Columbia Settlement: Payment, Reforms, and Oversight Terms

The Columbia University settlement, announced on July 23, 2025, resolved federal antisemitism investigations by requiring the school to pay $221 million and submit to three years of outside oversight in exchange for the release of hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen research grants. Of that total, $200 million goes to the federal government in three roughly equal annual installments, and $21 million funds compensation for Columbia employees who experienced antisemitic harassment on the job. The agreement does not include an admission of wrongdoing, but it reaches into admissions, faculty hiring, student discipline, protest rules, and the structure of Middle East studies.¹

How Columbia Ended Up at the Table

The deal followed months of federal pressure that began after the pro-Palestinian encampments on Columbia’s campus in the spring of 2024. In January 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14188, “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism,” and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened a directed Title VI investigation of Columbia on February 3, 2025.²³

In March 2025, the administration terminated roughly $400 million in federal grants, including NIH and HHS awards, citing Columbia’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” Reimbursements on active grants also stalled, with one estimate putting unreimbursed NIH grants at approximately $1.2 billion. Columbia used institutional money to keep some research alive but laid off about 180 researchers, roughly 20 percent of those supported by the canceled grants.¹⁴

On May 22, 2025, the Education Department and HHS jointly found that Columbia had violated Title VI by acting with “deliberate indifference” toward the harassment of Jewish students after October 7, 2023. Two weeks later, the department notified Columbia’s accreditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, which warned that the university’s accreditation was “in jeopardy.”³¹ Losing accreditation would have cut Columbia off from essentially all federal money. That was the backdrop when the university signed the 22-page resolution agreement.

The Money

Columbia agreed to pay $200 million to the federal government over three years in three roughly equal installments, with the first due within five business days of signing. The university said it would fund the payments through a “mix of reserves and current/ongoing revenue,” and acknowledged the obligation may require “difficult decisions” and operational adjustments.¹⁵

Separately, Columbia paid $21 million into a class settlement fund administered through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for employees who experienced workplace harassment based on Jewish faith, Jewish ancestry, or Israeli national origin between October 7, 2023, and July 23, 2025.⁶

In return, the federal government reinstated the “vast majority” of the terminated grants, restored Columbia’s eligibility for future federal funding, and agreed to notify the accreditor that the university was no longer in violation of antidiscrimination law.¹

What Columbia Agreed to Change

The agreement states that the federal government has no authority over “faculty hiring, university hiring, admissions decisions, or the content of academic speech.”⁷ The operational commitments that follow, however, cover most of those areas.

On antisemitism, Columbia formally adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition, which the university said would be “one factor among many” in adjudicating discrimination cases. It created a staff liaison for Jewish students, appointed Title VI and Title VII coordinators, and expanded discrimination training.⁵

On admissions and hiring, Columbia committed to merit-based processes and agreed not to use race, color, sex, or national origin in hiring decisions. It must share admissions data — including race, GPA, and test scores — with an independent monitor and make statistical breakdowns public.¹ The university agreed to discontinue programs promoting “unlawful efforts to achieve race-based outcomes, quotas, diversity targets, or similar efforts.”⁷

International applicants must now state their reasons for wanting to study in the United States. Columbia also agreed to “take steps to decrease financial dependence on international student enrollment” and to report disciplinary actions against student visa-holders that result in suspension or expulsion.¹

On campus protests, the deal codified strict rules against disruptive demonstrations, prohibited masked protests, banned protest activity inside academic buildings, and required continued cooperation with the NYPD.⁸ The University Judicial Board was moved from the faculty senate to the Office of the Provost and reconstituted with only faculty and staff, removing students.⁹

A new senior vice provost was tasked with a comprehensive review of regional studies programs, starting with the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies and the Center for Palestine Studies. Columbia also committed to hire new faculty with joint appointments in the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and departments such as economics, political science, or the School of International and Public Affairs.⁷

Oversight and Length of the Deal

The agreement runs three years. An independent Resolution Monitor oversees compliance, and Columbia must submit regular reports to the monitor and publish semi-annual public reports on implementation. The monitor gets access to non-privileged documents and data, and a whistleblower process lets community members report noncompliance directly.⁹⁵

Bart Schwartz of Guidepost Solutions was the first monitor. In January 2026, Columbia and the federal government mutually replaced him with Charles J. Cooper, citing “administrative and logistical reasons.” Cooper is the founding partner of the Washington firm Cooper & Kirk, a former assistant attorney general under the Reagan administration, and has argued nine cases before the Supreme Court.¹⁰¹¹ Columbia pays the monitoring costs.⁹

Who Can Claim From the $21 Million Employee Fund

The EEOC-administered fund is separate from the federal payment. It resolves EEOC v. Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York (Charge No. 520-2024-05956).¹² Eligible claimants are current and former Columbia employees, including student employees, who experienced workplace harassment between October 7, 2023, and July 23, 2025, because of their Jewish faith, Jewish ancestry, or Israeli national origin, or because they objected to such harassment.¹³

The claims process opened December 4, 2025, and the deadline to submit forms was June 2, 2026. CPT Group Class Action Administrators handled intake. The EEOC retained sole discretion over eligibility and individual award amounts, and there is no fixed per-person payout.¹²¹³ Columbia had paid the full $21 million into the fund by April 2026.¹⁴

Reactions

The deal was contested from the moment it was signed, much of the criticism coming from Columbia’s own faculty.

