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Trump’s Columbia funding cut turns campus grievance into a legal and political mess
The administration’s decision to freeze about $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University instantly escalated a campus fight into a national test of Trump’s willingness to use federal money as a club. The move was sold as a response to antisemitic harassment, but the sheer speed and breadth of the cancellation invited questions about whether the White House and its agencies were using punishment before facts, process, or tailoring. That is a dangerous habit in any administration; in this one, it is also a political reflex. The likely result is more litigation, more resistance from universities, and more evidence that Trump’s team prefers theatrical leverage to stable governance.