, which seized on the moment as an opportunity to call for Palestinian liberation, took many by surprise. Within weeks of the attacks, as Jewish and Israeli students were still mourning their dead, shouting matches erupted on campus between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students, with each accusing the other of supporting genocide.

Columbia’s pro-Palestinian student movement galvanized the campus, bringing out thousands in support. Majorities of students who voted in nonbinding referendums supported divestment from Israel, whose bombs were raining down on Gaza. But some Jewish students felt increasingly isolated and afraid. Chants such as “we don’t want no Zionists here” felt directed at them personally.

Minouche Shafik, then Columbia’s president, was unable to control the spiraling student activism, and unwilling to make a deal with the demonstrators to divest. She put the campus into lockdown and called in the Police Department twice to end the demonstrations. Just weeks before the start of a new academic year, in August 2024, she stepped down. Still, Columbia’s struggles remained largely an internal matter — until President Trump was elected.

Minouche Shafik wears a blue jacket, white shirt and pearls as she appears in a congressional hearing room.
Minouche Shafik, Columbia’s president at the height of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, was unable to contain the activism.Credit...Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The New York Times

 

On March 7, the federal government canceled or froze more than $400 million in research funding, saying Columbia no longer qualified for the support because of alleged tolerance of antisemitic harassment on campus. It was the first university to be punished in this way. Harvard, Cornell and Northwestern soon followed. An antisemitism task force that Mr. Trump assembled after entering the White House then issued a list of nine demands that echoed requests from some Jewish groups on campus, calling for more restrictions on demonstrations, more academic oversight and tighter discipline.

Columbia’s 21-member board of trustees, in consultation with the school’s lawyers, decided to negotiate. Lawyers advised the board that suing would probably bring short-term wins, but that the government could still remove Columbia from consideration for future grants. That would be an extremely unstable situation, risking billions of dollars of important research funding.

Under Katrina Armstrong, then the new interim president, the board landed on a compromise that it felt it could live with. The university modified each demand in a way that it believed would not compromise core values or academic independence.

Instead of a total mask ban, for example, masked demonstrators would be required to show identification when asked. Instead of putting a Middle Eastern Studies department under receivership, a step that would remove its independence, a new vice provost would review the department’s work, along with that of other departments.

“If we can do something that we were going to do anyway without having to litigate, and restore the things that we care about here, that is in our opinion — or in my opinion — our best path,” Keith Goggin, a trustee, said at a university senate town hall in the spring. “And we might not be able to follow that path, but that is where we are today.”


Linda McMahon, the U.S. education secretary, wears a light blue dress as she stands in front of a microphone outside of a building in Washington. White columns appear behind her. A man, his face seen only partially, holds a microphone. Another microphone is held by someone.
Linda McMahon, the U.S. education secretary, was a pivotal figure in the negotiations with Columbia.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

 

Ms. McMahon, the education secretary, said in public statements that Columbia was on the right track. But days later, Dr. Armstrong came under fire for how she described the compromise at a private faculty meeting. A transcript of the meeting was leaked to the media, with the implication that she was minimizing her commitment to real changes. Within days, she resigned, and Ms. Shipman succeeded her.

In early April, the White House presented Columbia with terms for a consent decree, a legally binding performance improvement plan that typically involves a court order and would leave Columbia under federal oversight for years to come. The plan, much tougher than the ultimate deal would be, was leaked to the press and made to seem imminent, even though negotiations were continuing.

Then on April 11, Harvard made public its own letter from the White House, which made even more sweeping demands of that university to get billions of dollars in research funding restored. Feeling that its independence was at stake, Harvard declared it would sue, not negotiate. Washington suddenly had a more urgent situation on its hands and shifted its focus.

The extra time helped Columbia consolidate its negotiation strategy. As billions were pulled from Harvard, and its ability to enroll international students was challenged, the stakes became clear. It also became obvious internally at Columbia that the blow to its science enterprise was much bigger than the original $400 million.

Columbia now says that most of its $1.3 billion in annual federal grant funding had been frozen or stopped. The university was also barred from competing for new grants. In May, about 180 people were laid off. Every day, scientists were getting other offers and were uncertain if Columbia was going to be a home for major research anymore.

The government continued to ratchet up pressure, opening additional investigations into civil rights violations against Jewish students at Columbia. In late May, the federal government found Columbia in violation of civil rights rules for “acting with deliberate indifference” toward the harassment of Jewish students. In June, the Education Department sent a letter to the body that gives Columbia and other schools a vital stamp of approval — accreditation — and warned that the university could lose that vital credential, key to receiving federal student aid.


A man wearing a red shirt and white pants holds a large Israeli flag with a pole substantially taller than him. A university building appears behind him.
Pro-Israel activism was evident at Columbia on Oct. 7, 2024, one year after the Hamas attack.Credit...Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

 

These were all very real issues that needed to be resolved with the government.

“We thought it made sense to continue talking as long as the talking was yielding progress,” Ms. Shipman said.

She had multiple conversations with Ms. McMahon and people on her staff, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions. Ms. Shipman also spoke with lawyers from the agencies on the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force as well as with people in the White House and the Justice Department.

Ms. Shipman worked with the trustees and a small academic leadership team she assembled. It included a negotiation expert, who advised the team that a deal can be possible, even with an opponent with whom one has deep differences, as long as core principles are maintained.

The work was painstaking. “Really, it’s a balancing act,” Ms. Shipman said, about a week before the deal was announced. “We want this deal, we need this deal. We want to get back on good footing with the government and be a research partner again. And yet, we really do have to protect some very fundamental things about who we are as an institution.”

A breakthrough in talks seemed to come as the White House proposed monetary fines to help resolve the civil rights complaints. The sides also came to an agreement over an independent monitor, whom they would mutually choose. The monitor would ensure that the terms of the agreement were kept.

Columbia took a practical approach toward the enormous settlement fee. The money was less important than the core values: Columbia felt this agreement would not dictate who teaches, what they teach or which students are admitted.

“This is not an amount of money that breaks us, but the core values are key,” a senior Columbia academic administrator involved in the negotiations said.

Claire Shipman is shown wearing a light blue jacket during a congressional hearing in Washington. Her right hand is extended, and she holds a pen.
With a deal in hand, Shipman insisted that the university had not capitulated to the Trump administration.Credit...Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The New York Times

 

In the eyes of Columbia’s negotiators, much of what they agreed to — pledges to follow civil rights laws and to not engage in illegal diversity practices — would have been necessary anyway under a Trump administration. Most of the internal reforms, such as centralizing control over student discipline and appointing at least 36 security officers with arrest powers, are changes they had already committed to.

By last week, an agreement was close. A team of Columbia officials and lawyers, including Ms. Shipman, met in a diplomatic reception room at the White House for an hour with May Mailman, a policy strategist, and other Trump officials to discuss some final details.

“The damage to Columbia was not speculative. It was real and here,” said Jeh Johnson, a co-chair of the board and secretary of Homeland Security during the Obama administration.

“Without a resolution with the government, we were looking at the loss of our research enterprise as we know it, including departure of our best scientists and certainly more layoffs,” Mr. Johnson said. “We had to stop the bleeding.”

Michael C. Bendercontributed reporting.

Sharon Otterman is a Times reporter covering higher education, public health and other issues facing New York City.

Author: Sharon Otterman

Source: N.Y Times

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