Judge dismisses Columbia University faculty lawsuit over Trump funding cuts, demands

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By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) -A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against the Trump administration by two labor unions for Columbia University faculty that challenged funding cuts and demands to overhaul student discipline and boost oversight for a Middle Eastern studies department.

U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil in Manhattan said the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers lacked legal standing to sue, with Columbia itself “conspicuously absent” from the case.

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

“If any funds have been wrongfully withheld, such funds may be recovered at the end of a successful lawsuit by the appropriate plaintiff in an appropriate forum,” she added. “It is not the role of a district court judge to direct the policies of the Executive Branch first and ask questions later.”

Both plaintiffs plan to appeal.

“The Trump administration’s threats and coercion at Columbia University are part of an authoritarian agenda that extends far beyond Columbia,” Todd Wolfson, president of the professors’ union, said in a statement. “We will continue to fight back.”

Vyskocil, a Trump appointee, ruled 12 days after the Department of Education threatened to revoke Columbia’s accreditation over the university’s alleged failure to protect Jewish students, including from pro-Palestinian protests.

Columbia was the first major U.S. university targeted in President Donald Trump’s effort to conform higher education to his policies.

It has acceded to some White House demands, including by boosting security and announcing a review of its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department.

Other schools, including Harvard University, have fought Trump in court.

The labor unions’ lawsuit originally targeted $400 million of Columbia funding cuts, and later sought an injunction to prevent the Trump administration from interfering with more than $5 billion of grants and contracts.

Vyskocil said that to the extent the unions “feel chilled” by recent changes at Columbia, they have not shown that the changes were “merely the ‘predictable’ response” to White House demands.

The case is American Association of University Professors et al v. U.S. Department of Justice et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 25-02429.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Mark Porter)