This week, as higher education waited to see whether Columbia University would meet a series of demands on which the Trump administration had conditioned negotiations over the institution’s federal funding, The Chronicle contacted nearly 60 colleges to ask how they would respond to some of the same requests.
All of the selected institutions had received a letter March 10 from the U.S. Department of Education reminding them of their legal obligations to protect Jewish students. Most were, at the time, under federal investigation for potential violations of the civil-rights law Title VI, related to allegations of antisemitism on campus.
More than a dozen, however, had previously reached agreements with the Biden administration to close antisemitism investigations, and a few others did not appear to have been under an antisemitism-related investigation recently. Several institutions that received the letter were not under investigation at the time it went out, but are now.
Regardless, all are now on high alert. Trump’s letter warned colleges to take steps to combat antisemitism or risk being stripped of federal funding. The threat packed a particular punch because it closely followed the Trump administration’s March 6 cancellation of $400 million in federal funds for Columbia, with more cuts under consideration.
On March 13, the Trump administration gave Columbia one week to make sweeping changes before the federal government would discuss continued federal support for the Ivy League institution.
The federal government asked, among other things, that Columbia place its Middle Eastern-studies department under academic receivership; adopt a definition of antisemitism that included anti-Zionist discrimination; expel or suspend students involved in last spring’s pro-Palestinian protests; and put the university president in charge of student discipline.
On Friday, Columbia effectively acquiesced to all nine demands as part of an agreement with the Trump administration.
College leaders will now have to wait and see whether the Trump administration will ask other institutions under investigation for antisemitism to commit to similar measures.
The Chronicle asked the same three questions of media-relations officers at the 59 other colleges besides Columbia that received the Title VI warning letter:
- If the Trump administration were to suddenly demand that you expel or suspend a group of students or risk losing millions in federal funding, would you consider doing so?
- If it were to suddenly demand that you place a department under academic receivership or risk losing millions in federal funding, would you consider doing so?
- If it were to suddenly demand that you abolish your campus’s student disciplinary process or risk losing millions in federal funding, would you consider doing so?
Spokespeople for most colleges did not reply to The Chronicle. Those who did declined to comment on the questions; some dismissed the questions as hypotheticals or said that campus leaders wouldn’t offer public speculation. Several representatives emphasized commitments to environments free from harassment and discrimination.
The following institutions received the Title VI warning letter but are not included in the table: The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, University of Washington at Seattle, Temple University, University of Cincinnati, University of California at Davis, University of California at San Diego, University of California at Santa Barbara, Rutgers University at New Brunswick, Rutgers University at Newark, Muhlenberg College, the Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, Lafayette College, Lehigh University, Drexel University, and Brown University. These colleges came to resolution agreements with the Education Department during the Biden administration, and Trump’s Education Department has not announced new antisemitism investigations.
Emerson College and Tufts University do not appear to have been placed under formal Education Department investigation for antisemitism at any point in recent years.
Non-Answers and Confusion
No college or university that responded to The Chronicle answered any of our questions. Only nine of the 41 letter recipients included in The Chronicle’s analysis above responded at all.
The University of Hawaii at Manoa declined to answer questions but sent along a news release from the office of Gov. Josh Green. It noted that the governor, a Democrat, had spoken with top White House officials last week to reassure the administration that the flagship had not experienced the same unrest over the war in Gaza as other campuses and should not lose federal funding. Green later said the White House assured him the university would not be on the “chopping block.” The Education Department did not respond to a question about the status of the University of Hawaii’s investigation.
A spokeswoman for the University of Wisconsin at Madison called The Chronicle’s request “ridiculous.” Then a spokesman sent along an earlier public statement on the Title VI letter and declined to answer The Chronicle’s questions.
Representatives for other colleges underscored changes made to improve campus antidiscrimination efforts and emphasized that officials had cooperated fully with requests from the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights.
“We are confident that we have not only met our responsibilities under Title VI, but also have continued to provide a rich and supportive environment for all of our students including our many Jewish community members,” a spokesman for Binghamton University, part of the State University of New York system, said in an email.
If any of the scenarios described in the three questions become a reality, a spokesman for Hawaii said, then The Chronicle should feel free to follow up.
Those scenarios just became a reality for Columbia. The Chronicle will update the table with any new institutional statements.
Additional reporting by Andy Thomason and Sarah Brown.
