Columbia University students return to campus after policy change to restore funding
Students at Columbia University are returning to class for the first time since the institution gave in to the Trump administration’s demands to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.
The university was stripped of $400 million in federal grants earlier this month.
This follows the last academic year as the campus became the epicenter of demonstrations, encampment protests and counter-protests. The university announced changes in disciplinary policies, will restrict protests, ban masks, sanction student groups in violation and review its Middle East studies programs and admissions.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the moves are to “ensure that children on campus are safe.”
“Columbia has agreed to about 9 things we put in place,” she said. “She wanted to make sure there was no discrimination of any kind. She wanted to address any systemic issues that were identified relative to the anti-semitism on campus and they have worked very hard in a very short period of time.”
The comments come on the heels of Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil’s detainment in Louisiana as the government quietly added new accusations.
Khalil is accused of willingly failing to disclose his membership in several organizations including a U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees, when he applied to become a permanent U.S. resident last March.
The government previously argued he should be deported to help prevent the spread of antisemitism.
The question now is how will these new policies reshape life on campus as students return.
