U.S. news – By Mirna Alsharif and Meriam Bouarrouj
The Trump administration pulled $400 million in federal funding from the campus in March.
Columbia University announced Tuesday that it laid off 180 staff members working on federal grants impacted by the Trump administration’s decision to revoke the university’s funding.
The administration cut $400 million in federal funding from Columbia in March, accusing it of “inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” It then issued a list of demands to the university, which it mostly acceded to, to start negotiations on restoring the funding.
The demands included banning students from wearing masks at protests, hiring campus security officers who can arrest students, and appointing a new senior vice provost to oversee the department of Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies.
The move to cut over 100 staff members was announced in a Tuesday letter from top Columbia officials, including Acting President Claire Shipman and Provost Angela V. Olinto. In the letter, the officials said the university is “engaged in a two-pronged effort related to grants terminated by the federal government,” which includes restoring partnerships with government agencies and adjusting or reducing spending in the meantime.
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Columbia’s leadership continues discussions with the federal government in support of resuming activity on these research awards and additional other awards that have remained active, but unpaid,” the letter read. “We are working on and planning for every eventuality, but the strain in the meantime, financially and on our research mission, is intense.”
University officials said that, as a result of the financial strain, 180 staff members “who have been working, in whole or in part, on impacted federal grants” received notices of termination or non-renewal on Tuesday. According to officials, they represent 20% of the staff funded by the grants that the Trump administration funded.
Also, due to financial strain, some schools and departments will wind down activity, and research infrastructure “will be running lighter footprints,” according to the officials.
“We do not make these decisions lightly,” the top officials said. “We are deeply committed, at Columbia, to the critical work of invention, innovation and discovery.”
Last week, hundreds of Columbia University students, faculty, staff and alumni launched a 25-hour “speak out” to criticize school leaders for bowing to the Trump administration’s demands after it pulled the millions in federal funding.
Student David Guirgis, who was at the rally, called the administration’s cuts “an all-out attack on science and academic freedom.”
“We are pioneers in biomedical research, legal research, and environmental science research, and all of that got cut simply because the Trump administration had a vendetta against universities,” he told NBC News.
Columbia “will continue to make prudent budget decisions,” even in areas not impacted by federally funded research, to ensure the university’s long-term financial stability,” the officials said in the letter. This includes setting parameters across the university that ensure most salaries will not increase for the next fiscal year, programs to continue streamlining the university’s workforce through attrition, and launching “a voluntary retirement incentive program.”
“In the coming weeks and months, we will need to continue to take actions that preserve our financial flexibility and allow us to invest in areas that drive us forward,” officials said. “This is a deeply challenging time across all higher education, and we are attempting to navigate through tremendous ambiguity with precision, which will be imperfect at times.”