I don’t think you understand how long it takes for universities to decide how to handle punishment situations.
This one has a significant complication of parallel legal action. They seized and vandalized a building. They’ve been reviewing evidence and building cases for a long time.
If you’re operating an honest judicial board and you’re receiving high profile threats from the US government backed by huge funding cuts to the University, you have a choice. (1) Comply or simply appear to comply, by rendering a favorable ruling immediately, (2) Establish that your ruling is not the result of government pressure. You’d do the latter by (for example) showing your work and proving that the results were already determined before the pressure campaign began; or you’d change the timing so that it doesn’t look like cause and effect; you could even suspend your ruling on the grounds that maintaining the appearance of the University and Board’s independence is a higher priority than punishing a few protestors.
Columbia did none of the things in category (2). I know it’s 2025 and we have to pretend that this apparently corrupt thing is innocent, even while the folks involved make no effort to defend it. But it isn’t innocent, and everyone involved knows what’s going on.
There is no point in giving into threats if the other party is still going to follow through regardless. I think the best argument against this being due to political pressure from trump is it doesn't seem effective in getting rid of that pressure. If trump is the thing they care about here, why would they bother if trump is going to do trump things regardless.
I don't know what "reverse course" means here. This is extortion, not a simple transaction like purchasing a sandwich in a deli.
The Trump administration is withholding funding and simultaneously making a series of explicit (and completely inappropriate) demands that it wishes Columbia to comply with. I assume what we're watching is a kind of "negotiation" period in which Columbia either does or does not do various things, and then over time the Trump administration decides whether to relent or punish them further. There is no real pressure on the administration to just stop.
One of the explicit demands the administration made was for Columbia to disband the University Judicial Board (the exact group that handed down these decisions) presumably because they felt that it would not sufficiently punish the protesters. Coincidentally, around the same time this happened, the board "independently" decided to punish the protesters quite severely.
This one has a significant complication of parallel legal action. They seized and vandalized a building. They’ve been reviewing evidence and building cases for a long time.
These things take time.