Trump administration withdraws $400 million in contracts and grants to Columbia University: Live updates

A growing number of prominent companies have scaled back or set aside the diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that much of corporate America endorsed following the protests that accompanied the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in 2020.

The changes have come in response to a campaign by conservative activists to target workplace programs in the courts and social media, and more recently, President Donald Trump‘s executive orders aimed at upending DEI policies in both the federal government and private sector.

The Buckeye state has seen more than 15 million of its commercial poultry birds killed since December due to exposure to the virus, the Republican pointed out.

“One of the things that is clear is that the federal government is really going to have to accelerate the research that is being done in regard to bird flu,” DeWine told reporters Thursday following a meeting with agricultural leaders in Darke County, according to the Dayton Daily News. “…One of the messages that I heard today (during the meeting) was, ‘Please do everything you can to speed that up.’”

The Trump administration said Friday that it’s pulling $400 million from Columbia University, canceling grants and contracts because of what the government describes as the Ivy League school’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus.

The notice came five days after federal agencies announced they were considering orders to stop work on $51 million in contracts with the New York City university and reviewing its eligibility for over $5 billion in federal grants going forward. And it came after Columbia set up a new disciplinary committee and ramped up its own investigations into students critical of Israel, alarming free speech advocates.

But Columbia’s efforts evidently didn’t go far enough for the federal government.

The president also took the opportunity to bash the network’s ratings.