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This is fresh air. I'm Tanya Mosley.

Columbia University has become the first institution to reach a negotiated settlement over claims of anti-Semitism brought by the Trump administration.

The university will pay a $200 million fine

for allegedly failing to stop the harassment of Jewish students and an additional $21 million

to settle investigations by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. According to a university

statement, this settlement will include the restoration of more than $400 million in previously frozen federal research grants.

The deal marks a pivotal moment in a broader campaign that is swept through higher education in recent months.

Several university presidents have resigned or been forced out amid a wave of federal investigations,

and the government has frozen billions in research grants and accused schools like Harvard and NYU

of failing to address anti-Semitism while simultaneously challenging their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

But what began a scrutiny of elite institutions is now expanding across the

academic landscape. My guest today, journalist Catherine Megan has been reporting on how this

pressure is reaching far beyond elite universities. In her latest investigation for ProPublica,

co-published with The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Mengen looks at George Mason, Virginia's largest public university, one of the most racially diverse in the country, and a school that accepts nearly 90% of its applicants.

The school's president, Gregory Washington, is now facing several federal probes, escalating

calls for his ouster, and what many see as a politically

coordinated campaign to reshape the university's leadership and priorities.

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