Columbia University's settlement with the Trump administration

On July 23, 2025, the board of trustees of Columbia University formalized a settlement with the Trump administration in which Columbia would pay the federal government US$221 million and accept various demands from the Trump administration, including adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism; punishing student demonstrators with expulsions, degree revocations, and multi-year suspensions; and reviewing the university's Middle East studies programs. Following the Gaza Solidarity Encampment and broader protests amid the Gaza genocide, the university became a focus of Donald Trump, whose administration, citing what it called widespread antisemitism at Columbia, cut $400 million in funding to the university, detained and attempted to deport Palestinian student-activists Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, and investigated Columbia for Title VI violations. Critics of the settlement have called the government's actions "extortion" and Columbia's actions "capitulation."

Trump announced the $400 million cut in federal funding to Columbia on March 7, 2025, the day before plainclothes federal ICE agents apprehended Mahmoud Khalil from his Columbia residence building. On March 14, the Trump administration sent Columbia a list of demands it considered "preconditions for formal negotiations" with regard to federal funding, to which Columbia's administration agreed. Co-chair of the board of trustees, David Greenwald, announced that interim president Katrina Armstrong would step down and that the other co-chair of the trustees, Claire Shipman, would serve as acting president of the university.

In the negotiations, Trump's team was led by Stephen Miller and Columbia was represented by Jay Lefkowitz and Matt Owen of the law firm Kirkland & Ellis. The final 22-page document, officially the "Resolution Agreement Between the United States of America and Columbia University", was signed July 23, 2025 by US attorney general Pam Bondi for the Department of Justice, Linda McMahon for the Department of Education, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the Department of Health and Human Services, and one of the trustees of Columbia. The settlement also provided for Columbia to pay for a claims fund worth $21 million for Jewish employees at the university reporting that they experienced antisemitism at the university, for which the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) would determine eligibility.

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