WASHINGTON — Education Secretary Linda McMahon said Tuesday that Columbia University must “comply” with its public commitments to rein in anti-Israel activism to regain $400 million in recently axed federal funding — after the school’s interim president reportedly privately watered down her public commitment to crack down on face masks.
McMahon did not directly comment on the alleged doublespeak by Katrina Armstrong, but said that Columbia is not fast-tracked to regain the funding as the administration ensures it keeps its word.
“My answer is pretty simple,” McMahon told a journalist who asked, “What happens if it emerges that Columbia is not meeting the demands and complying with the agreements that they said they would?”
“They have to abide and comply with the terms that we have set down and [we’ve] talked with them and they’ve agreed to,” McMahon told a small group of reporters over breakfast at the Education Department’s headquarters near Capitol Hill.
“And that was kind of the basis to get them to the real first step of total negotiations to restore the funding — that, in and of itself, was not to reinstall, to reinstate the funding. So they’ll have to do that. And we certainly hope that, hope that they will, and I’ve had no indication from President Armstrong anything would be contrary to that.”
It was unclear if McMahon was aware of Armstrong’s mask remarks, which gained substantial attention at roughly the same time as she was meeting with reporters, and the Education Department did not immediately release a statement on the report.
Columbia appeared to capitulate Friday to various Trump administration demands in a bid to regain the massive amount of funding, publicly clarifying that police would be authorized to “remove individuals from campus and/or arrest them when appropriate” and that “face masks or face coverings are not allowed for the purpose of concealing one’s identity in the commission of violations of University policies or state, municipal, or federal laws.”
But Armstrong reportedly watered down the crackdown to faculty in meetings over the weekend, insisting that “there was no mask ban,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
Armstrong also said publicly that the school will tighten its anti-discrimination and discriminatory harassment policies, improve staff training, attempt to boost ideological diversity, bar protesting inside academic buildings, and will “closely examine” a “recent downturn in both Jewish and African American enrollment.”
McMahon said the feds were in no hurry to restore federal funding to the Ivy League university.
“There’s not a time frame,” she said.
“I think they would like to see it restored as soon as possible. We are moving with them — our task force has already met with them. We are in full agreement to continue on a regular basis, you know, to have the meetings.”
