Columbia University’s compliance with Trump’s demands sets a precedent for other universities facing federal pressure 

Days before Indian PhD scholar Ranjani Srinivasan studying at Columbia University chose to self-deport from the U.S. after learning her visa was revoked, three federal immigration agents showed up at the door of her university-affiliated housing. When she did not open, they showed up again the next day.

Their visit came just hours before Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia student also residing in campus housing, was detained and informed that his green card had been revoked.

Days later, immigration officials announced the arrest of a second individual linked to the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia and the revocation of another student’s visa. Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian from the West Bank, was taken into custody by immigration officers for overstaying her student visa, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

“Ms. Kordia’s visa was terminated in January 2022 due to ‘lack of attendance,’” the department stated, adding that she had previously been arrested for participating in protests in April 2024.

Columbia also expelled Grant Miner, president of the Student Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers (SWC-UAW). Mr. Miner was removed just one day before the union was set to begin bargaining negotiations with the university. On the same day, Columbia’s University Judicial Board issued disciplinary rulings against students involved in the April 2024 occupation of Hamilton Hall. Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a student-led group, stated on Instagram that 22 students faced expulsions, suspensions, or degree revocations for their participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

These measures have not been taken in isolation — they followed an ultimatum issued by the Trump administration to Columbia University laying out nine demands it must commit to by the end of business hours on March 20 “as a precondition” to restore federal funding. It included banning masks, empowering campus cops, and putting the school’s department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies under “academic receivership,” which means it would no longer be controlled by the faculty.

Columbia has already begun complying with some of the administration’s demands. Faculty members and student activists have accused the university of caving to federal pressure rather than standing up for free expression on campus.

The university caved in to most of the demands from the Trump administration, according to a new list of actions published on the Office of the President’s website on Friday (March 21). The move comes as the university seeks to restore $400 million in federal grants that was revoked by the the administration, accusing it of failing to protect Jewish students.

The university said it will ban some masks on campus, hire 36 “special officers who will have the ability to remove individuals from campus and/or arrest them,” and place the Middle East, South Asian, and African studies department and the Centre for Palestine Studies under the purview of a senior vice-provost, who will be appointed by the university and will supervise curriculum and non-tenured faculty hiring.

The administration has insisted that the university must also implement “long-term structural reforms”, though it has not specified what those would entail. On Thursday (March 20), President Donald Trump also signed an executive order to dismantle the department of education.

In a Friday post on X, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce wrote, “@Columbia FOLDS to the Trump admin’s demands to protect Jewish students and faculty. School administrators failed to hold pro-terror mobs accountable for rampant antisemitism.”

“Now, masks are banned during protests and safety measures are increasing. Republicans and the Trump admin are stopping it,” the post reads.

Doubling down on protestors

The Trump administration’s targeting of visa-holding students at Columbia University — already at the centre of a cultural firestorm — has opened a new front in Mr. Trump’s push to enforce immigration policies and address campus protests, which critics say is an effort to suppress pro-Palestinian activism.

Earlier this month, Mr. Trump hailed the arrest of Mr. Khalil, calling it “the first of many to come.” In a post on social media, he vowed to deport students engaged in what he described as “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.” The arrests and attempted detentions of Columbia students have sparked an uproar among Democrats and civil rights groups.

Mr. Khalil, a Palestinian activist and former Columbia University graduate student, was detained from his home earlier this month. His lawyers, in an updated lawsuit seeking his immediate release, described the transfer as a “de facto kidnapping,” alleging that the agents escorting him never identified themselves.

His treatment, they wrote, echoed the fear and uncertainty he experienced when he fled Syria in 2013, after several of his friends forcibly disappeared during a wave of arbitrary detentions.

Over the course of the last year, the campus has remained under a lockdown as it found itself as the epicentre of protests since.

The university’s Morningside Capmus, housed in New York’s Upper West Side, which once presented widely opened gates to everyone now resembles a fortress with scores of public safety officials manning every entry, denying access even to alumnus, while allowing only current students in amid ever evolving entry rules that the administration updates on its websites. The restrictions are drawing criticism and even a lawsuit from local residents who have sued the ivy league for denying access for the campus walkway that covers the stretch of 116th street, Broadway.

Growing fears among international students

“As a former student on my OPT visa I am not only scared to talk openly about this issue, but I am also even scared to report on it,” a former Columbia Journalism School alumni said, requesting anonymity.

The Columbia Journalism School faculty in a statement released on March 14 expressed deep concern about the threat to press freedom in the U.S. and the chill being felt at Columbia stating that many international students felt afraid to come to classes or events on campus.

“Freedom of the press — a bedrock principle of American democracy — is under threat in the United States. Here at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism we are witnessing and experiencing an alarming chill… After Homeland Security seized and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate of Columbia’s School of Public and International Affairs, without charging him with any crime, many of our international students have felt afraid to come to classes and to events on campus,” the statement said.

“They are right to be worried. Some of our faculty members and students who have covered the protests over the Gaza war have been the object of smear campaigns and targeted on the same sites that were used to bring Khalil to the attention of Homeland Security. President Trump has warned that the effort to deport Khalil is just the first of many,” it added.

So far, the measures taken by the university over the course of the past year which included setting up an ‘anti-Semitism taskforce’, calling the NYPD on campus to disperse encampments, and cracking down on students who took part in the protests amid harsh criticism from students and faculty to allowing federal agents inside campus dorms, has largely aligned with the demands of the federal administration including the erstwhile Biden administration, and yet have been targeted.

As Columbia navigates these challenges, the outcome could have lasting implications for both student activism and universities nationwide. (

Anisha Dutta is a freelance journalist based in New York)