The federal government, in a marked escalation in its battle against Columbia University, stated on Wednesday that the New York City Ivy no longer meets the standards for accreditation due to its discrimination against Jewish students. 

Secretary McMahon, in a letter released by the Department of Education, wrote that Columbia’s leaders violated the law when they “acted with deliberate indifference towards the harassment of Jewish students on its campus” following Hamas’s October 7 attack.

Accreditation is determined by an independent accrediting agency as a kind of litmus test for academic quality. If the administration’s guidance is accepted and Columbia’s accreditation is revoked, the school would no longer be eligible to receive federal and state financial aid programs. Such an outcome would be devastating for the nearly 50 percent of Columbia undergraduate students who receive that aid.

Ms. McMahon’s letter referenced a report published by the department’s office of Civil Rights in May that concluded that Columbia’s mishandling of campus antisemitism placed it in violation of the Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a statute that bars recipients of federal funding from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin. In 2004 the law was expanded to protect the rights of ethnic groups that shared a religious faith, including Jews. 

“Specifically,” the agency wrote, “Columbia failed to meaningfully protect Jewish students against severe and pervasive harassment on Columbia’s campus and consequently denied these students’ equal access to educational opportunities to which they are entitled under the law.” 

The agency noted that it is obligated under a Trump administration executive order to “promptly” report Columbia’s violations to the body that is tasked with granting accreditations across the Mid-Atlantic, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. 

According to the Commission’s guidelines, all accredited schools are required to maintain “compliance with all applicable government laws and regulations.” The Trump administration, however, does not have unilateral authority to revoke Columbia’s accreditation — that responsibility rests with the independent accreditation commission.

This latest move comes just months after Columbia agreed to implement a list of nine demands issued by the administration as a “precondition” for reinstating $400 million in revoked federal grants. Those funds were frozen over Columbia’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”

Columbia, which has been the site of some of the most virulent anti-Israel campus protests in the country since October 7, 2023, was among the first universities to be targeted by the Trump administration in its crackdown on campus antisemitism. 

However, the university’s friendly approach to the government’s crackdown has drawn rare praise from President Trump, who shared during a recent Oval office event: “I think Columbia wants to get to the bottom of the problem. They’ve acted very well.” Mr. Trump contrasted Columbia’s effort to work with the government with the stark defiance of Harvard, who the president chided for “trying to be a big shot.”