Trump tops professors with judge nixing academics’ demand to restore funding to Columbia University

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Monday brought by university professors and the American Federation of Teachers trying to get the administration to restore $400 million in federal grant money to Columbia University, saying the case was ill-conceived.

Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, a Trump appointee to the court in New York, said they not only lacked legal standing to sue, but couldn’t even point to anywhere that the president and his team violated the law.

More broadly, she chided the challengers for rushing to court with a weak case, heavy on “sensational rhetoric” about academic freedom being imperiled, but didn’t see the “irony” in demanding a judge order another branch of government to spend $400 million.

“Our democracy cannot very well function if individual judges issue extraordinary relief to every plaintiff who clamors to object to executive action,” the judge scolded.

The lawsuit sprang out of the administration’s decision to terminate contracts with Columbia University for what Trump officials said was a too-weak response to anti-semitism on campus. Columbia has seen some of the most volatile pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the wake of Hamas’ murderous 2023 sneak attack on Israel and that nation’s violent retaliation in Gaza.

The groups, led by AFT and the American Association of University Professors, a labor union for college faculty, said the funding was protected by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the president’s team acted arbitrarily in cutting it off.

Some Columbia faculty are members of AFT and AAUP, so the groups said they had standing to sue.

But the judge said the legal injury at stake belongs to Columbia, not to the groups, since the money went to the school itself. She pointed out that the university is not a party to the lawsuit and indeed has chosen to negotiate and work with the Trump administration over its concerns.

And she said the evidence before her undercuts claims that the grants were terminated as retaliation for First Amendment-protected speech at Columbia.

Rather, the administration seemed worried about the hostile environment for students spawned by the protests.

A majority of the grant money came from the National Institutes of Health.

The Trump administration has demanded a list of changes at Columbia to come into compliance, including abolishing the university’s judicial board and imposing a broad ban on wearing masks to conceal identity on campus.