The Education Department said Columbia University no longer appeared to meet accreditation standards after concluding that the school is in violation of anti-discrimination laws, the latest effort by the Trump administration to target elite schools over their handling of pro-Palestinian protests.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement that the school’s leadership “acted with deliberate indifference towards the harassment of Jewish students on its campus” after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel.
“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. 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,” she said.
The Education Department said it had notified the Middle States Commission on Higher Education that the administration found that the school failed to meaningfully protect students during the protests, violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The department also cited federal law which they said required accreditors to notify member institutions if they were in noncompliance and establish a plan to bring them back into compliance.
“If a university fails to come into compliance within a specified period, an accreditor must take appropriate action against its member institution,” the statement said.
Columbia and the Middle States Commission did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Any revocation of the school’s accreditation could have significant implications for students. Some 21% of Columbia College and Columbia Engineering undergraduates receive the Pell Grant, a type of federal aid for high-need students, according to figures on the university’s website. Removing access to federal student loans would also increase borrowing costs for many students financing their education, while federally-backed work-study programs could also be under threat.
McMahon has been in communication with university President Claire Shipman since the administration pulled some $400 million in federal grants and contracts from the school in March. Last month, Shipman announced that Columbia was cutting nearly 180 staff members after reductions to its federal funding.
President Donald Trump and McMahon have previously suggested that conversations with Columbia were headed in the right direction, especially compared to another Ivy-League institution, Harvard University, which has launched legal challenges against the administration’s decision to cancel its federal funding and revoke its license to admit international students.
The Department of Education does not have the authority to revoke a school’s accreditation, that authority lies with accrediting agencies like MSCHE. But the federal government can stop recognizing an accreditor as a reliable judge of the quality of higher education, which chokes off federal aid from an agency’s member schools.
The push could also leave the Middle States Commission itself in jeopardy. Trump in April signed an executive order calling on the Education Department to review education accreditation services that certify the validity of schools and programs to employers and loan providers. The administration warned that commissions that accreditate schools that fail to meet certain standards could result in the accreditors themselves being stripped of their authority.
Trump’s administration has seized on the protests over the Israel-Hamas war that rocked college campuses to push academic institutions to adopt a wide-range of policy changes over matters such as admissions and faculty hiring, casting it as an effort to counter antisemitism. But university administrators have said the push threatens their schools’ missions and free speech.
“I think Columbia wants to get to the bottom of the problem,” Trump said last Friday during an Oval Office event, comparing the school favorably with Harvard. “They’ve acted very well. And there are other institutions too they’re acting, but Harvard is trying to be a big shot.”
