Columbia University is laying off nearly 180 staffers who are working at the university on federal funding that has been pulled by President Donald Trump.
The university on Tuesday cited the Trump administration's cuts, saying the elimination of the funding has put "intense" strain on its research goals.
Earlier this year, Trump ordered $400 million in funding cuts at the school. Columbia is still trying to restore its funding through the courts.
Approximately 20 percent of those let go on Tuesday are funded in some way by the eliminated grants, according to the university.
In response to the strain caused by the cuts, Columbia has established a "Research Stabilization Fund" to help shield it from "future funding risks."
"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 university said in its statement.
The US draws scientists from all over the world in part because the federal government consistently has made funding research a serious priority.
Trump's cuts to higher education have ostensibly been focused on universities where alleged acts of antisemitism occurred. The Trump administration has conflated student support for Palestinians, who are currently the target of a genocide by the Israeli government, with antisemitism.
In 2023, the Republican controlled House of Representatives passed a resolution that equates antizionism with antisemitism, a move that was criticized at the time as an effort to chill speech critical of Israel.
Ninety-two Democrats abstained their voting on the resolution by voting "present."
Since Trump took office, he has threatened to revoke federal funds for campuses that allow "illegal protests," though he was vague as to what qualifies as a legal protest.
“Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding. For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement on March 7.
Columbia acknowledged concerns about antisemitism on its campus: A university task force said last summer that Jews and Israelis at the school were allegedly ostracized from student groups, humiliated in classrooms and subjected to verbal abuse amid the spring demonstrations.
As a “precondition” for restoring funding, federal officials demanded that the university place its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department under “academic receivership for a minimum of five years.”
They also told the university to ban masks on campus, adopt a new definition of antisemitism, abolish its current process for disciplining students and deliver a plan to ”reform undergraduate admissions, international recruiting, and graduate admissions practices.”
The university ultimately buckled to the Trump administration, agreeing to some of its demands in March. The university agreed it would hire new campus police officers and that it would force protesters wearing masks to present a university ID when questioned.
In addition to pulling the university’s funding, the Trump administration also arrested a Columbia student who acted as an advocate for Palestinian rights.
The administration claimed in April that Mahmoud Khalil, the student, poses “adverse foreign policy consequences” for the U.S. A judge ruled in April that Trump has the authority to deport Khalil for his pro-Palestinian advocacy.
The near future may require more belt-tightening at Columbia. The university said in its statement that in the "coming weeks and months," it will have to take further action to "preserve our financial flexibility and allow us to invest in areas that drive us forward."
That, according to the university, means "running lighter footprints of research infrastructure in some areas and, in others, maintaining a level of research continuity as we pursue alternate funding."
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