Columbia University, which has faced criticism for not striking a more defiant stand against efforts by the Trump administration to set its agenda, showed signs of adopting a tougher tone in a note from the acting president, who pledged that the school would not allow the federal government to “require us to relinquish our independence and autonomy.”
The message on Monday night came less than 12 hours after Harvard became the first university to refuse to comply with the administration’s demands, prompting federal officials to freeze $2.2 billion in multiyear grants to the school. The letter was sent to students and faculty members as Columbia has endured intense fire for what critics regard as White House appeasement.
Until now, Columbia had largely avoided public criticism of the administration and its campaign against universities. In her first public statement, in March, Claire Shipman, Columbia’s new acting president, acknowledged that the university faced “a precarious moment,” but she did not directly mention federal officials or their cancellation of about $400 million in grants and contracts to the school.
And when Ms. Shipman’s predecessor, Katrina Armstrong, revealed an agreement regarding major demands from the government — including placing the university’s Middle Eastern studies department under new oversight and creating a security force empowered to make arrests — she did not critique the administration’s interference in higher education.
But on Monday, Ms. Shipman — who said that she had read a strongly worded note from Harvard president’s “with great interest” — appeared to adopt a new tone, the most robust sign of potential pushback from Columbia’s leadership since the government’s cancellation of federal funding to the university.
Ms. Shipman wrote that Columbia would “reject heavy-handed orchestration from the government that could potentially damage our institution and undermine useful reforms.” She said that any agreement in which federal officials dictated “what we teach, research, or who we hire” would be unacceptable.
Still, Ms. Shipman did not go as far as Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, who categorically refused to stand down, writing on Monday that the federal government had sought to “invade university freedoms long recognized by the Supreme Court” and that the institution would not concede to “demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.”
“Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government,” Mr. Garber wrote.
A few hours later, Ms. Shipman’s 763-word statement hailed what she characterized as “good faith discussions” with a federal antisemitism task force that has been behind much of the effort against universities.
Addressing the prevalent anxiety among international students — hundreds of whom across the United States have been abruptly stripped of their ability to stay in the country — Ms. Shipman wrote that she was following the government’s actions “with great concern” and directed foreign students to a new need-based hardship fund.
Columbia’s response came as the Trump administration has discussed seeking a consent decree in which a federal judge would enforce any deal reached with the university. Ms. Shipman did not explicitly address the possibility of such a measure but said that no agreement had been reached with the federal government and that discussions were ongoing, including over how to address concerns about discrimination and harassment on campus and how to restore a federal partnership that “supports our vital research mission.”
“Some of the government’s requests have aligned with policies and practices that we believe are important to advancing our mission,” said Ms. Shipman, who was a co-chair of the university’s board of trustees before being appointed acting president last month.
Still, she added: “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.”
A spokeswoman for the federal Education Department, whose officials have been involved in negotiations with Columbia, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the last three months, the Trump administration has taken aim at some of the nation’s most prominent schools as it moves to eradicate what it says is rampant antisemitism on campuses, including Columbia’s, along with what it calls unfair diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across higher education.
Federal agencies have suspended hundreds of millions of dollars in funds for research at several universities, including Columbia, Brown, Cornell and Northwestern. Some Columbia faculty members have argued that the school’s response to the government’s demands has undermined its central principles and academic freedom.
The federal government demanded an extraordinary set of changes at Harvard in a letter last week, including that the university share all its hiring data with the Trump administration, place certain departments under an external audit and immediately shut down any programming related to D.E.I.
As Harvard’s president rejected the administration’s ultimatum, Ms. Shipman told her campus that “our institution may decide at any point, on its own, to make difficult decisions that are in Columbia’s best interests.”
Joseph Howley, a classics professor at Columbia, said that he appreciated that Ms. Shipman’s letter seemed to include a “commitment to some principles that I think we are all glad to hear are in fact principles.”
But to him, “the main thing that stood out” was that school leaders were “clearly affirming how much time they’re talking to Donald Trump’s federal government when they don’t seem to be spending very much time talking to their own faculty.”
“That was a problem all of last year,” he said. “And it doesn’t get us anywhere good.”
Christopher L. Eisgruber, the president of Princeton University, where at least $210 million in federal grants and contracts are at risk, acknowledged in a recent interview with The New York Times that some universities might have to concede “in order to protect people.”
But he added that they also needed “to speak up under those circumstances,” even if to express regret over a compromise.
“I do wish I had heard that from Columbia,” Mr. Eisgruber said. “You may say, ‘Look, I wish I could take a stand on principle, but given what’s at stake, I can’t.’ But then you need to say that. You need to admit and you need to say to your community and to Americans, ‘Hey, there’s something really fundamental that has been lost here.’”
Troy Closson is a Times education reporter focusing on K-12 schools.
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