Northwestern University has become the sixth school to reach a deal with the Trump administration in an agreement that ends federal investigations into allegations of unlawful discrimination, race-based admissions and fostering a hostile educational environment for Jewish students.
The deal requires Northwestern to pay $75 million to the U.S. government over several years; in turn, the administration will restore nearly $800 million in federal research funding that had been frozen since April. Northwestern’s deal is the second-highest sum that will be paid directly to the Trump administration, which has enacted a forceful campaign across the country to demand sweeping changes in higher education.
Northwestern interim president Henry Bienen said Northwestern chose to negotiate an agreement because the “cost of a legal fight was too high and the risks too grave.”
“If our frozen federal research funding had continued, it threatens to gut our labs, drive away faculty and set back entire fields of discovery,” Bienen said in a video message. “Litigation would have likely taken years to work its way through the legal system. We expect now overdue payments and frozen renewals to resume quickly.”
In announcing the deal, Bienen noted that it explicitly states that Northwestern admits no wrongdoing and will keep its academic autonomy.
Bienen’s predecessor, Michael Schill, resigned in September amid a months-long standoff with the federal government, nodding to the freeze of federal research funding in his announcement. White House officials did not directly pressure Schill to step down, but the federal government’s pressure on the school broadly played a part in his decision, The Washington Post previously reported.
Under the deal, Northwestern will also terminate the “Deering Meadow Agreement,” an April 2024 pledge that university officials struck with pro-Palestinian student groups in exchange for ending their tent encampment on campus. The agreement’s landing page on Northwestern’s website had already been removed by Saturday.
Northwestern will also conduct a campuswide survey within six months that will ask students if they feel safe reporting alleged antisemitism, among other questions.
The deal prohibits Northwestern from considering “personal statements, diversity narratives or any applicant reference to racial identity” in hiring practices or student admissions. It will also instruct its Feinberg School of Medicine to not conduct gender-affirming surgeries on minors, though Northwestern said it has never performed these operations and will continue to “support transgender members of our community.”
As part of the agreement, the U.S. departments of Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services will close their probes into the school.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon called the deal a “huge win for current and future Northwestern students, alumni, faculty, and for the future of American higher education.”
Terms have varied widely among the schools that have reached agreements with the Trump administration.
The University of Pennsylvania agreed not to allow transgender athletes to compete on its women’s teams. Columbia University agreed to pay the federal government $200 million, along with another $21 million to settle investigations brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and permitted some external oversight of the university. Brown University agreed to spend $50 million on workforce development organizations in Rhode Island over the next decade.
Susan Svrluga contributed to this report.
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