Podcast
What does Columbia’s recent settlement with the Trump administration mean for higher education? Are the First Amendment rights of Columbia and other universities being infringed?
On July 23rd, Columbia University announced it reached a deal with the Trump administration that involves a $220 million payment; an agreement to suspend, expel, or revoke degrees from some 70 students; as well as a report to a monitor to ensure their programs “do not promote unlawful DEI goals.”
What does this settlement mean for higher education? Are the First Amendment rights of Columbia and other universities being infringed?
This week, Archon Fung and Stephen Richer are joined by Suresh Naidu, Professor of International and Public Affairs and Jack Wang and Echo Ren Professor of Economics at Columbia University, to discuss what this deal portends for higher education, democracy, and free speech.
Suresh Naidu is Jack Wang and Echo Ren Professor of Economics and Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He has a B.Math in Pure Mathematics from the University of Waterloo, a MA in economics from the University of Massachussetts-Amherst, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley. He was a Harvard Academy fellow from 2008-2010, and has been at Columbia since 2010. He works on political economy and historical labor markets. He has interests in the economic effects of democracy and non-democracy, monopsony in labor markets, the economics of American slavery, guest worker migration, and labor unions and labor organizing. He is external faculty at the Santa Fe Institute, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and co-director of the Columbia Center on Political Economy.
Archon Fung is the Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. His research explores policies, practices, and institutional designs that deepen the quality of democratic governance with a focus on public participation, deliberation, and transparency. He has authored five books, four edited collections, and over fifty articles appearing in professional journals. He received two S.B.s — in philosophy and physics — and his Ph.D. in political science from MIT.
Stephen Richer is the former elected Maricopa County Recorder, responsible for voter registration, early voting administration, and public recordings in Maricopa County, Arizona, the fourth largest county in the United States. Prior to being an elected official, Stephen worked at several public policy think tanks and as a business transactions attorney. Stephen received his J.D. and M.A. from The University of Chicago and his B.A. from Tulane University.
Stephen has been broadly recognized for his work in elections and American Democracy. In 2021, the Arizona Republic named Stephen “Arizonan of the Year.” In 2022, the Maricopa Bar Association awarded Stephen “Public Law Attorney of the Year.” In 2023, Stephen won “Leader of the Year” from the Arizona Capitol Times. And in 2024, Time Magazine named Stephen a “Defender of Democracy.”
Suresh Naidu, New York Times, “Columbia’s Administrators are Fooling Themselves” (July 23, 2025):
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/opinion/trump-columbia-deal-professor.html
Manhattan Institute Statement on Higher Education:
https://manhattan.institute/article/the-manhattan-statement-on-higher-education
David Pozen, Regulation By Deal (July 23, 2025)
https://balkin.blogspot.com/2025/07/regulation-by-deal-comes-to-higher-ed.html
PBS Newshour Interview with Michael Roth, President, Wesleyan University (July 24, 2025)
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/what-columbias-settlement-with-the-trump-administration-means-for-higher-education
Q&A With Larry Summers, “The Best Day Higher Ed Has Had in a Year” Chronicle of Higher Education (July 24, 2025)
https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-best-day-higher-ed-has-had-in-a-year
Music: Marimba Technology Explainer, Music Media Group
Videos: PBS Newshour and The Princess Bride directed by Rob Reiner
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