By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-25 17:04:19 | Updated at 2025-03-26 06:10:19
13 hours ago
Columbia’s interim president conceded Tuesday that she regrets “any confusion” about a mask ban and insisted the Trump-ordered policy changes “are real” — following reports she privately downplayed the anti-Israel crackdown during a tense faculty meeting.
“I regret any confusion and inconsistent statements and want to make sure our position is clear as we go forward,” Katrina Armstrong, the interim head of the embattled university, said in a statement in the wake of the Wall Street Journal report earlier Tuesday.
“Let there be no confusion: I commit to seeing these changes implemented, with the full support of Columbia’s senior leadership team and the Board of Trustees.
Katrina A. Armstrong insists the changes implemented at Columbia ‘are real.’ Columbia University“Any suggestion that these measures are illusory, or lack my personal support, is unequivocally false. These changes are real, and they are right for Columbia,” she added.
It comes after the Ivy League’s prez was reported to have assured faculty over the weekend there was no mask ban in place — even though the school had insisted to the Trump administration that they would be implementing one.
The Trump admin had called for the total ban on masks at campus protests as part of a sweeping list of reforms aimed at cracking down on antisemitism.
The school, which was given a month to comply or risk losing around $400 million in federal funding, caved and agreed to enforce the changes on Friday.
It publicly clarified that police would be authorized to “remove individuals from campus and/or arrest them when appropriate” and that “face masks or face coverings are not allowed for the purpose of concealing one’s identity in the commission of violations of University policies or state, municipal, or federal laws.”
