President Donald Trump's administration is considering having Columbia University enter into a consent decree placing the school under the oversight of a federal judge, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Under a consent decree, a federal judge would have the authority to oversee Columbia's practices to ensure that the university follows orders from the federal government, with the possibility of being held in contempt of court and facing substantial fines if the school is found to violate those orders.
The move comes after the Trump administration canceled hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of federal grants and contracts to the school over anti-Israel protests on campus and the school's reaction to those demonstrations. Columbia later entered into an agreement with the administration and remains in negotiations over its future funding.
Tobias B. Wolff, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, told The New York Times that any consent decree would require a lawsuit, either by the Trump administration or Columbia.
"Judges can't just wave a wand and turn an agreement into a consent decree absent a lawsuit over which the court has proper jurisdiction," he said.
Armand Alacbay, senior vice president of strategy at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, told the Journal that Columbia is "between a rock and a hard place," noting that the school can contest a consent decree but would likely lose federal funding while the case slowly moves through the legal system.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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