Trump demands unprecedented control at Columbia, alarming scholars and speech groups

NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration brushed aside decades of precedent when it ordered Columbia University to oust the leadership of an academic department, a demand seen as a direct attack on academic freedom and a warning of what’s to come for other colleges facing federal scrutiny.

Federal officials told the university it must immediately place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under “academic receivership for a minimum of five years.” The demand was among several described as conditions for receiving federal funding, including $400 million already pulled over allegations of antisemitism.

Across academia, it was seen as a stunning intrusion.

“It’s an escalation of a kind that is unheard of,” said Joan Scott, a historian and member of the academic freedom committee of the American Association of University Professors. “Even during the McCarthy period in the United States, this was not done.”

President Donald Trump has been threatening to withhold federal funding from colleges that do not get in line with his agenda, from transgender athletes’ participating in women’s sports to diversity, equity and inclusion programs. On Friday, his administration announced investigations into 52 universities as part of his DEI crackdown.

But he has held particular fervor for Columbia, the Ivy League campus where a massive pro-Palestinian protest movement began with a tent encampment last spring. Officials continued to ratchet up pressure on the school Friday, with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche saying the Justice Department is investigating whether it hid students sought by the U.S. over their roles in the demonstrations.

Trump and other officials have accused the protesters as being “pro-Hamas,” referring to the militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The letter also demands that Columbia ban masks on campus meant to conceal the wearer’s identity “or intimidate others,” adopt a new definition of antisemitism, abolish its current process for disciplining students and deliver a plan to ”reform undergraduate admissions, international recruiting, and graduate admissions practices.”

The letter “obliterates the boundary between institutional autonomy and federal control,” said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education.

For generations, the federal government has given colleges space to manage their own affairs, within the constraints of federal law. The Supreme Court has long treated academic freedom as an extension of the First Amendment. Higher education leaders say autonomy is what sets America’s colleges apart and makes them a destination for top international scholars.

Trump has never hidden his contempt for the country’s most prestigious colleges, and he’s aggressively pressing his will. The federal government has almost never used its authority to cut off money from schools and colleges. But along with the initial action at Columbia, a Trump administration letter sent Monday to 60 colleges promised that penalty if they fail to make their campuses safer for Jewish students.

Still, few predicted the Trump administration would pursue the type of control it’s demanding at Columbia.

Putting an academic department under receivership is “beyond the authority of the federal government and would violate academic freedom and the First Amendment,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law scholar and dean of the Berkeley School of Law.

“It is chilling to see the government try to control universities in this way,” he said.

Academic receivership is a rarely used practice that puts an academic department under the oversight of a professor or administrator outside the department. It’s sometimes used to reset a department in financial or political turmoil.

The letter didn’t specify who should take control of the department at Columbia. Scott, of the AAUP, said the department appeared to be singled out because it was viewed as being overly critical of Israel.

“Receivership is a nice way of basically saying get rid of the department,” Scott said.

The Trump administration announced last week it was pulling $400 million in contracts from Columbia and reviewing another $5 billion in grants over complaints of antisemitism. The cuts have already affected research studies at Columbia’s medical center, which has long relied on grants from the National Institutes of Health.

U.S. government agencies said they made the cuts because of the school’s "continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” Some Jewish groups and the president's supporters have argued the government should be free to condition funding to colleges as it does other entities.

The university said it’s reviewing the Trump administration’s letter. “We are committed at all times to advancing our mission, supporting our students, and addressing all forms of discrimination and hatred on our campus,” it said in a statement.

Meanwhile, it’s leaving college leaders across the U.S. on edge. Mitchell, of the American Council on Education, said college presidents he spoke with were aghast at the letter.

“It doesn’t matter whether they’re in red states or blue states or whether they’re religious institutions or sectarian institutions. This is not the government’s role,” he said.

The letter was condemned by some faculty members and free speech groups.

“Half of this stuff you can’t just do and the other half is insane,” said Joseph Howley, a Columbia professor of classics. “If the federal government can show up and demand a university department be shut down or restructured, then we don’t have universities in this country.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression called it “a blueprint to supercharge censorship” at colleges.

“Our colleges need to protect free expression and comply with anti-discrimination laws, but important civil rights investigations cannot be resolved by ad hoc directives from the government,” said Tyler Coward, the group’s lead counsel for government affairs. ___

Binkley reported from Washington, D.C.

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