Columbia University may have bent the knee to the Trump administration, but the news leaking out of their faculty and staff meetings indicate that they are still trying to find ways around their new promises.

No one should be surprised about this. Current interim president Katrina Armstrong inherited her job under bad circumstances, but how she has chosen to respond to the continuing problems on campus – remember, she apologized to the PROTESTERS for their “hurt” last September – are a difficulty of her own making. When the Trump administration came knocking and informed Columbia that they would be losing federal funding to the tune of $400 million for research, Armstrong had a choice to make. They caved – but now Armstrong is telling her faculty that she’s still trying to find options.

In meetings with about 75 faculty leaders, Armstrong and her team said six federal agencies are investigating the school and could pull all federal support from it. The Trump administration has already canceled $400 million in grants and contracts over concerns Columbia failed to protect Jewish students from harassment.

“The ability of the federal administration to leverage other forms of federal funding in an immediate fashion is really potentially devastating to our students in particular,” Armstrong said, according to a transcript of the meetings reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “I think it is a really critical risk for us to understand.”

Lawyers for the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights are scheduled to visit campus and question faculty this week about potential violations of federal civil rights laws, people familiar with the matter said.

Columbia receives more than $1 billion a year in federal funds, Armstrong said. Much of the school’s approximately $15-billion endowment is earmarked by donors for specific programs. The school has begun to consider what it would prioritize if all federal funds were cut, according to a transcript.

The finger-pointing has begun among the faculty, particularly from the researchers who lost the funding.

Medical and research faculty, who are most affected by federal cuts, are angry they are bearing most of the financial brunt for the political activism of more liberal co-workers in arts and humanities. Many also believe Columbia hasn’t adequately protected Jewish students.

Arts and social sciences professors worry more about ceding independence to Trump, suffering reputational damage and not yielding to what they perceive as an authoritarian erosion of civil liberties. Some criticized Armstrong for not taking a harder line with President Trump.

Others expressed frustration that the school has received little support from other university presidents.

One professor said the situation wasn’t just a crisis for Columbia but was “the biggest crisis since the founding of the republic,” according to a transcript. He said he found it puzzling that Armstrong and fellow university leaders hadn’t banded together to issue a unified statement.

“I have been so far unable to affect that despite trying very hard,” Armstrong said.

It’s so obvious WHY Armstrong hasn’t been able to get other university presidents to stand up and present a “unified” front to the Trump administration – no other university president wants to stand with Columbia and risk losing THEIR federal funding. All those college and university presidents certainly sympathize privately with Columbia – but not enough to stick their necks out to support them publicly and draw the attention of the Trump administration. They’re sympathetic, not stupid.

And the cracks in faculty cohesion has Armstrong desperately trying to spin the agreement with the Trump administration.

Among Trump’s demands was placing Columbia’s department of Middle East Studies in receivership—meaning a chair from outside the department oversees decisions such as faculty hiring and curricula.

Columbia’s agreement with Trump pledged to appoint a senior vice provost to “ensure the educational offerings are comprehensive and balanced.” Over the weekend, Armstrong and her team said that appointment wouldn’t impact how the department operates.

“The provost office is not going to tell anybody what to teach, ever,” Provost Angela Olinto said.

In the conversations with faculty, Armstrong also downplayed the changes agreed to with the Trump team. One issue Armstrong highlighted was the mask policy. While Columbia’s letter to the Trump team agreed to ban masks that conceal identity during unauthorized protests, Armstrong told faculty there was no mask ban.

On Monday, a statement from the Trump team noted that Columbia agreed to “enforcing a strict anti-masking policy that includes appropriate enforcement mechanisms for violations, including removal from campus or detention for trespassing.”

Several faculty complained the administration was engaged in strategic ambiguity by sending mixed signals to different constituencies—one for the public and one for faculty.

Students on Monday tested the school’s position. A group wore keffiyehs—a black-and-white scarf emblematic of solidarity with Palestinians—as well as face masks. The protesters handed out fliers listing their demands, including establishing Columbia as a sanctuary campus, with protections from deportation or detention.

So, this is going well, isn’t it!
https://twitter.com/Columbia_psc/status/1903991017868575131
The Hamas fanclub did show up with masks, and guess what? Nothing happened to them. Faculty also decided to rally outside of the campus entrance as well.

At this point, the only thing that can be concluded is that Armstrong would have said ANYTHING to get the money back. Which means Columbia should not receive one single cent until the Trump administration sees real implementation of changes. As of right now, interim President Armstrong is trying to have it both ways, telling the Trump administration what they want to hear, while soothing faculty’s ruffled feathers by assuring them that she REALLY doesn’t mean it. The Jewish students at Columbia are deeply unimpressed. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon was asked about Armstrong’s remarks, and her response was pretty simple – Armstrong promised to comply, so we expect them to comply. And Armstrong herself is backtracking. She “regrets the confusion,” everyone!

