Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said Tuesday that more vetting for international students and professors is necessary in order to quell violent antisemitic protests.
McMahon told the Daily Caller News Foundation that she has discussed plans with Columbia University interim president Katrina Armstrong to improve its process for admitting students, particularly foreign and international students. Multiple student visa holders have been arrested and are now facing deportation over their roles in the anti-Israel protests that overtook college campuses across the nation following Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
“We talked about making sure that some of the students were vetted before they were admitted [for] if they did have [a] terrorist background, and I’m not saying any of them did, but these are the kinds of things that we talked about,” McMahon said. “And I do believe also that there are faculty who come on board at Columbia who might also be more inclined to encourage that kind of activity on campus.”
Several professors and university administrators have been caught participating in or encouraging protesters, which the secretary said she was made aware of during her recent visit to Columbia.
“There was one teaching assistant who had dismissed class [a previous day] that said, ‘please go join the protest,’” McMahon recalled.
McMahon added that Armstrong agreed the school “needed to address all the issues.”
A task force made up of the Department of Education (ED), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and General Services Administration sent a letter to Columbia on March 13, notifying the university $400 million in federal funding was being revoked and issuing a list of demands the school must comply with in order to earn back its funding. Some of the demands included a “plan for comprehensive admissions reform” and a “plan to hold all student groups accountable.”
Columbia announced Friday that it had reached a preliminary agreement with the Trump administration, which ED described as “only the first step in rehabilitating its relationship with the government, and more importantly, its students and faculty.”
At least 60 colleges are under investigation by the education department relating to complaints of antisemitism that were filed but not resolved under the Biden administration, the DCNF was informed.
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