US politics live updates: Trump administration reportedly seeks fines from universities including Harvard

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Alice Speri

Columbia University’s deal with the Trump administration after months of negotiations has drawn both condemnation and praise from faculty, students, and alumni – a sign that the end of negotiations will hardly restore harmony on a campus profoundly divided since the beginning of Israel’s war in Gaza.

David Pozen, a professor at Columbia Law School, slammed the deal as giving “legal form to an extortion scheme”, he wrote.

“The means being used to push through these reforms are as unprincipled as they are unprecedented. Higher education policy in the United States is now being developed through ad hoc deals, a mode of regulation that is not only inimical to the ideal of the university as a site of critical thinking but also corrosive to the democratic order and to law itself,” Pozen continued.

Not all Columbia affiliates were as critical. The Stand Columbia Society, a group of alumni, students and faculty that have for months championed some of the same reforms demanded by the Trump administration, welcomed the announcement.

“The Stand Columbia Society believes this agreement represents an excellent outcome that restores research funding, facilitates real structural reforms, and preserves core principles of academic freedom and institutional autonomy,” they wrote. “We have been steadfast and consistent on what is the right thing to do, and today, both Columbia’s leaders and the federal government deserve credit for achieving this result.”

The Trump administration’s goal of fining other universities comes after a major deal was struck this week with Columbia University. The deal, according to the Wall Street Journal, is seen as a precedent for what the White House expects in future deals.

From our Wednesday night report:

Under the agreement, Columbia will pay a $200m settlement over three years to the federal government, the university said. It will also pay $21m to settle investigations brought by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“This agreement marks an important step forward after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty,” the acting university president, Claire Shipman, said.

The administration pulled the funding because of what it described as the university’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus during the Israel-Gaza war that began in October 2023.

You can read the full report here:

Trump administration reportedly seeks fines from universities including Harvard

Good morning and welcome to the US politics blog.

We’re starting today with a new report from the Wall Street Journal saying that the Trump administration is seeking fines from other universities after Columbia agreed to pay more than $220m this week.

The White House aims to fine several universities it accuses of failing to stop antisemitism on campus, including from Harvard University, in exchange for access to federal funding, according to the Wall Street Journal’s reporting.

The Trump administration is in talks with several universities, including Cornell, Duke, Northwestern and Brown – but Harvard is seen as a key target.

Stick with us today as we bring you all the latest lines from Washington and beyond.