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By Gabe Whisnant
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A federal judge on Thursday temporarily barred Columbia University and Barnard College from complying with a Republican-led House committee's demand for student disciplinary records, at least until a hearing next week.
The order comes as U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian prepares to review a request for a temporary restraining order filed by Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil and other students seeking to block the release of their records.
Why It Matters
Khalil, who was arrested and faces possible deportation over his role in campus protests against Israel, along with other students identified by pseudonyms, sued earlier this month to prevent the House Committee on Education and the Workforce from obtaining disciplinary records related to the demonstrations.
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What to Know
The lawsuit, filed in a Manhattan federal court against the schools, the committee, and its Republican chairman, Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan, asks the court to permanently block Congress from forcing the schools to hand over the records and prevent the universities from following that order.
Newsweek has reached out to Walberg's office via a phone call on Thursday evening.
The committee had previously warned the universities that failure to comply could put billions of dollars in federal funding at risk. Judge Subramanian has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday.
The judge's order comes as Columbia University faces a deadline this week from the Trump administration to implement major reforms to secure federal funding. The university has already lost $400 million over claims that it failed to protect students and staff from antisemitism during pro-Palestinian protests.
Among the administration's demands, Columbia must place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under academic receivership for at least five years, adopt a revised definition of antisemitism, and overhaul its admissions policies.
What People Are Saying
On Thursday, a group of history professors at Columbia wrote a letter to the school's leadership urging them to reject what they called "authoritarian" efforts to dominate colleges and universities: "Should this control be realized, here or elsewhere, it would make any real historical scholarship, teaching and intellectual community impossible. They argued the administration's interventions "jeopardize our ability to think honestly about the past, the present and the future."
Katrina Armstrong, Columbia's president, wrote in a statement on Wednesday: "Legitimate questions about our practices and progress can be asked, and we will answer them. But we will never compromise our values of pedagogical independence, our commitment to academic freedom, or our obligation to follow the law," she wrote.
What Happens Next
Judge Subramanian has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday.
Reporting by the Associated Press contributed to this story.
Update: 3/20/25, 7:42 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.
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