Education secretary hails Columbia settlement as 'monumental victory' over 'far-left'
U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon gives a television interview at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 15, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
In its clash with Columbia University, the Trump administration is touting a historic $221 million settlement as a major triumph for conservative ideology—even though it had originally framed the case as a response to antisemitism on college campuses. On Thursday, Education Secretary Linda McMahon hailed the outcome as a “monumental victory for conservatives” while condemning “far-left-leaning professors.”
“Under the terms of the deal to resolve several federal probes into allegations that it had violated anti-discrimination laws,” CNN reported, “Columbia did not admit to wrongdoing but agreed to pay the government a $200 million settlement over three years and an additional $21 million to settle US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigations.”
Secretary McMahon, CNN added, “heralded the outcome as a ‘seismic shift in our nation’s fight to hold institutions that accept American taxpayer dollars accountable for antisemitic discrimination and harassment,'” and called it “a roadmap for elite universities that wish to regain the confidence of the American public by renewing their commitment to truth-seeking, merit, and civil debate.”
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Thursday morning on Fox News Business, Secretary McMahon offered a different explanation.
“I think that this is a monumental victory for conservatives who’ve wanted to do things in these elite campuses for a long time, because we had such far-left-leaning, you know, professors, and we had 27% of the students that are coming in, you know, are from outside of the United States,” McMahon told host Maria Bartiromo. She noted that the 27% was a statistic from Harvard.
“I’m really pleased with this victory,” McMahon continued. “It wouldn’t have happened if Donald Trump were not president, then I’m really pleased to execute his vision for this, that our campuses are now, what they should be. They are places for debate, they are places for education.”
“They’re not places for left-leaning riots and antisemitism, and I’m really pleased with this result.”
Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, wrote in response to McMahon’s remarks: “This is about advancing an extreme agenda.”
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“This administration,” Spitalnick said, “continues to exploit real concerns about antisemitism to undermine our core democratic norms & institutions. This is not about keeping Jews safe — if it were, they wouldn’t have gutted OCR [Office for Civil Rights] & other key protections.”
Constitutional law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis warned, “Columbia has now allowed itself to be regulated by a deal. A complete capitulation to the state, yielding their academic freedom to select their students, appoint their faculty, and adopt their curriculum. The Fellows of Magdalen College had more courage against James II in 1687.”
Jordan Acker, who serves on the University of Michigan’s Board of Regents noted:
“Three things can be true here: -Campus faculty, especially in the humanities, needs reform -Antisemitism is a problem on campus -Trump simply cares about destroying higher ed. One and two are fixable. The third is a dire threat to the American way of life and must be fought.”
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