AMNA NAWAZ: Columbia University has agreed to comply with a series of demands from the Trump administration about how it will handle protests, antisemitism, and even some academic departments.

The university faced a deadline today to either comply or risk losing $400 million in federal funding.

Columbia agreed to ban masks that conceal identity, to give some campus police new power to arrest protesters, review its admission procedures, and to appoint a senior university official to oversee several academic departments, including those focused on the Middle East, as well as Jewish and Palestinian studies.

It's part of a broader crackdown on higher education.

Jeffrey Brown has our latest look.

JEFFREY BROWN: As colleges are under pressure from the Trump administration, how should they respond?

Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber is speaking out publicly and joins the "News Hour" now for this exclusive interview.

Thanks so much for joining us.

I want to start with news that we're both learning about right now, I believe, which is that Columbia University seems to have agreed to many of the demands from the Trump administration, in the hope of keeping that $400 million in research.

What's your response?

CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER, President, Princeton University: Let me say first of all, I have huge respect for Columbia University and tremendous respect for their president, Dr. Katrina Armstrong.

So I don't want to be in the position of second-guessing a peer institution, particularly under circumstances where I have just learned about the agreement.

What I will say is this.

Academic freedom is a fundamental principle of universities, has to be protected.

And so I have concerns if universities make concessions about that.

And I think once you make concessions once, it's hard not to make them again.

So that would be a framework that I would bring to this decision at any American university.

JEFFREY BROWN: In an essay in "The Atlantic" now, you refer to what's going on as an assault on academic freedom.

You write: "The attack on Columbia is a radical threat to scholarly excellence and to America's leadership in research."

Tell us, what do you see going on and how big is that threat right now?

CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER: Well, what it says is this.

America's research universities are the best in the world.

I think they are also the best that they have ever been.

If you look back at American history, two of the things that have been critical to making American universities as strong as they are academic freedom.

That is the right of universities to make decisions about how to constitute academic departments and the right of faculty, scholars, and scholarly disciplines to make judgments about what counts as quality.

That's one of the key factors.

And the second is the partnership with the government that has benefited the American people tremendously by producing these great research universities.

Right now, when you see that government partnership and the government funding being used in ways to kind of force concessions from universities around academic freedom, it threatens the strength of those institutions by undermining the ability of scholars to insist on the right standards of excellence.

JEFFREY BROWN: But I think this is an interesting point that many of us are not so aware of, which is how -- which is what you write about, how universities became responsible for a large part of government scientific and research programs, accepting a lot of money for that, but, as you write, therefore, making universities particularly vulnerable, as now.

CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER: Yes, I think if you look back at American history, one of the important developments in making America's research universities the strongest in the world was this partnership that originated around World War II.

The United States government recognized that by asking research universities to perform research on behalf of the American people and the American government, it could strengthen our economy, improve our health, increase the security of the country by making us a world leader in innovation.

And it has.

But, in doing so, the government also became a uniquely powerful patron of all these universities.

It was supplying large amounts of dollars to universities.

And this partnership created a kind of interdependence.

For decades, leaders and politicians, government officials from both parties respected the academic freedom of those universities.

And that's what's made our universities so great.

What concerns me so deeply about what's happening at Columbia and elsewhere right now is that the government seems to be using that funding stream to force concessions that are violations of academic freedom.

JEFFREY BROWN: What about, though, the main charge from the administration?

Does Columbia, do you and other universities, do you have a problem of antisemitism on campus?

Or do you think that's being exaggerated?

And what, if anything, is being done about it?

CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER: Look, I'm a scholar of religious freedom.

I'm Jewish myself.

I'm deeply concerned about antisemitism.

It is an appropriate thing for the government to be concerned about.

And it's something that all of us as university presidents have to be concerned about.

There are laws that require us to care about any kind of discrimination our campus, including antisemitism on our campuses.

And it's important that the government enforce those laws, but there are also processes specified in those laws in court decisions and in regulations that the government needs to follow.

So there are right ways and wrong ways to go about that.

And the wrong way to do it is to use federal funding as a cudgel to force concessions to academic freedom.

JEFFREY BROWN: We have not yet to date seen a lot of pushback from the academic world.

Is each university on its own at this point?

Do you expect to see a more collaborative effort?

What do you want to see universities do?

CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER: Well, first of all, I think all of us need to speak up for the fundamental principles that define our universities and that define our missions.

That's one of the reasons why I wrote the essay that ran in "The Atlantic" that you mentioned earlier.

It's also the case that universities work together through associations, including, for example, the Association of American Universities, which is a group of 70 leading research universities in the country.

These issues are critical to us.

And we want to work with the government in order to ensure that the basic principles that I have described around academic freedom and this critical compact between research universities and the government are preserved.

I think that should be in everybody's interest.

It's in the interest of the American people.

It's in the interest, I think, of a government that wants to make America a world leader and to preserve our eminence in scientific research and the benefits that come with it.

JEFFREY BROWN: So how serious is this?

Is it an existential moment for the university as we know it?

CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER: I think that, when you are dealing with potential intrusions on academic freedom, when you're dealing with very serious threats to the funding that has been at the core of this compact between universities and the government, you're dealing with very serious issues and a crisis that deserves everybody's attention.

That principle of academic freedom and the ability of scientists and scholars to follow their research where it takes them and the funding that has enabled our research universities to be the best in the world have made a difference to our universities and to our country in ways that should be the concern of every university, every American and every official in our government.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, Christopher Eisgruber is president of Princeton University.

Thank you so much for joining us.

CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER: Thank you, Geoff.