Trump administration halts $1 billion in federal funding for Cornell

WASHINGTON — More than $1 billion in federal funding for Cornell University and around $790 million for Northwestern University has been frozen while the government investigates alleged civil rights violations at the schools, the White House said. It's part of a broader push to use government funding to get major academic institutions to comply with President Donald Trump's political agenda. The White House confirmed the funding pauses late Tuesday night but offered no further details on what they entail or what grants to the schools are being affected. The moves come as Trump's Republican administration has increasingly begun using governmental grant funding as a spigot to try to influence campus policy, previously cutting off money to schools including Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. That has left universities across the country struggling to navigate cuts to grants for research institutions. In a statement, Cornell said that it had received more than 75 stop work orders earlier Tuesday from the Defense Department related to research "profoundly significant to American national defense, cybersecurity, and health" but that it had not otherwise received any information confirming $1 billion in frozen grants. "We are actively seeking information from federal officials to learn more about the basis for these decisions," said the statement from Michael I. Kotlikoff, the university president, and other top school officials. Northwestern spokesperson Jon Yates said Tuesday evening the school had not received any notice from the federal government. Yates said the school has fully cooperated with investigations by both the Education Department and Congress. "Federal funds that Northwestern receives drive innovative and life-saving research, like the recent development by Northwestern researchers of the world's smallest pacemaker, and research fueling the fight against Alzheimer's disease," Yates said. "This type of research is now at jeopardy." Last month, the Education Department sent letters to more than 60 universities, including Cornell, based in Ithaca, New York, and Northwestern, based in Evanston, Illinois, warning of "potential enforcement actions if they do not fulfill their obligations" under federal law to "protect Jewish students on campus, including uninterrupted access to campus facilities and educational opportunities." The Trump administration has threatened to cut off federal funding for universities allowing alleged antisemitism to go unchecked at campus protests last year against Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza — accusations the universities have denied. The funding freezes have jeopardized science and research without advancing the goal of creating campuses free of antisemitism, said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education. "This was wrong last week, it is wrong this week, and it will be wrong next week," he said. A spokesperson for the Education Department did not respond to a request for comment. Officials have already singled out Columbia University, making an example of it with threats to withhold $400 million in federal funds. The administration accused Columbia of failing to stop antisemitism during protests against Israel that began at the New York City university last spring and quickly spread to other campuses, a characterization disputed by those involved in the demonstrations. As a precondition for restoring that money — along with billions of dollars more in future grants — the Trump administration demanded unprecedented changes in university policy. Columbia's decision to bow to those demands, in part to salvage ongoing research projects at its labs and medical center, has been criticized by some faculty and free speech groups as capitulating to an intrusion on academic freedom. The Trump administration has since issued similar demands to Harvard University as a condition for receiving almost $9 billion in grants and contracts. It also has paused $510 million in federal grants and contracts for Brown and dozens of research grants at Princeton.