Two men who worked as janitors at Columbia University allege they were held hostage and terrorized inside the school by anti-Israel protesters in April 2024. They sued the university a year later.
Lester Wilson and Mario Torres finalized their lawsuit following Columbia’s large settlement with the federal government.
While the men aren’t Jewish, the mob, armed with ropes, zip ties and crow bars, terrorized them while making antisemitic remarks. Other people on campus also faced similar situations.
The school will pay $200 million in fines to settle several investigations into discriminatory behavior on the Ivy League campus. That includes the Department of Education and the Justice Department’s inquiry into alleged antisemitism on campus.
It will also pay $21 million to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to settle claims filed by Jewish faculty members, staff and students who work at the university and faced harassment like Wilson and Torres.
It’s the “largest religious discrimination harassment settlement” in the commission’s 60 years of existence, according to the office’s acting chairwoman Andrea Lucas.
What’s in the settlement?
Columbia University Acting President Claire Shipman said the agreement ends a time “of considerable institutional uncertainty” by concluding the investigations and protecting the school’s “academic mission, research enterprise, and independence.”
She referred to the Trump administration’s decision to put the yearly $1.3 billion in federal funding on hold and freeze $400 million in grants.
Shipman clarified that the university is not admitting to any wrongdoing, including violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
“We are not, however, denying the very serious and painful challenges our institution has faced with antisemitism.”
She touted the school’s push to retain its north star; Columbia leaders will continue making decisions about staffing, admissions and coursework without intrusion from the federal government.
But the school made many concessions previously requested by the federal government.
Columbia agreed to review several programs surrounding the Middle East, including the Center for Palestine Studies and the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, and employ a student liaison to address antisemitism concerns and support Jewish students, and shed any policies with “race-based outcomes, quotas, diversity targets.”
The settlement included a clause that commits Columbia to protecting women in sports by upholding “all-female sports, locker rooms, and showering facilities.”
President Donald Trump in a post on Truth Social Wednesday night said that Columbia also promised to end “their ridiculous DEI policies, admitting students based ONLY on MERIT, and protecting the Civil Liberties of their students on campus.”
“Numerous other Higher Education Institutions that have hurt so many, and been so unfair and unjust, and have wrongly spent federal money, much of it from our government, are upcoming,” Trump said in the post.
He thanked Education Secretary Linda McMahon for making the deal happen.
A ‘seismic shift’ in higher education?
McMahon touted the settlement as “a seismic shift in our nation’s fight to hold institutions that accept American taxpayer dollars accountable for antisemitic discrimination and harassment.”
The Education Department secretary in a post on X blamed institutions like Columbia for the violent unrest on college campuses following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
From April to June 2024, the same time frame when janitors Wilson and Torres faced intimidation, students had set up the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on campus.
Then-university president Minouche Shafik authorized the New York Police Department to take down the encampment, leading to over 100 arrests. But another encampment was erected the following day, as the Deseret News previously reported.
Columbia ended up canceling its university-wide spring graduation, and in August 2024, Shafik stepped down. Could this settlement mean a new dawn for this school and others? McMahon is optimistic about it.
“Columbia’s reforms are a roadmap for elite universities that wish to regain the confidence of the American public by renewing their commitment to truth-seeking, merit and civil debate,” said McMahon. “I believe they will ripple across the higher education sector and change the course of campus culture for years to come.”