The past week has been unlike any other in Columbia’s history. It has tested our resilience, our civility, and our values. Much has been said about Columbia by people inside and outside of our community, sometimes without full context, including statements attributed to me from internal meetings. I regret any confusion and inconsistent statements and want to make sure our position is clear as we go forward.

Last week, Columbia reported a series of decisive actions we have been taking and will take to combat antisemitism and all forms of discrimination and harassment, including immediately strengthening our processes for enforcement of rules on demonstrations, identification and masking. Implementation of these measures is fundamental to sustaining our academic mission without disruption and ensuring the safety of Columbia’s students and campuses.

Let there be no confusion: I commit to seeing these changes implemented, with the full support of Columbia’s senior leadership team and the Board of Trustees.

We need to continue to work to restore the public’s faith of the fundamental value of higher education for the nation and the longstanding partnership between ground-breaking universities like Columbia and the federal government.

Any suggestion that these measures are illusory, or lack my personal support, is unequivocally false. These changes are real, and they are right for Columbia.

Yeah, that’s someone who is trying to walk a tightrope and is going to get pushed right off, probably by her angry faculty. That same faculty has now filed two lawsuits against the Trump administration, so this is definitely not over.

The American Federation of Teachers and American Association of University Professors (AAUP) filed the lawsuit Tuesday, calling the Trump administration’s moves an “unlawful and unprecedented effort to overpower a university’s academic autonomy and control the thought, association, scholarship, and expression of its faculty and students.”

The lawsuit alleges the administration is using “coercive tactics” and is in violation of statutory requirements.

“Although Defendants purport to be enforcing Title VI, the anti-discrimination law covering institutions that receive federal funds, their disregard for the statute’s requirements belie that claim,” the lawsuit reads, adding the Trump administration did not give the university the required hearing or time to correct issues before taking away funding.

“These restrictions exist precisely because Congress recognized that in a system where institutions depend on federal funds, letting federal agencies withhold funding cavalierly would give them dangerously broad power,” it added.

The lawsuit comes the same day AAUP, along with the Middle East Studies Association and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, also sued the Trump administration over its targeting of foreign students and faculty who have participated in the pro-Palestinian protests.

Oh, this should be fun for Armstrong. She’s already agreed to the terms, so faculty is deliberately doing this in order to undermine her, and demand their cut of federal dollars as if they were entitled to it. Enjoy that court battle, guys!

It’s not like Columbia doesn’t have other big problems. The janitors who were held against their will last spring when the terrorist LARPers took over Hamilton Hall? They’ve now filed a complaint via the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying their civil rights were violated. If Columbia were smart, they would start collecting the money to pay them. There is another lawsuit, filed by victims and relatives of victims of October 7th, that accuses the Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine group of having ADVANCE KNOWLEDGE of the October 7th attack, alleging that Hamas had warned them ahead of time.

The 79-page complaint, filed Monday in the Southern District of New York, was brought under the Antiterrorism Act and Alien Tort Statute by victims and relatives of those killed or kidnapped by Hamas in the October 7 attacks.

It accuses Columbia-based activist groups—including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and Within Our Lifetime (WOL)—of being part of what it describes as the “American propaganda arm” of Hamas.

The filing outlines a broad alleged collaboration between the defendants and Hamas, citing encrypted messages, propaganda toolkits, coordinated campus actions and pro-terror materials marked with the Hamas Media Office logo. The lawsuit focuses on a document called the “NSJP Toolkit,” which includes instructions and graphics promoting a “Day of Resistance.”

The document began circulating on October 8, 2023, one day after Hamas militants launched a surprise siege on Israel that killed 1,200 people. Hundreds more were taken hostage.

The plaintiffs argue the toolkit was prepared before the Hamas attack and claim Columbia’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) had advance knowledge of it.

“Three minutes before Hamas began its attack on October 7, Columbia SJP posted on Instagram ‘We are back!!'” the complaint states, referring to a post on a previously inactive account.

According to the plaintiffs, the toolkit—shared by National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), a campus-affiliated offshoot of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP)—was created before the attacks and included Hamas imagery, marketing materials, and a call for global mobilization.

They also claim the toolkit was circulated before or during the massacre and that “Associational Defendants followed the NSJP Toolkit to the letter.”

According to a new lawsuit, Columbia SJP appears to have had advance knowledge of October 7 before it happened…

It would be quite the coincidence if they didn’t know in advance and just randomly picked the same day as the attack on Israel to revitalize their disinformation… pic.twitter.com/p5KAULlCRC

— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) March 25, 2025

In other words, Columbia University is now caught in a web of their own making. President Armstrong and the administration are trying to get the federal funding back. The faculty is now directly working against the university by suing the Trump administration. And pro-Hamas student groups are being sued by victims of October 7th for allegedly collaborating with Hamas. With all of this happening, why would any sane college student choose to go to Columbia? Why would their parents choose to send their student into this intellectual cesspool? Let it collapse and fall into ruin.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click