AMNA NAWAZ: Welcome to the "News Hour."

We begin tonight with the Trump administration's crackdown on college campuses.

This afternoon, lawyers released cell phone footage showing the arrest of former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil.

The government is trying to deport Khalil over his role in pro-Palestinian protests at the school last year.

The video shows plainclothes officers handcuffing Khalil as his wife, who's eight months pregnant, pleads for information while talking to their lawyer.

WOMAN: Can you please specify what agency is taking him please?

Excuse me.

There -- nobody is -- they're not talking to me.

I don't know.

AMNA NAWAZ: Federal officials today also announced more moves tied to the Columbia protests, arresting a Palestinian woman who allegedly overstayed her student visa and revoking the visa of an Indian doctoral student who they say advocated for violence and terrorism.

Meanwhile, the Department of Education today announced new investigations into more than 50 colleges for alleged racial discrimination, part of President Trump's campaign to end diversity, equity and inclusion efforts nationwide.

They include public universities like Ohio State, Rutgers and Arizona State, as well as private institutions like Yale, Duke and MIT.

And the announcement comes just one month after an administration memo warning schools they could lose federal funding for considering race in admissions, scholarships or any aspect of student life.

For a closer look now, I'm joined by Sarah Brown, senior editor at "The Chronicle of Higher Education."

Welcome back.

Thanks for being here.

SARAH BROWN, Senior Editor, "The Chronicle of Higher Education": Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, most of the investigations focus on colleges' partnerships with a nonprofit called The PhD Program.

What is that?

And what exactly is administration all at alleging here?

SARAH BROWN: So The PhD Project is this effort that is designed to get more professors from underrepresented backgrounds into business schools.

So, colleges, student bodies are much more diverse than they used to be.

So about half of undergraduates are students of color.

Most faculty members are white.

And so colleges have been trying to get more underrepresented groups represented among the faculty.

Now, the Trump administration believes that these diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, these DEI efforts, are illegal because they consider race.

They treat people differently based on race.

That's their argument.

And so the Trump administration sees The PhD Project, which is working with these 45 universities, as part of the illegal DEI that it's trying to crack down on.

That's its argument.

Obviously, a lot of people would say these DEI programs are not illegal, they're just an important part of creating more welcoming environments on campuses.

AMNA NAWAZ: And so most of the schools are being targeted because of that.

There are seven other colleges that are listed here that are being investigated for awarding what the administration calls impermissible race-based scholarships.

Sarah, have the universities responded to any of these allegations?

SARAH BROWN: At this point, the universities have said, we are reviewing the allegations.

We will cooperate with any federal investigations.

They haven't said a lot specifically so far.

We have seen a range of these scholarship programs targeted in the past, so this has been something going on for some time.

And some universities have actually stopped offering certain kinds of scholarships or have changed the way that they are awarded.

But these scholarships typically are designed to help low-income students from particular backgrounds pay for their college tuition.

So that's what they have traditionally been designed for, and that is now -- that's now being targeted by the Trump administration, who believes those efforts are illegal.

AMNA NAWAZ: We have also seen the administration more specifically target Columbia University.

That was the site of a lot of pro-Palestinian protests that began after the October 7 Hamas attack and Israel's war in Gaza.

This week, the administration canceled some $400 million in federal funding to Columbia.

What does a cut of that size mean to a school like Columbia?

SARAH BROWN: Yes, so Columbia does receive a lot more in federal funding than just that $400 million.

But, just to be clear, it's really impactful.

So we have already seen that these cuts are affecting National Institutes of Health research on, for example, opioids, on malaria vaccine.

So these are really impactful research projects, as the university sees it.

And so it's already having an impact.

And so you might think, oh, Columbia is a university with a billion-dollar endowment.

Can't they just pull from that endowment and backfill this funding?

That's not how it works.

So, for a university like Columbia, even this is a big deal.

AMNA NAWAZ: We have also seen, at Columbia, this is, of course, the headlines about Mahmoud Khalil, because he was a former student there.

Federal immigration agents arrested him on campus housing there.

He helped to lead some of those protests.

And he's a legal permanent resident they're now trying to deport.

We have seen another arrest of a foreign student at Columbia as well.

How are our universities now kind of navigating this moment, when federal immigration authorities could potentially come onto campus or campus housing and arrest members of their community?

SARAH BROWN: Yes, so this is a new concern for colleges.

At least, in the past decade, ICE has not regularly carried out deportation activities in these sensitive locations, such as schools and college campuses.

So universities have been, for the past few months -- their communities are concerned about potential immigration enforcement.

Universities have been sending out messages to their communities, here are the protocols for dealing with ICE.

But what we're seeing at Columbia is really the first example of ICE agents actually coming to a campus, in some cases, like we have seen recently this week, with a warrant, with warrants, and what happens to -- when universities have to respond to those situations.

And so I think a lot of campus communities, especially at Columbia, international students, undocumented students, they're very concerned right now.

AMNA NAWAZ: The investigations they announced just today, the threat of pulling federal funds is the through line here.

And we have already seen the impact that can have at Johns Hopkins, for example.

That's a leader, of course, in scientific research.

They just announced that they're slashing 2,000 jobs after the university lost more than $800 million in federal grants.

Those are unrelated to the efforts to go after DEI programs, though, right?

SARAH BROWN: This is all, I would say, part of a larger effort by the Trump administration to try to change the policies and practices on college campuses.

The Johns Hopkins cuts are more related to the USAID situation.

And so that is a little bit different.

But it's all part of this larger effort by the Trump administration to try to have universities in alignment with his agenda.

That's really what is underlying everything that we're seeing here with DEI programs, with these protesters and potential deportations of protesters.

That's what we're seeing here.

AMNA NAWAZ: Sarah Brown, senior editor at "The Chronicle of Higher Education," thank you for being here.

SARAH BROWN: Thank you.