The Trump administration, in its mission to stomp out campus antisemitism, is threatening to pull all federal funding from Columbia University should it fail to implement a list of nine proposed reforms that range from banning masks to enforcing existing disciplinary policies. The school has until Thursday to respond to the government’s demands.

Among the various stipulations, however, there is one clause that stands out: placing the department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies under an “academic receivership” for a minimum of five years. 

The unusual requirement — set forth by the Departments of Education and of Health and Human Services last week — is shaping up to be one of the most controversial. It might also be the most important. 

“Twenty years ago, the documentary film ‘Columbia Unbecoming’ demonstrated the extent to which some of Columbia’s Middle Eastern studies professors were making life miserable for Jewish students on campus,” a leading authority on civil rights in education, Kenneth Marcus tells the Sun. “One can’t fully solve the antisemitism problem at Columbia without dealing with that program and its faculty.”

Under an academic receivership arrangement, the embattled department is placed in the control of an external professor or administrator until its issues are sorted out. Receiverships, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, have only been imposed “a handful of times over the last several decades” and “in every instance it was an internal matter.” 

The last time a receivership was invoked at Columbia was in 2002 when the English department was embroiled in a fight that “pitted feminists and multiculturalists against traditionalists,” the Chronicle reported. The university implanted a classics professor as the department’s chair, and after three years, the department “picked up and carried on quite well.” 

However, the administration’s effort to forcefully impose the arrangement was denounced by several academics and free speech activists who viewed the mandate as a government overstep. Such critics lambasted the administration’s receivership bid as “absolutely bizarre and unprecedented,” “a clear intrusion on academic freedom,” and “chilling.” 

Not everyone thinks it’s such a bad thing, though. In April 2024, the editor-at-large for Tablet Magazine, Liel Leibovitz, who received a PhD from Columbia in 2007, directly called on Columbia to place the department — which he described as a “bastion of anti-Semitic propaganda” — under an academic receivership. 

Such an arrangement, Mr. Leibovitz wrote in an op-ed in City Journal, “would allow an external and objective scholar to take over the troubled department, examine seriously the allegations against its faculty, reassess its offerings and curricula, and ensure that Columbia delivers what any fine institution of higher learning ought to — an academic experience free of fear and favor.” He continued: “It would, in short, enhance academic freedom and help uproot indoctrination and intimidation from the classroom.” 

Steve McGuire, a fellow at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, an organization which advises universities on academic freedom and free speech, acknowledges that a receivership “is certainly an extreme and fairly rare measure” but reckons that “it’s a legitimate action that can be taken when a department has really gone off the rails.” 

In the case of Columbia’s Middle Eastern studies department, “You can’t help but notice that this is Joseph Massad’s department,” Mr. McGuire says. Mr. Massad, who recently came under fire for describing the October 7 massacre as “awesome” and “astounding,” has fielded accusations of antisemitic discrimination and harassment from students for decades. 

Such was documented in 2004’s “Columbia Unbecoming” that raised the curtain on the mistreatment of Jewish students by mostly Arab and Muslim professors who taught — and continue to teach — in the aforementioned department. In just one example, Mr. Massad was accused of responding to a question raised by an Israeli student at an extracurricular event by demanding to know how many Palestinians he had killed. 

Twenty years later, Mr. Massad is still at Columbia — though now as a tenured professor — and the department is still under scrutiny. “ Dealing with faculty is significantly harder than creating new disciplinary rules,” Mr. Marcus, who twice served as the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, tells the Sun. 

That reality isn’t lost on Columbia’s Jewish Alumni Association which, back in June, called on the administration to undertake a complete “staff overhaul” to root out campus antisemitism, which the group described as “a regular, defining feature of life” at Morningside Heights. 

While Mr. Marcus is unsure of whether an academic receivership “is going to solve Columbia’s problems,” he estimates that “at least it reflects a recognition that a full resolution needs to address faculty in some way.” 

The receivership clause is just one of the nine reforms that serve “as a precondition for formal negotiations regarding Columbia University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government,” the Departments of Education and of Health and Human Services wrote in a letter to Columbia’s president last Thursday. The notice came just a week after the government revoked $400 million in federal grants and contracts over Columbia’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”

The other eight reforms include enforcing existing disciplinary policies; abolishing the school’s Judicial Board and placing disciplinary processes in the Office of the President; implementing “time, place, and manner rules” to prevent disruptions in the classroom and elsewhere; banning masking; delivering a plan to hold accountable student groups that violate school rules; adopting a formal definition of antisemitism; empowering internal law enforcement; delivering a plan for comprehensive admissions reform in line with federal law. 

Though Mr. McGuire acknowledges that its “certainly reasonable” for the school to be “concerned about maintaining its autonomy and independence” in light of the administration’s actions, he adds that “it should be tempered by the recognition that a lot of Americans are upset with the direction of education and that Columbia, even though it’s a private institution, receives a lot of federal funding.” 

Mr. McGuire adds: “I think it would be unfortunate if Columbia’s administration were to reject these wholesome reforms just because they’ve now also been called for by the Trump administration.” 

Columbia has not directly responded to the list of demands. The university is expected, per the letter, to issue documentation of “compliance” by March 20.