Good morning, and welcome to Tuesday, March 11. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

The scramble after the storm

The Trump administration pushed long-simmering crises to a head at an Ivy League institution last weekend. And early signs suggest the Ivy League has little appetite for pushing back.

The Trump administration pounded its chest after shocking Columbia University this weekend by canceling $400 million in federal grants and arresting a Palestinian activist who is a former student in university-owned housing. Immigration officials also sought to take into custody a second international student but were not allowed to enter her apartment, the Associated Press reported.

• “The task force is sending a message: The Trump administration and [Attorney General] Pam Bondi will not tolerate antisemitism on college campuses,” Leo Terrell, who leads a Justice Department task force to combat antisemitism, said on Fox News.

Columbia leaders have been measured … or meek, depending on your perspective. Interim President Katrina Armstrong committed to “working with the federal government to address their legitimate concerns” and to fight antisemitism after the funding cuts were announced on Friday. A university spokesperson declined comment to the Associated Press on Mahmoud Khalil’s detention over the weekend, and the university posted that it will follow the law.

Don’t forget: There is a playbook for a different response. A combative institution might have decried being deprived of grants like the $1.1 million Columbia is losing to study opioid exposure on preterm infants. Leaders appealing to principles might argue that revoking federal funding without following lengthy processes is neither legal nor good governance. A transparent university might come forward with as much clear information as possible about an arrest in a private area of campus that’s likely to lead to a deportation.

But the Trump administration has signaled it’s not finished with its punishments. Columbia has more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments, and administration officials have suggested they want to cut more.

And Columbia wasn’t ready to treat a second Trump administration transactionally or relationally. Top Columbia leaders contributed more than $4.1 million to candidates running for federal office in 2020 and 2024, the Columbia Daily Spectator student newspaper found last fall. Almost 88 percent went to Democrats. At one point, as Congress was about to heap unwelcome attention on the university’s antisemitism policies, the co-chair of Columbia’s board texted “If we are keeping our head down, maybe we shouldn’t meet with Republicans.”

• “We’ve never had our government sort of turn against us as citizens, as educators, as researchers, as people working for the betterment of human health,” Donna L. Farber, a professor of microbiology and immunology who leads a lab at Columbia, told The Chronicle.

Why not sue now? Michael C. Dorf, a Cornell University law professor, has offered theories: The Trump administration has legal authority to cancel some of Columbia’s funding for reasons that aren’t related to antidiscrimination. Columbia leaders are worried the administration will freeze them out of future grants. Or Congress could cut funding for Columbia.

You can practically hear the hush falling over the Ivy League. Harvard University temporarily froze hiring as it assesses “changes in federal policy,” leaders announced on Monday. The University of Pennsylvania froze hiring, stopped salary adjustments, and announced a review of capital spending.

• Penn faces greater disruptions than it did from the 2008 financial crisis or Covid-19 pandemic, leaders wrote, according to The Daily Pennsylvanian student newspaper.

Will the hush fall elsewhere? The Trump administration closed Monday by warning dozens more colleges. The U.S. Department of Education told all colleges currently under investigation for allegations of antisemitic discrimination that they could face sanctions if they don’t protect Jewish students.

• That’s a diverse list of 60 colleges, including wealthy institutions like Princeton University, liberal-arts colleges like Illinois Wesleyan University, public flagships like Ohio State University, and lesser-known public institutions like George Mason University.
• “This is the first arrest of many to come,” Trump posted on social media about Khalil. However, a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration from deporting Khalil as his arrest is challenged in court.

The bigger picture: Columbia is now the test case of just how much the government leviathan can use its muscle to reshape campus life.

For more:

• 📱 The immigration arrest at Columbia stoked outrage and raised legal questions, The Chronicle’s Alissa Gary reports.
• 📱 Barnard college is mired in a debate about discipline for pro-Palestinian activists, The Chronicle’s Maya Stahl writes.
• 📚 Bureaucratic mechanisms meant to excise bigotry were always at risk of being manipulated by demagogues, Len Gutkin writes in The Review newsletter.
• 📚 Trump’s threats against higher education’s independence are putting the larger constitutional order at risk, David H. Guston argues in The Chronicle Review.
• 📚 Columbia should fight the rescinding of grants and contracts in court and denounce it for what it is: McCarthyism, David A. Bell argues in The Chronicle Review.

