Universities could soon face two tough options:\u00a0bow to the Trump administration or fight back. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The federal government has yet to restore $400 million in frozen funding to Columbia even after the Ivy League school agreed to change<\/a> its disciplinary policies, as the administration demanded. The concessions are only a “first step” to restore the funding, Trump officials have said, though they have yet to lay out any others<\/a>.<\/p>\n Developments in the saga surrounding Columbia, which is accused by White House of failing to protect its students from antisemitism, will be closely watched by other colleges that could find themselves under President Trump’s eye. <\/p>\n The University of Pennsylvania and the University of Maine have both already seen some of their federal funding paused over policies related to transgender athletes, and Trump’s Education Department announced Monday it is initiating a review<\/a> of Harvard University similar to that at Columbia, potentially threatening billions of dollars in federal grants.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope [other universities] will look at it and see a kind of roadmap for their own institutions, and\u00a0that they will pursue reforms on their own, whether that be led by the university presidents, the faculty senates, and ultimately, as well, members of the Boards of Trustees,\u201d said Steve McGuire, the Paul & Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think it’s critical that trustees are especially engaged at this moment and paying attention to what’s going on and asking about where do their institutions stand relative to the kinds of concerns that the administration has expressed about Columbia,\u201d McGuire added.\u00a0<\/p>\n But advocates are appalled at what Columbia is giving up without any guarantee of getting the money back, including banning masks, with some exceptions, updating its official definition of antisemitism and appointing a new senior vice provost to oversee the departments of Middle East, South Asian and African studies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n A lawsuit<\/a> has been filed against the Trump administration by the American Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professors\u00a0over the funding pause and demands its made of Columbia. The suit alleges the federal government is using \u201ccoercive tactics\u201d and is in violation of statutory requirements.\u00a0<\/p>\n Others see the moves by the federal government as an abuse of the procedures outlined in investigating civil rights cases against colleges.\u00a0Antisemitism is a serious problem, they say, but the Trump administration is not operating in good faith.<\/p>\n \u201cThis process has been arbitrary, inappropriate and completely overreaching,\u201d said Sara Partridge, associate director of higher education policy at the Center for American Progress.\u00a0<\/p>\n Partridge outlined the steps typically taken against universities when civil rights violations are alleged, such as investigating, giving a notice and hearing to the recipients and submitting a report to Congress \u2014 before funding is taken away. \u00a0<\/p>\n Funding is also supposed to be limited to programs that have been found in noncompliance with civil rights law, she added, but cancelations to Columbia contracts have hit apparently unrelated programs such as funding from the National Institutes of Health. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe arbitrary cancelation of research contracts, particularly for potentially lifesaving health and medical research, before an investigation has even been completed, amounts to an inappropriate and overreaching use of the civil rights enforcement process,\u201d Partridge said. \u00a0<\/p>\n Higher education institutions are far from the only ones getting obey-or-suffer ultimatums from the administration. Other groups that have engendered Trump’s wrath, including the media<\/a> and leading law firms<\/a>, are also grappling with demands they find unpalatable, with the threat of Oval Office action looming over their heads.<\/p>\n Universities have been quietly watching the fracas unfold, with some making changes before the fight gets to them. \u00a0<\/p>\n