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The Trump administration's letter to George Washington University came on Feb. 27.
The school, the administration warned, was one of 10, along with Harvard, Columbia and others, that would be visited for allegedly failing to protect Jewish community members from unlawful discrimination. The school could face remedial action, the letter said, and the administration intended to meet with the university about its concerns.
Leaders at GWU soon responded, saying they'd participate in any inquiry.
As the institution waited, the Trump administration took action elsewhere: It canceled about $400 million of funding to Columbia, then targeted Harvard, freezing $2.2 billion in grants and contracts.
GWU is trying to avoid a similar fate.
University leaders have been meeting regularly to figure out plans to respond to Trump action, according to four people familiar with the university's planning, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions. Previous efforts are finding renewed urgency.
University officials are seeking advice from alumni in the government on how to navigate the administration. They're deploying Republican and Democratic lobbyists. They're mobilizing donors, as the loss of federal funding could be financially catastrophic.
They're also considering a statement of institutional neutrality. And they're signaling to their campus, which was the center of an encampment last year, that unlike Harvard, they might have to follow some of Trump's demands.
"As we move forward, we are conscious of not acting precipitously in anticipation of possible federal actions or actions that have been enjoined by the courts," GWU President Ellen Granberg and other university leaders wrote in a community note on March 14. "However, we want to be clear that we will do what is required to protect GW's future access to federal funds, including vigorous enforcement of our policies."
In many ways, GWU's challenge - surrender to unknown demands, or risk a potentially fatal blow brought by millions of dollars in funding cuts - is the reality for the vast majority of institutions that don't have the resources of Ivy League institutions.
GWU, with about 25,000 students, is far less wealthy than Harvard, whose vast influence and resources have enabled it to sue the Trump administration and declare the sanctions an unconstitutional infringement on academic freedom. The D.C. school's national prestige is lower than that of Columbia, which capitulated to Trump's demands. That has led GWU to take a guarded approach, at times to the dissatisfaction of its student population.
"They are probably in the most difficult position of any of the local universities," said Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University in Northeast Washington. "They are being very cautious and trying to find a pathway to a resolution that is good for the university that will calm the situation down."
GWU declined to make Granberg available for this article but pointed to various statements from its weekly Federal Update, a community note it began sending March 7 to share how the administration's actions could affect GWU. Last week, Granberg was one of more than 500 university leaders to sign a letter calling for constructive engagement with the Trump administration, opposing "undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses," and rejecting "the coercive use of public research funding." That came as faculties at Big Ten universities pushed for a defense compact against Trump.
While the Trump administration has not yet formally met with GWU leaders, the White House said that could change.
"The White House does not have forthcoming actions against GW," said a senior White House official, who spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans. "But any college or university that is in violation of the law will be held accountable by the Trump administration."
• A center of protest
GWU has drawn interest from the Trump administration, some officials and faculty say, in part because of how it responded to an encampment there at the height of student protests against the war in Gaza last spring. For two weeks, students and other activists from universities across the region congregated and pitched tents on GWU's Foggy Bottom campus, with some calling for the end of the war and some demanding the end of the Jewish state.
Hundreds joined the encampment, with some breaching and dismantling barriers and vandalizing a university statue. GWU officials had called on D.C. police to clear the demonstrators, but had been rejected by the department, The Washington Post reported at the time.
After visits from members of Congress, D.C. police eventually cleared the encampment and arrested 33 people, only six of whom were GWU students.
The delay in clearing the protesters led some Republicans and others to cast the university's actions as a failure to combat antisemitism. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said that "it should not require threatening to haul D.C.'s mayor before Congress to keep Jewish students at George Washington University safe."
The fallout has continued since, as the university has tried to address issues brought up by Jewish students and last spring's encampment. It has conducted training for faculty and staff on combating antisemitism, launched an interfaith center and drafted new rules for demonstrating on campus, such as barring protesters from making "excessive noise."
In May, the university hired five lobbyists, including two former members of Congress, from the firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman to lobby Congress, the first time the school had done so since 2009. The university has since paid the firm at least $240,000 for "Higher Education Issues," according to lobbying disclosure forms, including responding to congressional investigations.
GWU eventually suspended or placed on disciplinary probation nine student organizations, including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), for their roles in the protests, an action SJP and others called "racist."
