The Trump administration’s sudden and fairly unprecedented termination of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to Columbia University raises worries among the nation’s K-12 schools that something similar could happen to their funding, according to legal experts.
The quick termination of $400 million in grants and contracts—which came before the completion of several pending investigations into the Ivy League university in New York—is arbitrary, one constitutional law expert said. When punishment is applied arbitrarily, school districts can’t assume they’re safe from similar action simply by following laws.
“If you are going to be subject to arbitrary, unilateral punishment—arbitrary being the key word—there’s nothing you can do to avoid being punished, because it’s, by definition, arbitrary,” said Derek Black, a professor of law at the University of South Carolina who specializes in constitutional law and public education.
“How can you predict what arbitrary punishment may come your way? There’s definitely going to be districts that try to back away and do things right, but when you have an arbitrary actor, there’s no set of good behavior that guarantees you not getting punished.”
While it’s a rare move, it’s not an unprecedented one from the Trump administration; the U.S. Department of Education pulled a similar maneuver in Trump’s first term as a way to quickly deliver punishment while the lengthy investigation process—which can take years—continued, said Jackie Wernz, a civil rights attorney who served in the department’s office for civil rights under President Barack Obama and during the first Trump administration.
“I think it’s just a sign of how aggressively this administration wants to effectuate quick change in this area—and quicker change than what OCR generally allows through its enforcement processes,” Wernz said.
School districts are already on notice from Trump administration threats to their funding
The termination of roughly $400 million in federal grants to and contracts with Columbia University comes as President Donald Trump’s administration aggressively seeks to use federal subsidies as a hammer to enforce his political priorities. The decision from four federal departments to pull back funding immediately, in what they called a “first round of action” in a March 7 announcement, is a break from procedure that could have ripple effects, legal experts say.
Already, districts have been put on notice with a flurry of executive actions that threaten to pull dollars if schools teach about racism or gender identity in a way Trump classifies as “radical indoctrination,” require COVID-19 vaccinations, or allow transgender athletes to play on teams that align with their gender identity.
“The basic fact that even Southern segregated schools were not dealt with so swiftly tells you a lot about the unilateral assertion of power—and in fact, what I would call illegitimate power to just get what someone wants—regardless of the facts or the laws or the possibility of compromise,” Black said.
Shortly after Trump took office and issued orders on transgender athletes and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, the Education Department’s office for civil rights, which investigates discrimination in the nation’s federally funded schools and colleges, opened a number of high-profile investigations aligned with those orders.
Maine, which publicly pushed back against Trump’s assertions, saw probes from three federal agencies and a swift finding of a Title IX violation from one investigation, which Wernz said calls into question how thorough subsequent discrimination investigations will be. One of the agencies, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has already frozen funding to the University of Maine System while its probe continues.
Investigations into Columbia predate Trump’s return to the White House, stemming from protests that broke out on campuses nationwide after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel.
The Education Department’s office for civil rights had three open investigations into Columbia for potential violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act before Trump took office. Those investigations stemmed from claims of antisemitic and anti-Muslim harassment.
Under Trump, the office opened another investigation into Columbia and four other schools alleging over antisemitic harassment claims as recently as Feb. 3.
An Education Department spokesperson didn’t respond to a question from Education Week on the status of any of those probes.
The Education Department—in conjunction with the Justice and Health and Human Services departments and the U.S. General Services Administration—announced last week that a first round of funding terminations, totaling $400 million by their estimate, were to be made immediately, citing “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” The agencies didn’t detail the nature of the funding.
A federal task force is continuing to investigate and plans to announce further terminations, noting in a news release that the university holds more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments.
A spokesperson for the university said Columbia pledged to work with the government to restore funding.
“We take Columbia’s legal obligations seriously and understand how serious this announcement is and are committed to combatting antisemitism and ensuring the safety and well-being of our students, faculty, and staff,” the spokesperson said.
The federal agencies are terminating grant funding through assurance requirements, through which recipients must comply with federal laws, Wernz said. It’s a move the Trump administration made in 2018, when the Education Department withheld part of a grant it had awarded to Chicago Public Schools over sexual violence complaints.
“It’s almost like the Trump administration is looking for a way to fast-forward and be able to leverage funds more quickly than OCR allows,” Wernz said.
It’s a rare move for the federal government, Wernz said. And the removal of funds is foreboding for school districts, Black said.
“I think the troubling, autocratic aspect of it is that if your No. 1 priority is retaining your federal funds, if your No. 1 priority is not showing up in the New York Times, it’s not good enough to follow the law. You have to follow the will of the administration,” Black said. “You have to rely on staying in the goodwill of the administration. And that’s a scary prospect.”
It’s rare for the Education Department to terminate funds
There is a process for a federal agency to officially terminate funds, Black said. After an investigation from the department and a refusal by the school to come into compliance, the department can begin the work to terminate funding, at which point Congress is notified. Experts have said it’s rare for it to get to that point.
Typically, terminating funds under Title VI isn’t punishment for past misdeeds. It’s to prevent them from recurring, and to force an entity to the table for compliance, Black said.
The Education Department most recently terminated funds from a school district in 1990, when a Georgia district refused to comply with an investigation into how it was treating students with disabilities.
“You can count the number of times the federal funds have been terminated in the last half century on your fingers. Maybe you have to use a toe,” Black said. “But it’s small, and that’s because when the federal government makes an actual finding of discrimination that’s inconsistent with the law, school districts concede. Universities concede. They don’t say, ‘Oh, we have a right to discriminate.’ They go, ‘OK, well, you caught us all right. We’ll do something.’”
In this case, Columbia isn’t seeking to break the law, Black said.
“This isn’t someone who’s insisting on a right to violate the law, but rather, this is someone not even given a chance, it seems to me, to come into voluntary compliance if they have, in fact, violated the law,” he said.
Experts, as well as current and former OCR employees, have expressed concern that school districts will pull back on programming and curriculum to adhere to Trump’s directives, even if they conflict with standing law—which the president can’t override with an executive order.
Wernz advised districts to look at their grant funding to determine what could be at risk, if the Trump administration turns its attention that way.
“That’s definitely where you want to be coming up with a contingency plan as far as funding—if you’ve got a massive grant that’s paying for some really important programs, how are you going to backfill that if you were subject to an enforcement action like this?” Wernz said.
