Columbia University

Columbia entered the semester with new campus rules and federal settlement payments as activists promised continued protests and Jewish students reported intimidation.

Some within Columbia are concerned that a new antisemitism definition adopted by the university, which recognizes some criticism of Israel as discriminatory toward Jews, would chill academic freedom.

Around 4,000 visas were canceled because the visitors broke the law, with the vast majority being assault, State Department officials said.

“I would say there is this manufactured hysteria about antisemitism at Columbia because of the protests,” Khalil said.

The announcement comes one week after Columbia University agreed to a $221 million settlement with the Trump administration over funding canceled in March over antisemitism allegations.

Given its long history of bad faith, however, we shouldn’t take Columbia’s promises, or even its latest actions, as a guarantee that the school has learned its lesson.

Separately, two Columbia janitors who claimed they were held hostage during a pro-Palestine protest in April 2024 have reached a settlement agreement with the university.

Maastricht is not the outlier. It is the European Columbia, an institution that traded enlightenment for tribalism, critical thinking for fashionable activism, and universal human rights for purges.

Columbia said it also agreed to settle investigations brought by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for $21 million

In a statement, the university said will pay a $200 million fine over three years to settle allegations that it failed to do enough to stop the harassment of Jewish students on campus.

Following the protest, the university began an investigation into rules violations, banned participants from the campus and placed them on interim suspension, it said.