The Trump administration's settlement with Columbia clarifies the stakes for anyone weighing whether to fight its demands or concede.

For Columbia, the cost of mollifying Trump was steep. Claire Shipman, the university's president, agreed the school would pay a $200 million fine to resolve funding disputes, plus an additional $21 million designated for university employees who said they'd faced discrimination or harm amid campus protests related to the Israel-Hamas war.

Columbia University and the Trump administration announced a long-awaited settlement Monday night after months of negotiations. Columbia will pay $221 million to restore the more than $400 million in federal funding that was cut off by the administration,

Some acknowledge that the university had no choice and that the deal could be worse, but many fear that it sets some dangerous precedents.

Columbia win has paved the way for Trump team to elecit hundreds of millions from other top schools, including Cornell, Brown, Duke and Northwestern

Talks in Washington. An expert on negotiation. A balancing act. The university chose cooperation over litigation, a strategy both pilloried and praised.

The latest: Today, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) requested the Trump administration give a closed-door briefing on the Jeffrey Epstein case files. More: Schumer criticized the administration’s lack of transparency, and pointed to a Wall Street Journal report that Justice officials told Trump his name was in the files.