Losing accreditation could cost the university yet another financial blow
The Trump administration told Columbia University’s accreditor on Wednesday that the Ivy League school violated civil rights law by failing to protect Jewish students, putting its status at risk.
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights notified the Middle States Commission on Higher Education that Columbia was “in violation of federal antidiscrimination laws and therefore fails to meet the standards for accreditation set by the Commission,” the agency announced. It pointed to the commission’s policies stating that accredited schools must be in “compliance with all applicable government laws and regulations.”
The departments of Education and Health and Human Services determined on May 22 that Columbia “acted with deliberate indifference towards discriminatory harassment against Jewish students.” That puts the university in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which protects students based on national origin, including shared ancestry.
Without accreditation, colleges and universities are not eligible for federal financial aid, including student loans, and employers are less likely to see a degree from an unaccredited institution as legitimate. While university accreditation is meant to hinge on a school’s education quality, accreditors—who are overseen by the Education Department—have increasingly considered other factors, like DEI policies.
While universities rarely lose accreditation, President Donald Trump has taken steps to overhaul the process in an effort to fight left-wing “overreach” on campus. On April 23, Trump signed an executive order that makes it easier for universities to change accreditors and for new accreditors to gain federal recognition.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said Columbia’s “deliberate indifference towards the harassment of Jewish students” is “not only immoral, but also unlawful.”
“Accreditors have an enormous public responsibility as gatekeepers of federal student aid. They determine which institutions are eligible for federal student loans and Pell Grants,” she said. “Just as the Department of Education has an obligation to uphold federal antidiscrimination law, university accreditors have an obligation to ensure member institutions abide by their standards.”
Tuesday’s announcement represents the Trump administration’s latest salvo against Columbia and other elite universities it says have failed to rein in campus anti-Semitism. Despite the administration’s efforts, such as freezing over $430 million and pushing for the adoption of new disciplinary measures, radicals have still run amok. Just last month, a mob of Columbia radicals stormed a campus library, hospitalized two security officials, passed out pamphlets endorsing Hamas’s violence, and renamed the building after Bassel al-Araj, a Palestinian terrorist killed in a 2017 shootout with the Israel Defense Forces.
Despite promises from Columbia administrators to more aggressively deal with campus agitators, at least six of the Columbia students arrested for storming the library had previously been involved in violent campus disruption, the Washington Free Beacon reported.