The Trump administration has frozen more than $1 billion in federal funding to Cornell and $790 million to Northwestern, as the government investigates alleged civil rights violations at the schools, according to two White House officials.
“On Monday, several Trump administration agencies froze roughly $790M of federal funding and roughly $1.05B of federal funding from Northwestern and Cornell, respectively,” a senior administration official told ABC News. “The money was frozen in connection with several ongoing, credible, and concerning Title VI investigations.”
The funding pause mostly involves grants from and contracts with the Department of Agriculture, Defense, Education and Health and Human Services, according to White House officials.
Northwestern said in a statement to ABC that it was informed by “members of the media” that the federal government plans to “freeze a significant portion of our federal funding. The University said it “has not received any official notification.”
“Federal funds that Northwestern receives drive innovative and life-saving research,” the University said. “This type of research is now at jeopardy. The University has fully cooperated with investigations by both the Department of Education and Congress.”
Cornell wrote in a statement they have received “more than 75 stop work orders from the Department of Defense related to research that is profoundly significant to American national defense, cybersecurity, and health.”
“We are actively seeking information from federal officials to learn more about the basis for these decisions,” Cornell said.
“The affected grants include research into new materials for jet engines, propulsion systems, large-scale information networks, robotics, superconductors, and space and satellite communications, as well as cancer research,” the school continued.
The New York Times first reported on the funding freeze.
Legal experts are questioning the authority of the Trump administration to pause the federal funding.
“This is completely lawless, as far as I can tell, to the extent that we don’t even know what legal provision the government is relying upon,” Genevieve Lakier, professor of law at the University of Chicago, said.
If the funding halt is justified under the Civil Rights Act, as White House officials have told ABC News, Lakier said the law requires there to be a set of procedures followed and notice given.
“There has to be a hearing. You have to give members of Congress 30 days before you do it. You have to give the school 30 days. You have to allow the right to appeal. None of this is being followed,” Lakier said.
Michael Dorf, professor at Cornell Law School, echoed Lakier’s assessment.
“There’s a federal statute that explains if agencies and the government believe a funding recipient is not complying with its civil rights obligations, there’s a whole set of procedures they have to follow before you cut those off,” Dorf said. “The government has followed none of those procedures.”
The move comes as the administration doubles down on allegations of antisemitic conduct and harassment from elite universities.
The Department of Education and other agencies are reviewing Harvard University for allegedly fostering antisemitism on its campus. The administration stripped Columbia University of $400 million in grants earlier this month after a task force investigation says it found inaction by the school to protect Jewish students.
In response to the review, Harvard President Alan Garber released a statement saying, “We fully embrace the important goal of combatting antisemitism, one of the most insidious forms of bigotry.”
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