In January, the university resolved two complaints filed in 2023 alleging antisemitism and anti-Palestinian discrimination. As part of the agreement with the Education Department's Office of Civil Rights, GWU said it would revise policies on posting leaflets, banners or other posters around campus, barring people from campus and more to address discrimination - just days before Trump took office.
After nearly a year of protests and punishments, of investigations and criticism, the campus entered the first months of Trump's administration with unease.
• ‘Shadowboxing'
In just three months, the Trump administration has leveraged federal funding to upend precedent, reshape American higher education and curtail what it sees as discrimination against Jewish students. For many universities, including GWU, the onslaught poses an existential - and uncertain - risk.
One GWU active alumnus, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, compared GWU's current situation to "shadowboxing." School officials don't know what the demands from the Trump administration might be, when they will come or if they will.
In spite of that, school officials appear to still be making clear to the campus community that they will stand up for their values of free speech and academic integrity, he said.
Some researchers have already had grants canceled by the Trump administration. In an effort to protect the school and understand the Trump administration's review processes, university officials have asked faculty to submit drafts of their grant proposals, so they can be flagged for any words that would induce automatic rejections by AI tools. The school joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration to protect science grants. And it is being more selective about posting new job positions.
Some professors at the university remain concerned that the current actions aren't enough. One faculty senator, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional retaliation, said he worries the university simply hopes to get overlooked by the administration. He said he wants them to more clearly say what they will or won't do if demanded by the Trump administration.
"We're so close physically to the White House it feels like a matter of convenience for them to come for us," another senator said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly about their employer.
• A ‘grueling' waiting period
For months, faculty members, students and administrators have been on edge since they heard they were on the antisemitism task force's list of 10 - which some have called a "hit list."
Tensions between pro-Palestinian and Jewish students remain high, with some saying they are afraid to speak up in class or with friends about their political opinions for fear of social exile.
In February, pro-Palestinian students plastered a professor's office with eviction notices because of an article he published detailing plans to redevelop Gaza and relocate Palestinians. In response, the professor submitted a complaint to the federal government, alleging antisemitism. Last month, Levi Shemtov, a rabbi who oversees an international organization's national and local operations in D.C., including at several universities, testified in front of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee about antisemitism at colleges and at GWU. Shemtov later told The Post that GWU has begun more effectively addressing antisemitism and anticipated stronger enforcement of its policies on campus, praising administrators for a "tangible, if partial, correction."
After Shemtov's testimony, committee chairman Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) sent a letter to Granberg about the "concerning" posting of the fliers and asked for a detailed accounting of incidents involving SJP's GWU chapter by April 9. GWU declined to share its response.
Since last fall, administrators have repeatedly disciplined SJP, including most recently temporarily suspending the group in March. The group recently wrote on Instagram that Granberg had aligned "GW with the Trump administration" and made clear she would "sacrifice the GW community's safety for profit" by saying the university would do what it needed to protect federal funding. The group pledged to continue protesting, even if that meant reorganizing into another group.
Some Jewish students, families and organizations said they hope the Trump administration will demand similar changes to those made at Columbia. They want a review of relevant academic departments, including reforming the school's Institute of Middle East Studies - which they say has espoused hateful rhetoric toward Jews and encouraged students to mobilize against them - with more pro-Israel voices.
They also want the university to permanently ban the SJP and to implement a mask ban on campus. Some, like senior Sabrina Soffer, have called for the university to examine how professors are mobilizing students "toward antisemitic disruptions."
Lea Wolf, Soffer's mother, said she has met with Granberg and other university leaders several times since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks about antisemitism on campus. Wolf, who has long advocated for conservative causes in schools, co-founded GWU Jewish Parents United Leading Students Empowerment (JPULSE) in November 2023 and compiled a spreadsheet of pro-Palestinian professors who she said need to be censured for spreading antisemitism. She has sent letters to Congress and to Leo Terrell, the Trump administration official overseeing the antisemitism task force.
"I can't wait for the Trump administration to withhold funds from them until they bring meaningful, effective changes to GW," she said. "GW must change its culture." (The Post updated this article after it learned of Wolf and Soffer's relationship.)
Other Jewish students and faculty, though, said the antisemitism allegations are overblown and praised the efforts GWU has made to make campus welcoming for them. Some felt the allegations are being used to try to extract unrelated concessions.
For many on campus, there's only so much they can do as they watch other schools face off with the Trump administration, wondering if they will be next.
"The waiting period feels grueling psychologically," said Arie Dubnov, an Israeli professor. "Like being on death row." .
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