An Oscar-nominated documentary maker has resigned as a juror for the prestigious duPont-Columbia Awards, citing concessions the university made to the Trump administration.

In her letter announcing her exit on Tuesday, Julie Cohen, who co-directed “RBG,” a film about late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, said she was “leaving the panel because I no longer wish to be associated with Columbia” after it “so readily caved to the Trump administration.”

In response, the university agreed to overhaul its interdisciplinary Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department and put it under academic receivership, overseen by a newly appointed senior vice provost.

That and the addition of 36 campus police “who are empowered to arrest protesters or remove them from campus” sparked particular alarm, Cohen said. On top of that, Columbia then “tried to justify the whole thing as if it were the normal course of business.”

Columbia faculty members have protested the policy changes and have sued the Trump administration to get the funding restored.

“I kind of felt this was the right opportunity for me to stand up and say, no, this is not the normal course of business,” Cohen told Poynter, a nonprofit organization devoted to strengthening democracy through journalism. “You read about everything that has happened so far with the Trump administration, and you keep waiting for people to stand up and say, ‘Whoa! No! This is wrong.’ Well, this was my time to do that.”

Last year’s encampment protests against the war in Gaza roiled the campus and sparked nationwide protests as Israel retaliated against Hamas for massacring 1,200 people and taking scores of hostages on Oct. 7, 2023. Thousands of Palestinians have perished in the bombardment.

But those against the Trump administration’s move allege the motives are more about undermining higher education, and that the federal government should not legally be meddling in a school’s internal affairs. After decades associated with Columbia, Cohen felt she couldn’t in good conscience remain.

“By choosing instead to negotiate and give in, Columbia has empowered Trump to demand more from Columbia and every other university in the U.S.,” Cohen wrote, noting that three of the nine selection committee members have joined her in resigning from the duPont Awards. “Any thoughtful analysis of how institutions respond to creeping authoritarianism makes it clear: capitulation is the wrong way to go.”