Columbia University rejects any agreement with the US federal government that would surrender control of the academic institution, acting president Claire Shipman said on Monday.
Her statement followed reports that President Donald Trump’s administration was pursuing a legal arrangement that would put the Ivy League school under federal oversight.
Shipman did not directly address a Friday Wall Street Journal report that officials were seeking to place a consent decree on the university.
Yet she emphasized that as the university continued negotiations with the government on the counter-radicalism and antisemitism reforms that conditioned the unfreezing of federal grants and contracts, she had to “put minds at ease.”
In her statement, she said, “We would reject any agreement that would require us to relinquish our independence and autonomy as an educational institution” or in which “the government dictates what we teach, research, or who we hire.”
Shipman further added, “We would reject heavy-handed orchestration from the government that could potentially damage our institution and undermine useful reforms that serve the best interests of our students and community.”
At any point, the university may have to make “difficult decisions that are in Columbia’s best interests,” she noted.
Shipman explained that the “good faith” discussions with the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism on antisemitism, harassment, and discrimination had not concluded, and no final agreement had been reached.
She stood by the March 21 policy changes, which were made in line with a March 13 letter from the task force that included a masked protest ban, a new campus security force, and an improved disciplinary process.
Some of the government’s requested policies and practices aligned with Columbia’s educational mission, according to Shipman, but “other ideas, including overly prescriptive requests about our governance, how we conduct our presidential search process, and how specifically to address viewpoint diversity issues, are not subject to negotiation.”
The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the legal arrangement sought by government officials would make a federal judge responsible for ensuring the university changed its practices, and lack of compliance would result in heavy fines and being held in contempt of court.
As Columbia continued to pursue the restoration of $400 million in government grants and contracts frozen on March 7, Harvard University rejected the federal government’s antisemitism reform demands, which resulted in $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60m. in multi-year contracts with Harvard being frozen. Harvard President Alan Garber explained on Monday that the demands surrendered too much control to the Trump administration.
Shipman also noted the Harvard crisis, saying the refusal to accept “policies and practices that would strike at the very heart of that university’s venerable mission” was important to a “continued public conversation about the value and principles of higher education.”
“I am especially concerned that many Americans have lost faith and trust in higher education,” she added. “We should continue the hard work of understanding why.”