Columbia law professor David Pozen described the agreement as giving “legal form to an extortion scheme,” saying “no genuine legal dispute was resolved.” Mathematics professor Michael Thaddeus, president of the Columbia AAUP chapter, said language requiring the university to “socialize all students to campus norms and values” was more fitting for a dictatorship, and criticized the administration for bypassing the University Senate. Political science department chair Page Fortna said adopting the IHRA definition made it “unclear how you can talk about conflict, the war in Gaza, any of that, without worrying that somebody will say that whatever you have said is antisemitic.”⁴

Former Columbia president Lee Bollinger called the settlement a “tragedy for higher education and the country,” saying the administration had crossed “several very serious, grave lines — legal, constitutional and basic norms.”¹⁵ The national AAUP called the deal an “unprecedented disaster” and an “extremely dangerous precedent.”¹⁶ The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia called it an “astonishing transfer of autonomy and authority to the government” and warned other schools against using the deal as a template.¹⁷

Some faculty saw it differently. Researchers whose grants had been frozen for months described the deal as a necessary step to restore the research mission, with one professor calling it a “measured and mature decision from a university under fire.” Jewish community leaders were split on whether the administration was genuinely addressing campus antisemitism or using it as a pretext.¹⁵

Where Compliance Stands

Columbia released its first semi-annual compliance report on April 1, 2026, a 43-page document to Charles Cooper. Of the agreement’s 23 provisions, the university categorized 18 as “complete” or “satisfied to date” and five as “in progress”: the regional studies review, hiring of joint faculty positions, selection of a Jewish student liaison, the monitor’s comprehensive admissions data audit, and the rollout of new international application prompts across all schools.¹⁴⁹

Columbia had paid the first installment of the $200 million obligation and the full $21 million to the EEOC fund. A Title VI coordinator was established within the Office of Institutional Equity in March 2026, and starting in fall 2026 all Columbia schools require incoming students to sign attestations committing to “civil discourse, free inquiry, equality, respect, and lawful conduct.” The university asserted that the deal had not affected its “academic and operational independence.” The next compliance report is due in October 2026.⁹

How the Columbia Deal Compares to Other Schools

Columbia’s settlement was the largest of several the Trump administration reached with elite universities in 2025, but the terms and dollar figures vary significantly, so the Columbia agreement does not describe what any other school agreed to. The University of Pennsylvania reached a July 2025 deal that restored $175 million in suspended funding in exchange for compliance with the administration’s Title IX rules on transgender athletes; Penn paid no fine. Brown committed $50 million over ten years to Rhode Island workforce development organizations and adopted the administration’s definitions of sex for housing and athletics. Cornell paid $30 million to the federal government and dedicated another $30 million to agriculture research. Northwestern paid $75 million over three years and agreed to conditions including a ban on gender-affirming care for minors.¹⁸

Harvard did not settle. Facing the freeze of more than $2.2 billion in grants and an executive proclamation barring foreign students from entering the country to attend, Harvard sued, arguing the actions were retaliatory and violated the First Amendment. Federal courts issued preliminary injunctions blocking several of the government’s moves.¹⁹ Because Columbia’s deal was the first and by far the largest, it became the reference point for the negotiations that followed.

1
Columbia Spectator. Columbia Will Pay $220 Million in Deal With Trump Administration to Resume Federal Funding
2
Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Columbia University Federal Investigation
3
U.S. Department of Education. U.S. Department of Education Notifies Columbia University’s Accreditor of Columbia’s Title VI Violation
4
Columbia Spectator. Faculty React to Columbia’s $200 Million Settlement With Trump Administration
5
Columbia University. Resolution Agreement Frequently Asked Questions
6
EEOC. $21 Million Payout Process Begins for Columbia University Antisemitism Settlement
7
NPR. Columbia Trump Administration Settlement Details
8
The White House. Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Secures Major Settlement With Columbia University
9
Columbia Spectator. In First Report on Active Compliance With Trump Deal, Columbia Mandates Civil Discourse Attestation
10
Columbia University. Update on Columbia’s Resolution Agreement With the Federal Government
11
Columbia Spectator. Lawyer Who Argued for State Ban on Same-Sex Marriage Named New Independent Monitor
12
EEOC Columbia Settlement. EEOC Columbia Settlement
13
EEOC. Columbia University Begins Payout of $21 Million EEOC Settlement: What You Should Know
14
Forbes. Columbia University Reports Status of Its Deal With Trump Administration
15
New York Times. Columbia Trump Deal Reaction
16
AAUP. Columbia University Settlement: An Unprecedented Disaster
17
Knight First Amendment Institute. What the Columbia Settlement Really Means
18
Higher Ed Dive. Tracking the Trump Administration’s Deals With Colleges
19
NPR. Ways the Trump Administration Is Going After Colleges