With the Trump administration’s campaign to reshape US higher education in full swing, some top universities have agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to settle antisemitism claims; others may soon spend more and submit to major restrictions on their autonomy to avoid billions in funding cuts and other crippling measures.
The University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University and Brown University have reached settlements with the government in the past month, seeing millions in federal funding restored in exchange for adopting measures that advocates warn severely undermine their independence. Columbia also agreed to pay more than $220m to settle antisemitism allegations, including an employment discrimination claim that may qualify any Jewish employee who has allegedly experienced antisemitism to get a payout.
The University of California, Los Angeles, also agreed last week to pay $6m to settle a lawsuit by Jewish students and a professor over its handling of pro-Palestinian protests – but that did not stop the Trump administration from citing “antisemitism and bias” to freeze more than $300m of the university’s funding.
Harvard University is reportedly considering paying as much as half a billion dollars to restore billions in research funds and fend off further attacks by the government – even though the university’s president, Alan Gerber, has denied the reports.
The settlements come amid a flurry of cuts, investigations and other measures designed to curtail the independence of universities that the Trump administration has described as “the enemy”.
Lynn Pasquerella, the president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities says they mark “a watershed moment for American higher education” and will “further embolden the administration to use coercive tactics against other institutions”.
“The weaponization of federal funds in an effort to enforce ideological conformity through the control of campus policies, the curriculum, research, and discourse inside and outside of the classroom poses a threat to the fundamental mission of US colleges and universities,” she said.
UPenn, Columbia and Harvard did not respond to the Guardian’s requests for comment. A spokesperson for Brown said the agreement with the administration “preserves the integrity of Brown’s academic foundation and enables us to move forward after a period of considerable uncertainty”.
The White House is reportedly negotiating with several other universities. About 60 institutions are under investigation over alleged antisemitism and several have had federal funding cut or threatened. Education advocates warn that with each settlement, more universities risk coming under attack.
“When one university capitulates to Trump’s hostage-taking strategies it puts pressure on all institutions because it confirms that this strategy works,” said Isaac Kamola, a professor at Trinity College who studies conservative efforts to undermine higher education. “Every institution is now at risk.”
Ripple effect
Columbia, where pro-Palestinian students staged a 2024 protest encampment that was soon followed by dozens of others nationwide, was the first university to be targeted by the administration.
When it reached a much-anticipated settlement after months of negotiations, the US education secretary, Linda McMahon, boasted that the deal would offer “a roadmap” for other universities. Columbia’s reforms “will ripple across the higher education sector and change the course of campus culture for years to come”, she said.
Todd Wolfson, the president of the American Association of University Professors, called the settlement “a disaster” for “the independence of colleges and universities nationwide”. But he echoed McMahon’s prediction: “The settlement will only fuel Trump’s authoritarian appetite.”
The deal sees Columbia submitting to the oversight of an independent monitor reporting to the government, and agreeing to review its Middle East curriculum and expand Israel and Jewish studies. That’s in addition to several measures the university had already taken, including the adoption of a controversial definition that conflates antisemitism with criticism of Israel. Notably, the agreement does not preclude the government from issuing more demands in the future.
Columbia also agreed to pay $200m to the government over three years, and $21m to settle a class-action lawsuit that the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission described as the “largest such settlement” in two decades. That agreement follows a charge brought on behalf of “all Jewish employees” at Columbia, with the funds intended “to remedy alleged antisemitism harassment that may have been experienced by its employees”, the commission said. It added that a claims administrator would reach out to all “potential aggrieved individuals” with a confidential questionnaire to determine eligibility.
A spokesperson for the commission said that all Jewish employees were entitled to part of the settlement “if they experienced discrimination, harassment, and/or retaliation” based on their Jewish or Israeli identity, and that they do not need to have previously filed a complaint to be considered. “What matters is their experience with antisemitism at Columbia,” the spokesperson said.
Some of Columbia’s Jewish employees questioned the criteria.
“Where is my antisemitism money?” James Schamus, a faculty member who previously denounced the university’s actions “in the name of Jewish safety” wrote in a post. He said that he suspected the payouts would be distributed not based on “Jewish-ness” as much as political considerations.
But it is Columbia’s agreement to yield to the administration on academic matters that met the fiercest backlash. Last week, the prominent historian Rashid Khalidi announced in an open letter that he would cancel a class he had planned to teach in the fall, citing the settlement and adoption of the IHRA definition, and accusing Columbia’s leaders of having turned the storied institution into “a shadow of its former self” and an “anti-university”.
Still, Columbia’s deal with the administration fell short of some of the most restrictive scenarios floated during negotiations, and even those critical of it acknowledge the university found itself in a near-impossible position.
“We fully appreciate that the alternatives to settlement would have come with their own formidable costs and risks,” a group of scholars from Columbia’s own Knight First Amendment Institute wrote in an analysis on Monday. “It would be deeply unfortunate, however, if Columbia’s settlement were to become a model for the rest of the academy.”
More targets
So far, that seems to be the case. A week after Columbia’s announcement, Brown followed, reaching a deal with the administration to restore frozen federal funds in exchange for adopting the administration’s definitions of male and female, which advocates say infringe transgender rights. Brown will also pay $50m to Rhode Island workforce development organizations as part of the deal. The university also granted the government access to its admissions data to ensure it is “merit-based”. UPenn made similar concessions when it became the first university to settle in early July.
Harvard has been the only university to fight back, suing over $2.6bn in funding cuts and the revocation of its eligibility to host international students. Both cases are proceeding in court, where the university has notched some early victories, even though Harvard is also negotiating with the administration and has passed measures pre-empting some of its demands.
At UCLA, part of the largest public university system in the US, administrators also tried to anticipate the administration by issuing a flurry of new policies. They restricted the ability to protest on campus and centralized faculty hiring. A spokesperson for UCLA referred the Guardian to a statement by the university’s chancellor, Julio Frenk, in which he listed a host of measures it has taken to combat antisemitism.
But that wasn’t enough to keep UCLA from becoming Trump’s latest target.
“Unsurprisingly, the anticipatory obedience of UCLA administrators has not prevented Trump administration attacks,” the UCLA Faculty Association wrote in a statement. “Each university that falters legitimates the Trump administration’s attacks on all of our institutions of higher education and we must stand up now. To protect our democracy we must protect our universities.”
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