Columbia and Penn Made Trump Deals. More Universities Could Be Next.

U.S.|Columbia and Penn Made Trump Deals. More Universities Could Be Next.

White House officials have reached deals with two Ivy League universities and are now armed with a proven strategy to pressure other schools to rewrite their policies and reorient campus politics.

First, they strip away hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding, based on vague accusations that a university abets antisemitism or unlawfully supports transgender rights. Then they make demands, wearing down school administrators until making concessions to the White House appears to be the only way forward.

The strategy worked twice in the last month, with Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. That leaves at least five more embattled schools — Brown, Cornell, Harvard, Northwestern and Princeton — with decisions to make about whether to fight or to bargain.

The White House has touted the deals with Columbia and Penn as victories. But they also offer frameworks for wary college administrators as they consider which sacrifices are worth making to try to placate a president bent on bringing elite institutions to heel. Now Columbia has shown that a fragile peace can be purchased.

Under the deal announced Wednesday night, Columbia will pay $221 million and stand by an array of previous pledges, like limits on protests and greater internal oversight of certain academic programs. But it secured a provision saying that no part of the agreement “shall be construed as giving the United States authority to dictate faculty hiring, university hiring, admissions decisions, or the content of academic speech.”

Penn did not agree to pay anything, but promised, among other terms, that its athletics policies would align with the Trump administration’s beliefs about participation by transgender people.