In a head-spinning pair of announcements on Wednesday, the National Institutes of Health said it would lift its months-long freeze on all research funding to Columbia University — then reversed its reversal, according to emails sent to agency staff Wednesday and obtained by The Chronicle.
The initial announcement appeared to undo the federal agency’s decisions this spring to stop paying scientists working on existing projects and to block new funding to the university. In an email, Michelle Bulls, director of the NIH’s Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration, wrote, “We have been told that we can resume funding awards to Columbia (funding pause has been lifted).” She added that there was a significant caveat, which was that the agency had not received clearance to reinstate grants “that were terminated for ‘antisemitism.’” Citing concerns that the campus had failed to protect Jewish students from harassment, the Trump administration pulled $400 million in federal funding from Columbia in March.
But hours later on Wednesday, another email sent to NIH staff said that all awards to the Ivy League campus needed to be paused again.
It was not clear why the NIH flip-flopped. But the changes came as Columbia was negotiating with the White House and making some concessions that President Trump said in late May would take the university out of the “hot seat.”
A university spokesperson confirmed the first wave of news about the reversal, saying that “Columbia is aware of the renewal and continuance of some government grants.” But the spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment on the turnaround.
Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, the NIH’s parent agency, said in a statement, “There is no federal funding for unvetted woke ‘research’ at Columbia. Any minimal disbursements that presently exist are for specific measures, including to wind down the grant entirely.”
It wasn’t the first time that the NIH has walked back a policy after unveiling it. In April, it released a policy stating that grant recipients must comply with federal antidiscrimination laws, defined to mean that grantees should not operate any programs that promote “discriminatory equity ideology” or take part in any boycotts of Israeli companies. On June 9, the NIH said it was rescinding the policy. And three days later, the agency said it was rescinding the rescission.
Columbia was the first campus to be individually targeted by the second Trump administration over alleged antisemitism on the campus. Since the federal scrutiny began in early March, the university has responded by meeting some of the government’s demands, such as making changes to student disciplinary processes and protest rules, hiring “special officers” with arrest powers, and placing all regional studies under the review of a senior vice provost.
Columbia’s willingness to negotiate stands in contrast with the approach taken by Harvard University’s leaders, who rejected a list of administration demands.
In a message to campus last week, Columbia’s acting president, Claire Shipman, disputed the notion that the university had capitulated to unreasonable demands. “Following the law and attempting to resolve a complaint is not capitulation,” she wrote. “That narrative is incorrect.” Shipman added that the university was committed to retaining “autonomy and independent governance,” among other things.
