Harvard’s settlement alone would dwarf Columbia’s $221 million deal
The Trump administration views Columbia University’s settlement over campus anti-Semitism as a “blueprint” for similar payouts from other universities—with Harvard University facing a fine that would dwarf the amount in Columbia’s deal, according to a Friday report.
The administration is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from Harvard in a settlement that would make Columbia’s $221 million payment “look like peanuts,” the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a White House official. Talks are also underway with Cornell University, Duke University, Northwestern University, and Brown University, the official said.
“The Columbia deal sets a striking precedent in the relationship between the federal government and universities,” the Journal reported, noting that the cash settlement is “unlike anything seen before in higher education.”
Columbia on Wednesday agreed to pay $200 million to the federal government over three years and $21 million to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in a bid to regain federal funding and settle concerns about campus anti-Semitism and other civil rights violations. The Trump administration earlier this year revoked more than $430 million in federal funds from Columbia over the school’s failure to curb anti-Semitic protests and use of “discriminatory” DEI policies.
Compared with Columbia, Harvard has taken a more combative approach against Trump’s crackdown on anti-Semitism. The university has twice sued the Trump administration, which has frozen nearly $3 billion in federal funding to Harvard, threatened Harvard’s tax-exempt status, and revoked the school’s ability to enroll international students.
Former Harvard president Lawrence Summers praised Columbia’s settlement as an “excellent template” for agreements with other universities, as it balances school autonomy with actions to counter anti-Semitism. “This may be the best day higher education has had in the last year,” Summers wrote on X.
Trump on the campaign trail last year pledged to rein in progressivism on college campuses, which he said amounts to a “Marxist assault on our American heritage and Western civilization itself.”