After Harvard rejects Trump demands, Columbia still in talks over federal funding
World
After Harvard rejects Trump demands, Columbia still in talks over federal funding
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Columbia University said it was holding "good faith" negotiations with US President Donald Trump's administration to regain federal funding, hours after Harvard rejected the administration's demands to audit the "viewpoint diversity" of its students and faculty, among other overhauls.
Columbia's interim president, Claire Shipman, on Monday night said the private New York school would not cede ground on its commitment to academic freedom during talks with the administration.
Beginning with Columbia, the Trump administration has threatened universities across the country over their handling of pro-Palestinian protests that roiled campuses last year following the 2023 Hamas-led attack inside Israel and the subsequent Israeli attacks on Gaza.
The Trump administration has said antisemitism flared amid the protests. Demonstrators say their criticism of Israel and US foreign policy has been wrongly conflated with antisemitism.
In a Monday letter, opens new tab, Harvard President Alan Garber rejected the Trump administration's demands that Harvard end diversity efforts and take other steps to secure funding as unprecedented "assertions of power, unmoored from the law" that violated the school's constitutional free speech rights and the Civil Rights Act.
He wrote that the threatened funding supported medical, engineering, and other scientific research that has led to innovations that "have made countless people in our country and throughout the world healthier and safer."
Hours after Garber released his letter, the Trump administration's Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism said it was freezing contracts and grants to Harvard, the country's oldest and richest university, worth more than $2 billion, out of a total of $9 billion.
Later on Monday, Shipman, a Columbia trustee, said Columbia will continue with what it viewed as "good faith discussions" and "constructive dialog" with the U.S. Justice Department's antisemitism task force, which began with the government's announcement in early March that it was terminating Columbia grants and contracts worth $400 million.
Two more Wall Street banks posted strong quarterly results Tuesday as they benefitted from volatile markets in the first three months of the year.
"Those discussions have not concluded, and we have not reached any agreement with the government at this point," Shipman wrote. She wrote that some of the things the Trump administration has demanded of universities, including changes to shared governance and addressing "viewpoint diversity," were "not subject to negotiation."
"We would reject any agreement in which the government dictates what we teach, research, or who we hire," she wrote.
