Columbia Cuts Job As Universities Brace For Federal Funding Fight

Columbia University announced that nearly 180 staff members working on grants slashed by the Trump administration will be let go on Tuesday, as prominent universities across the country prepare for a long-term funding fight with the federal government.

The Ivy League institution said the cuts are a result of the "intense" financial strain brought on by the Trump administration’s slashing of $400 million in the institution's federal funding, which the university is still negotiating to recover.

“In the coming weeks and months, we will need to continue to take actions that preserve our financial flexibility and allow us to invest in areas that drive us forward,” a letter from Claire Shipman, the university’s acting president, and others said. “This is a deeply challenging time across all higher education, and we are attempting to navigate through tremendous ambiguity with precision, which will be imperfect at times.”

The approximately 180 people impacted by Tuesday's terminations reflect roughly 20 percent of the individuals who are funded in some way by the pulled grants, the letter said. Columbia has also launched a “Research Stabilization Fund,” to navigate “future funding risks” and support its scientific community.

Columbia has been a prominent target of President Donald Trump’s attacks on major educational institutions, which the administration says is to combat perceived antisemitism on campuses following last year’s wave of pro-Palestinian student protests. The university is a subject of multiple federal investigations and is a focus for Trump’s campaign to deport international students involved in pro-Palestinian activism, including Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia graduate student and green card holder who has been held by immigration law enforcement since March.

In March, the university caved to a series of demands issued by the Trump administration surrounding campus policies and governance, a precondition the administration set for its federal funding to be restored. However, the interim president who agreed to those demands has since stepped down.

While Columbia has bent the knee to Trump, other colleges, like Harvard University, continue to push back against his administration’s efforts to reshape academic institutions.

The Trump administration has launched repeated attacks against Harvard since it rejected a list of demands issued by the White House in April, including yanking over $2.2 billion in federal funding and threatening to revoke its tax exempt status. Harvard has since sued the Trump administration over the funding pull.

In its latest retaliatory measure, Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent a letter to Harvard on Monday, informing the Ivy League institution that it is ineligible to receive new research grants from the federal government.

Harvard University President Alan Garber has said that while he’s not against pursuing efforts to increase ideological diversity on campus, the White House’s demands threaten Harvard’s academic freedom. Garber reiterated his stance on defying Trump, pointing to Columbia’s lack of success in negotiating with the White House, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Tuesday.

“What I have heard is that Columbia had still not resolved their issues with the federal government after many weeks of negotiations, so undoubtedly that has made institutions think that that may not always be the most promising path,” Garber said during the interview, which was conducted last week.