SWC statement on Columbia’s settlement with the Trump administration

July 25, 2025

This week, Columbia University announced their $200 million deal with the Trump administration. This is a sobering moment for the future of higher education. Columbia has capitulated to the federal government’s latest outrageous overreach—which we believe only organized labor will be able to halt.

Claire Shipman has asked us “to reset, to focus once again on academic rigor.” She asks us to continue providing quality education to thousands of undergraduate students, contribute innovative, life-saving research, and bring in grant funding every year. With the rising cost of living in New York and increased threats to non-citizen worker safety, such an ask is proving more difficult by the day. This settlement does not bring us closer to meeting our needs.

We are saddened to see Columbia reaffirm its commitment to sharing information about students to the Trump administration. They have also pledged to conduct an ideologically partisan admissions process for international students. The resolution (full text here) also promises to continue employing the Office of Public Safety’s arresting officers, which in May, assaulted our coworkers and students in Butler Library.

While Columbia brokers deals with the Trump administration behind closed doors, our contract campaign envisions a transparent path. We believe we can achieve a more just, safe, and healthy Columbia University without giving up on our core values and most vulnerable members. We believe we can have a workplace where community members directly decide our mission and working conditions -- not university administrators with no research or teaching experience or the anti-education federal government. We know best what we need. Now is the time to come together, organize our collective power, and fight for the workplace we deserve.