‘What a travesty’: Outrage as Columbia University 'surrenders' to Trump's $400M threat

Columbia University on Friday gave into demands from the Trump administration when it agreed to a sweeping set of changes in order to restore $400 million in federal funding suspended earlier this month, according to media reports.

The university’s changes include new powers for police to arrest students, partially banning face masks, and appointment of a university official to oversee changes across university departments, the Independent reported Friday.

The transformation at the private Ivy League school stirred outrage among academics, political observers and legal experts.

“Well. That’s that for Columbia. What a travesty,” professor and social commentator Roxane Gay wrote on Bluesky. “I don’t see how faculty or students stay under these conditions.”

“The speed and the scope of what is being done, including to universities really resembles after a coup,” author Ruth Ben-Ghiat said Friday on MSNBC. “And the irony is that they're saying they want to take politics out of universities the radical left has taken over, but they are politicizing universities with these appointments.”

She added: “Authoritarians always want to remake education.”

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“What are universities teaching their students if they don't actually stand up for any kind of principle?” MSNBC legal analyst Kristy Greenberg said in an interview on the network. “If DEI is in vogue under one administration and then it's out of vogue the next, like, you should stand for something, stand for the principles, and stand up for the law.

Journalist Doug Henwood told his X followers: “Columbia doesn’t merely fold, it substantially agrees.”

“Columbia turning over the keys to Trump,” reporter Ryan Grim wrote on X.

“Columbia’s surrender is sickening,” author and University of Chicago professor Eman Abdelhadi wrote on X. “A fascist dictator president who has declared war on Black people, Latinos, immigrants, asylees and trans people is using all his power to silence all critique of Zionism. That should tell you all you need to know about Zionism.”

She later followed that up with a second statement critical of the university’s move: “Congrats everyone. Zionists have now set a precedent that the current administration can determine who gets hired at universities, how departments are run, and what university policies should be.”

“Cross Columbia off the list of schools I would ever send my kid to,” MSNBC columnist Brandon Friedman told his Bluesky followers.