Several elite U.S. colleges have made deals with President Donald Trump’s administration, offering concessions to his political agenda and financial payments to restore federal money that had been withheld.
Ivy League schools Columbia, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania reached agreements to resolve federal investigations. The Republican administration is pressing for more, citing the deal it negotiated with Columbia as a “road map” for other colleges.
There is a freeze on billions of dollars of research money for other colleges including Harvard, which has been negotiating with the White House even as it fights in court over the lost grants.
Like no other president, Trump has used the government’s control over federal research funding to push for changes in higher education, decrying elite colleges as places of extreme liberal ideology and antisemitism.
Here’s a look at universities pressured by the administration’s funding cuts.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Columbia said July 23 it had a $200 million fine to restore federal funding.
The school was threatened with the potential loss of billions of dollars in government support, including more than $400 million in grants canceled earlier this year. The administration pulled the money because of what it described as Columbia’s failure to address antisemitism on campus during the Israel-Hamas war.
Columbia has agreed to administration demands such as overhauling its student disciplinary process and applying a federally backed definition of antisemitism to teaching and a disciplinary committee investigating students critical of Israel.
Federal officials said the fine will go to the Treasury Department and cannot be spent until Congress appropriates it. Columbia also agreed to pay $21 million into a compensation fund for employees who may have faced antisemitism.
The deal includes a clause that Columbia says preserves its independence, putting in writing that the government does not have the authority to dictate “hiring, admission decisions, or the content of academic speech.”
BROWN UNIVERSITY
An agreement Wednesday calls for Brown to pay $50 million to Rhode Island workforce development organizations. That would restore dozens of lost federal research grants and end investigations into allegations of antisemitism and racial bias in Brown admissions.
Among other concessions, Brown agreed to adopt the government’s definition of “male” and “female” and remove any consideration of race from the admissions process.
Like the settlement with Columbia, Brown’s does not include a finding of wrongdoing. It includes a provision saying the government does not have authority to dictate Brown’s curriculum or “the content of academic speech.”
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
Under a July agreement resolving a federal civil rights case, Penn modified a trio of school records set by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and said it would apologize to female athletes “disadvantaged” by Thomas’ participation on the women’s swimming team.
The Education Department investigated Penn as part of the administration’s broader attempt to remove transgender athletes from girls and women’s sports. As part of the case, the administration had suspended $175 million in funding to Penn.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
The administration has frozen more than $2.6 billion in research grants to Harvard, accusing the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university of allowing antisemitism to flourish. Harvard has pushed back with several lawsuits.
In negotiations for a possible settlement, the administration is seeking for Harvard to pay an amount far higher than Columbia.
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
The White House announced in April that it froze more than $1 billion of Cornell’s federal funding as it investigated allegations of civil rights violations.
The Ivy League school was among a group of more than 60 universities that received a letter from the Education Department on March 10 urging them to take steps to protect Jewish students or else face “potential enforcement actions.”
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
Like Cornell, Northwestern saw a halt in some of its federal funding in April. The amount was about $790 million, according to the administration.
DUKE UNIVERSITY
The administration this week froze $108 million in federal money for Duke. The hold on funding from the National Institutes of Health came days after the departments of Health and Human Services and Education sent a joint letter alleging racial preferences in Duke’s hiring and admissions.
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Dozens of research grants were suspended at Princeton without a clear rationale, according to an April 1 campus message from the university’s president, Christopher Eisgruber. The grants came from federal agencies such as the Department of Energy, NASA and the Pentagon.
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