NY Times: Trump v. Columbia University

As Columbia has given in to some Administration demands in an effort to receive the $400 million being withheld -

Columbia, facing the loss of government grants and contracts over what the administration said was a systemic failure to protect students and faculty members “from antisemitic violence and harassment,” opted to yield to many of the administration’s most substantial demands.

The university said it had agreed to hire a new internal security force of 36 “special officers” who will be empowered to remove people from campus or arrest them. The wearing of face masks on campus will also be banned for the purpose of concealing identity during disruptions, with exceptions for religious and health reasons.

Columbia will also adopt a formal definition of antisemitism, something many universities have shied away from even as they, like Columbia, faced pressure to do so amid protests on their campuses over the war in Gaza. Under the working definition, antisemitism could include “targeting Jews or Israelis for violence or celebrating violence against them” or “certain double standards applied to Israel,” among other issues.

Taken together, the administration’s plan — issued in an unsigned, four-page letter — reflected a stunning level of deference to the Trump administration from a top private research university.

And Trump and Columbia have a history -

A quarter century ago, the university was looking to expand. It considered, and rejected, property owned by Donald Trump. He did not forget it.

That drama dates back 25 years.

Today, these two New York City institutions — the billionaire president of the United States and the 270-year-old Ivy League university that has cultivated 87 Nobel laureates — have been locked in an extraordinary clash involving free speech, academic freedom and the federal government’s role in funding higher education.

The first battle between Mr. Trump and Columbia involved the most New York of New York prizes. It was over a lucrative real estate deal, according to interviews with 17 real estate investors and former university administrators and insiders, as well as contemporaneous news articles.