Columbia University agrees to some Trump demands in attempt to restore funding

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Columbia University has agreed to some changes demanded by US President Donald Trump’s administration before it can negotiate to regain federal funding that was pulled this month over allegations the school tolerated anti-Semitism on campus, Reuters reports.

The Ivy League university in New York City acquiesced to several demands in a 4,000-word message from its interim president. It laid out plans to reform its disciplinary process, hire security officers with arrest powers and appoint a new official with a broad remit to review departments that offer courses on the Middle East.

Columbia’s dramatic concessions to the government’s extraordinary demands, which stem from protests that convulsed the Manhattan campus over Israel’s war on Gaza, immediately prompted criticism. The outcome could have broad ramifications as the Trump administration has warned at least 60 other universities of similar action.

What Columbia would do with its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department was among the biggest questions facing the university as it confronted the cancellation, called unconstitutional by legal and civil groups, of hundreds of millions of dollars in government grants and contracts.

The Trump administration had told the school to place the department under academic receivership for at least five years, taking control away from its faculty.

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