Trump hits Columbia with "consent decree" over antisemitism - here's what that means

Having withdrawn $400 million in grants and contracts from Columbia University over what it considers a failure to adequately protect Jewish students from harassment and threats, the Trump administration now seeks to impose a consent decree on Columbia in exchange for regaining those funds, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

So what does the consent decree entail?

According to the Journal, a consent decree is a binding legal agreement, voluntarily entered into, in which a federal judge ensures that a given public or private institution or government office follows certain terms to receive federal funding - in this case, ensuring that Columbia actually takes the promised steps needed to protect Jewish students.

This move comes following a number of voluntary agreements reached with other institutions by the Biden administration, agreements whose implementation is impossible to enforce.

Trump has also withdrawn federal money - or threatened to do so - from other major institutions such as Harvard and Brown, in a sign of the seriousness of the effort to stamp out the antisemitism that revealed itself during the "Tentifada" protests against Israel following October 7 and the war in Gaza.