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WSJ Opinion: Potomac Watch

Columbia Surrenders to Donald Trump’s Demands

WSJ Opinion: Potomac Watch

The Wall Street Journal

Society & Culture, News

42.7K Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Trump Administration withholds $400 million in funding from Columbia University unless it institutes various policy changes, which president Katrina Armstrong surprisingly agrees to. Did the university deserve such a punishment, and how could this unprecedented sanction by the government be used in the future?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:31.0

From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

0:37.0

The Trump administration and higher education. The battle is on.

0:41.2

The administration withholds $400 million in funding from Columbia University and issues,

0:47.1

demands for policy changes in return for the money. Columbia seems to agree late Friday with all of the terms, which some critics

0:56.5

in the school and outside are calling us surrender. But did Colombia really have a choice,

1:01.7

and will this do enough to satisfy the administration? That's our subject for today on Potomac Watch,

1:08.6

the daily podcast of the Wall Street Journal Opinion Pages.

1:12.2

I'm Paul Gugue, and I'm here with my colleagues, Alicia Finley, and Elliot Kaufman.

1:17.4

So this is really a startling turn of events.

1:19.9

No administration on recent history has threatened to cut off this amount of money.

1:26.0

And then Columbia's response, I think, seeming to agree to all of the terms

1:30.8

has been a shock to academia. Alicia, what do you make first of this intervention by the administration

1:39.1

and its demands? Is this something that the school deserved? Well, whenever you have federal funding of education, I think schools should expect some

1:48.5

kinds of strains, especially when civil rights are at issue, which was the case with some

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