He’s getting away with a lot.
ED
‘They need to see the institutions experiencing pain’
The Trump administration wants Columbia University to change its admissions and disciplinary rules before research money gets turned back on.
The Trump administration’s massive claw back of Columbia University’s federal funding and the arrest of a green-card-holding campus protest leader has created one basic question across academia: Who’s next?
Republican lawmakers have been needling college leaders about their response to pro-Palestinian encampments since Hamas’ 2023 attacks on Israel. And while they pushed some school presidents into resigning last year, their political momentum fizzled when campuses thinned out over the summer and protesters recalibrated after the election.
President Donald Trump has changed everything in the span of seven weeks.
Some schools have already started rescinding admissions offers amid Trump’s hold on research money and purge of diversity programs. But in the days since his Friday blitz against Columbia, Harvard University instituted a hiring freeze and Johns Hopkins University plans to cut 2,000 jobs — reactions that have stunned faculty across the country and angered anti-war activists.
In what Trump officials say is an effort to crack down on antisemitism, the Education Department this week launched similar investigations into 60 additional schools, a move that could spark a new round of tensions on campuses.
Trump’s unprecedented decision to yank $400 million from Columbia and detain protest leader Mahmoud Khalil has fundamentally changed universities’ outlook and livelihoods. The president’s moves show how financially and politically exposed many of the nation’s most sought-after schools are — raising questions about their dependence on Washington, the next generation of scientists and the fundamentals of free speech and discrimination.
“I don’t think they will be appeased by any changes in policy or pledges to do better,” said Ted Mitchell, the former president of Occidental College who now leads the American Council on Education, said of the Trump administration. “I think that in some way, shape or form, they need to see the institutions experiencing pain and for there to be some blood on the floor.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/15/colleges-federal-funding-shock-trump-antisemitism-00231160