University navigating 'harsh terrain'
Columbia's site of First Amendment debates
By: BrieAnne J. Frank
USA Today
..... Columbia University has found itself in major First Amendment debates - on and off campus.
.....
Though it's just one of an array of schools targeted by the Trump administration over their responses to protects over the Israel-Hamas war, a unique tension exists between the administration's actions and the work being dun by several university institutions in support of the First Amendment and against federal oversight.
..... Columbia Journalism School is considered among the best and most prestigious in the nation, Columbia Journalism Review is widely respected, and the Knight First Amendment Institute won a federal court case against the Trump administration's efforts to deport foreign-born students protesters over their speech.
..... Following Mahmoud Khalil's detainment in March [2025] after leading protests over the war in Gaza on Columbia's campus, journalism acuity issued a statement saying such actions "represent threats against political speech and the ability of the American press to do its essential job."
..... That same month, the Trump administration announced it was canceling $400 million in federal funds for Columbia because of what it described as the school's failure to address antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
.....
After a $200 million deal between the university and the Trump administration was announced in late July, [2025] the Knight Institute - a nonprofit that operates independently form the school - said it had "serious concerns" about the deal's teems and called it an "astonishing transfer of autonomy and authority to the government."
..... Jameel Jaffer, the Knight Institute's executive director told USA Today
that Trump's focus on Columbia is part of a broader attack, siting executive orders directed at private law firms, lawsuits against media outlets and other negotiations with universities.
.....
Jaffer said leads of such institutions are in "a really hard position," through he feared that reaching deals with the Trump administration could create a domino effect. "when one university or law firm or news organization capitulates, it's incrementally harder for the next institution to resist."
..... A school spokesperson dir4ected USA Today to a part of its agreement with the federal government that says it should not "be construed as giving the United States authority to dictate faculty hiring. University hiring, admission decisions or the content of academic speech."
..... those goals were the university's "north star," and it "did not waver from it" in reaching the agreement, Columbia University Interim President Claire Shipman wrote in a July 23 [2025] statement.
..... "Columbia's governance remains in our control," she said. "The federal government will not dictate what we teach, who teaches, or which students we admit.
.....
At the time of the Knight;s Institute's founding in 2016, Jaffer knew it would have to challenge executive actions.
..... Every presidential administration has undertaken efforts implicating the freedoms of speech and the press some form, he said, pointing to his previous work at the American Civil Liberties Union involving litigation against the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.
..... But the Trump administration is implementing a "sweeping assault on the First Amendment: that is "unprecedented: Jeffer said. "We often find ourself defending principles that we, and I think most other people, assumed were well-settled."
.....
The administration has rejected such criticisms, even as it has taken actions viewed by many as a threat to the First Amendment.
..... Following President Donald Trump's assertion that he "took the freedom of speech away" as it relates to flag burnings, which the Supreme Court has long recognized as protected speech, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told USA Today "will always protect the First Amendment, while simultaneously implementing commonsense, tough-on-crime policies to prevent violence and chaos."
..... Jaffer said he is not unsympathetic to the challenging circumstances university administrators are navigating, but that it's been dispiriting to see so many of the country's most powerful institutions accommodation the Trump administration's demands rather than fighting back.
...... Jaffer emphasized that his organization has a large degree of autonomy and that Columbia hasn't interfered with its work - the vast majority of which focuses on issues outside of the Morningside Heights campus.
.....
"I'm less worried for the Knight Institute than I am for the country," he said.
Firsthand lesson in role of journalism
..... Jelani Cobb, dean of the journalism school and publisher of the Columbia Journalism, Review, called the school's deal with the Trump administration "the most pragmatic move" of the available options.
..... Cobb said he's less concerned about the university's response to the federal government than about the fact that it's being made to respond to the federal government in the first place.
..... He told USA Today that Columbia has certainly been affected by the federal scrutiny and the "two years of turmoil and confect" stemming form the Israel-Hamas war.
..... "It's a very harsh terrain ... that we're trying to navigate, but we haven't fundamentally changed anything about how we go about our responsibility," he said.
.....
Some of the journalism school's students have even found the situation "clarifying," he noted, adding that they've seen firsthand the important role journalism plays.
..... USA Today's coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.