Columbia University has announced reaching a deal with the President Donald Trump administration to pay $200 million to settle allegations that it violated anti-discrimination laws.
The settlement, which would be paid to the federal government over a three-year period, was announced in a statement by the university.
In exchange, Mr Trump’s administration has agreed to return some of the $400 million in federal grants it froze or terminated in March, according to the BBC.
The agreement is expected to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research funding after a months-long fight over allegations that the school failed to quell anti-semitism.
Education secretary Linda McMahon described the deal with the university as “a seismic shift in our nation’s fight” to hold universities accountable.
Columbia was the first institution targeted by Mr Trump’s administration for its alleged failures to curb antisemitism amid last year’s Israel-Gaza war protests at its city campus in New York.
Claire Shipman, Columbia’s acting university president, said the “agreement marks an important step forward after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty.”
One month after Mr Trump was sworn into office, his administration stripped Columbia of $400 million in federal funding over allegations of anti-semitism.
The fund posed an immediate threat to the university’s research, leading Ms Shipman to say in June that things had reached a “tipping point.”
The decision of Mr Trump’s administration led Columbia to enact campus rule changes demanded by the administration.
The changes also included the re-organisation of its Middle Eastern studies department, and hiring a team of “special officers” empowered to remove students from campus and make arrests.