Quick hits

• No “climate change” at Coast Guard Academy: The U.S. Coast Guard Academy struck “climate change” and related terms from its curriculum to comply with orders from the Trump administration. Provost Amy Donahue maintained that the academy has not “and will not abandon science education.” But a former Coast Guard commandant retorted that cadets must learn about climate change to execute missions and coordinate with federal agencies. (Inside Climate News)
• Accreditors’ DEI lands in the crosshairs: The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business deleted “diversity and inclusion” from its 10 guiding accreditation principles, replacing the term with “community and connectedness” in a change it described as limiting risks at a time when diversity, equity, and inclusion terminology has become politicized. Meanwhile, Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general, warned the American Bar Association to cut DEI requirements for law schools or risk losing its federal recognition as an accreditor. The ABA had previously suspended for review the requirements in question. (Financial Times, Inside Higher Ed)
• House Republicans propose Education Department cuts: The caucus’s plan to fund the government for seven months could cut more than $202 million from the U.S. Department of Education, much from local programs. (Politico)
• Could U. of New Orleans return to LSU? As the University of New Orleans grapples with a financial and enrollment crisis, top lawmakers have asked the state’s higher-education oversight board to examine placing the institution into the Louisiana State University system. The University of New Orleans was moved from LSU to the University of Louisiana system in 2011. (Louisiana Illuminator)
• Bowdoin won’t divest: The liberal-arts college in Maine announced that it won’t alter its investment strategies. The decision comes after a five-day student encampment in February protested the college’s lack of action on a referendum that students had passed, which called for Bowdoin to stop investing in companies that make weapons used by Israel. (Portland Press Herald)
• Conference sets first revenue-share floor: The American Athletic Conference on Friday decided that its member institutions must share with athletes at least $10 million in additional scholarships, stipends, and direct payments over three years starting in 2025-26. The U.S. Naval and Military academies are exempt. The minimum payment could help the AAC compete for players at a time when institutions in conferences with more financial heft could pay up to a $20.5-million cap that’s outlined under a pending settlement ushering in the new pay-for-play era. (Yahoo, The Chronicle)

Quote of the day

“Course content and classroom instruction are government speech subject to regulation by the university.”

— Court documents filed by lawyers representing the University of Alabama Board of Trustees and other state officials

The lawyers are defending a 2024 law against diversity, equity, and inclusion, as the Alabama Reflector reported. That law bars DEI programs at public colleges and prevents instruction about concepts like race, sex, and systemic discrimination that lawmakers deemed divisive.

Professors, students, and the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP sued to stop the law in January, alleging it infringes on their First and 14th Amendment rights.

Stat of the day

38

That’s the number of states where child care was more expensive than public-college tuition in 2023, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. The count rose by five states since 2020, Stateline reported.

The bigger question: If child care is going to be so expensive, can it at least put an end to the no-longer-accurate “ever increasing cost of college” meme?

Comings and goings

• Glenn Hegar, comptroller for the state of Texas, has been named chancellor of the Texas A&M University system.
• David Miller has been named senior vice president for administration, finance, and operations at Wichita State University, after serving in the interim role since November.
• John Morris, senior vice president at the Texas A&M Foundation, has been named chief executive officer and president of the University of Minnesota Foundation.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com.

Footnote

Like the surrounding Western North Carolina, Warren Wilson College was hard hit by Hurricane Helene in late September.

It was the better part of a month before President Damián J. Fernández could announce that classes wouldn’t have to be online, that Warren Wilson was “ready to resume — in an imperfect world — our teaching and learning.” Campus had been dried out, cleaned, repaired, and reconnected to adequate power, water, and internet service.

Restoring the necessities on campus is one thing. Restoring the spirit and protecting the culture of a region is another entirely. So it’s heartening to see that the college hosted an instrument distribution on Sunday.

The television and radio program WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour collected about 1,000 donated instruments to be handed out at the college. They were available for musicians who lost their own instruments in the floods and destruction, WLOS reported.

“Warren Wilson College is deeply committed to supporting the music of Western North Carolina and the larger region,” Ben Krakauer, chair of Warren Wilson’s music program, told the television station.

It may be a small step, but it tugs at the heartstrings.