The Trump administration said it is canceling $400 million in grants and contracts to Columbia after it came under investigation by the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force.
Some researchers at Columbia University report that their funding from the federal government has already been cut off. Megan Marziali, a Columbia PhD candidate in epidemiology, writes that she is “saddened and disheartened to announce the official termination of my dissertation grant by the NIH….completely unrelated to my dissertation work. The targeting of trainees (T32 programs, dissertation grants) is unforgivable.” She has received a notice from NIH that states, “This project has been terminated due to unsafe antisemitic actions that suggest the institution lacks concern for the safety and well-being of Jewish students.”
Why doesn’t this “immediate cancellation” of funds to Columbia violate the law? Doesn’t the federal government first have to hold a hearing before cutting off grants to Columbia University?
If the Administration thinks Columbia has violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by having antisemitic double standards, or by being deliberately indifferent to antisemitic harassment, it has to give Columbia a hearing first, make findings on the record, and wait 30 days, according to the words of the Title VI statute, see 40 U.S.C. 2000d-1.
It has not done that. Even if it had, the suspension or termination of funds can’t extend beyond “the particular program, or part thereof, in which such noncompliance has been so found.” See 40 U.S.C. 2000d-1.
And, absent a violation of Title VI, there seems to be no basis for cutting off funds here. There’s no free-floating “we don’t like what’s going on on campus” power to cut off federal funds. If there were, past presidents such as Obama and Biden could have used the threat of cutting off federal funds to force schools in red states to comply with a left-wing ideological agenda much more often.
Columbia has behaved horribly in tolerating disruptive campus protests that interfered with the education of many students — such as protesters’ takeover of Hamilton Hall — and it may well have repeatedly violated Title VI and other civil rights laws. Columbia let pro-Hamas, anti-American protesters get away with serious misconduct, allegedly including violence against two minority janitors. The New York Post reports that these “Columbia janitors claim they were illegally forced to scrub swastikas then were attacked, trapped by anti-Israel mob,” which has led to an investigation of Columbia by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission:
Columbia University is facing a new federal investigation over allegations from two janitors who claim they [repeatedly had to] scrub off swastikas spray-painted on campus before later being attacked and briefly trapped by an anti-Israel “mob” during the takeover of Hamilton Hall last spring. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency tasked with enforcing civil rights laws in the workplace, has opened a probe into complaints from Lester Wilson and Mario Torres, who were forced to fight their way out of Hamilton Hall nearly a year ago, The Post has confirmed. Both men are making claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, alleging that they faced retaliatory harassment at the institution for “reporting antisemitic and racist conduct.”
I disapprove of Columbia’s mishandling of violent campus protests and the occupation of its campus by pro-Hamas protesters. I criticized the anti-semitic double standards of college officials and government officials who let pro-Hamas protesters get away with rules violations that others would have been punished for.
But immediate cancellation of funds and grants without a hearing sets a very bad precedent that we will all come to regret. Imagine that Kamala Harris gets elected president in 2028 and appoints an “anti-racism” task force to cut off government funds and contracts to schoolsthat discipline black students at higher rates than whites (without allowing them to show that such higher black discipline rates simply reflect higher black infraction rates — as federal appeals courts have recognized can explain higher black discipline rates — and without letting the school show that student discipline was pursuant to colorblind rules that keep school safe).
Or imagine that an “anti-racism” task force cuts off funds to a college because of racially-charged political commentary it thinks created a racially hostile environment in violation of Title VI, without allowing a college to show that it was protected by the First Amendment or that it didn’t actually create a hostile environment? (A federal appeals court once dismissed a racial harassment lawsuit over a white professor’s racially-charged emails about immigration, which the trial judge had viewed as a hostile environment for Hispanic college staff, because the First Amendment protected those emails, contrary to what the trial judge and the Hispanic employees and their lawyer thought).
Would you like to give a future administration the ability to do that without even holding a hearing?
The federal government has also made other demands on Columbia that are legally suspect, as is explained at this link. The federal government’s demands may already be endangering free speech.
As Barry Goldwater and Gerald Ford observed, a government powerful enough to give you everything you want, is powerful enough to take it all away.
