The Trump administration’s campaign against alleged antisemitism and other forms of campus bias intensified after Columbia University agreed to pay roughly $221 million and accept extensive federal oversight of its admissions, academics and hiring practices. The settlement, reached last week, restores research funding that had been frozen and is being touted by Education Secretary Linda McMahon as a model for future agreements. Momentum has spread across the Ivy League. The Wall Street Journal reports that Brown University will pay $50 million to regain suspended research grants and end discrimination complaints. Harvard University, still fighting a funding freeze in court, is weighing a settlement that could reach $500 million—more than twice Columbia’s payout—according to the New York Times. Lawmakers are pushing back. Fourteen Democratic members of Congress who attended Harvard warned the school that any accord with the White House would prompt a “rigorous” investigation, while the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party demanded details of Harvard’s partnerships with a party-linked institution. Beyond the Ivy League, multiple federal agencies have halted certain grants to the University of California, Los Angeles over similar antisemitism concerns, underscoring how the administration’s crackdown is expanding beyond elite private campuses.
NEW: Fourteen Congressional Democrats have written to Harvard President Alan Garber threatening an investigation if Harvard settles with the Trump administration. They say any settlement “rooted in students’ concerns of legal compliance with civil rights law…must be with those https://t.co/ZgjRmABg0H
Senators Urge DOJ Watchdog to Investigate $HPE-Juniper Antitrust Settlement Four top Senate Democrats are calling on the DOJ inspector general to probe whether the HPE–Juniper merger settlement was politically influenced. The letter cites reports of GOP-linked lawyers and https://t.co/S47ejiKk89
Four top Senate Democrats urged the Justice Department’s watchdog to investigate an antitrust settlement over Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks https://t.co/t1bjLaPPP8