'Significant moment': Report claims Columbia Uni close to giving in to Trump $400M threat

Columbia University could be close to giving in to President Donald Trump's demand that it enact certain measures aimed to combat anti-semitism on campus or lose $400 million in federal funding, according to reporting in The Wall Street Journal.

The Trump administration canceled funding earlier this month, but granted the university a "review period" and a deadline of Thursday to agree to a list of nine demands.

The demands include "banning masks, empowering campus cops and putting the school’s department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies under 'academic receivership,' which means it would no longer be controlled by the faculty," wrote reporters Douglas Belkin and Liz Essley Whyte.

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The federal government's involvement with the school came after a series of protests and building occupations by pro-Palestine students who called for an end to the war between Hamas and Israel. Just last week, Columbia graduate student and protest leader Mahmoud Khalil was arrested and taken to a detention center in Louisiana. Khalil has denied any involvement with the Palestinian terror group Hamas.

"Columbia’s acquiescence would represent a significant moment in the growing battle between Trump and elite universities," the reporters wrote. "Trump campaigned on reining in what he sees as leftist ideologues on college campuses, and moved aggressively to investigate allegations of campus antisemitism since taking office. Some faculty members, however, view the moves as federal overreach that violate cherished notions of academic freedom."

The report states that Columbia's board is still debating the pros and cons of capitulating to Trump and that the entire case "could turn in a different direction before Thursday."

A senior university official told the Journal that the school wasn't ready to publicly discuss the negotiations, but claimed that "any decisions the school makes would uphold both Columbia’s values and legal obligations."

The article states that, "Agreement to the demands doesn’t guarantee the federal funds will come back." According to the Trump administration the demands must be met as a "precondition for formal negotiations.”

Read The Wall Street Journal article here.