New York, March 24 (RHC)-- U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said Columbia University is on track to regain $400 million in federal funding after the Ivy League institution yielded to the Trump administration’s demands. 

Those demands by the White House include banning face masks on the New York City campus, hiring 36 new security officers with greater power to arrest and crack down on students and appointing a “senior vice provost” to oversee the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies and the Center for Palestine Studies.

In response, students say they will continue to fight for Palestinian rights and for Columbia to divest from Israel.  

Free speech experts are sounding the alarm.  Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, told reporters: “Unfortunately, it appears that Columbia has capitulated to the bullying of the Trump administration and ceded significant control over academic decisions, like a couple of departments, admissions, discipline, to the Trump administration in return for the Trump administration backing off from its threat to cut off $400 million in grants that have absolutely nothing to do with claims of antisemitism or failure to deal with it.”

[ SOURCE:  DEMOCRACY NOW ]