The federal government and Columbia University were engaged Thursday in 11th-hour discussions over whether the Ivy League school intends to bend to President Trump’s demands or let his deadline elapse and risk $400 million in federal funds.
“Productive conversations have been ongoing and there were areas of the pre-conditions that needed to be clarified and work through to operationalize and implement,” a source familiar with the ongoing negotiations told The Post.
“The federal government is steadfast on its pre-condition requirement to even have a real negotiation, and those preconditions need to be met to the satisfaction of the federal government.”
Trump warned the elite university earlier this month that it had until March 20 to comply with a list of demands — including banning masks campus-wide and meting out stiffer punishments for anti-Israel protesters on campus — or lose hundreds of millions in grants and contracts.
The asks were explicitly spelled out in a March 13 letter sent to the university by a joint task force composed of the General Services Administration, the Department of Education and Health and Human Services.
Adherence to the stipulations was cited as a precondition for Columbia and the administration to resume “formal negotiations” about the future of the school’s “continued financial relationship with the United States government,” it said.
Complying with the demands would require the Manhattan school to establish a firm ban on masks, consolidate authority to hand out suspensions or expulsions with the university president and impose “meaningful discipline” against those who took part in last spring’s violent campus protests.
A Columbia spokesperson declined to comment.
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