Brown University announced Wednesday it had struck a $50 million dollar deal with the Trump administration to regain its federal research funding after losing it last spring over allegations of campus antisemitism.
The announcement comes one week after Columbia University agreed to a $221 million settlement with the Trump administration over funding canceled in March over antisemitism allegations. A deal with Harvard University reportedly looms. (The University of Pennsylvania, penalized over its inclusion of transgender student athletes, recently reached its own deal.)
As part of the agreement with the federal government, Brown will pay $50 million over 10 years to state workforce development organizations that comply with anti-discrimination laws, and “take steps to improve the campus climate for Jewish students and combat anti-Semitism,” according to the Trump administration.
As part of that effort, the school will renew partnerships with Israeli academics, encourage Jewish day school students to apply, and hire an outside organization — chosen jointly by Brown and the government — to conduct a campus survey on the climate for Jewish students, according to Brown University’s announcement.
In a post on Truth Social Thursday, President Donald Trump congratulated Brown University on the settlement, adding that “there will be no more Anti-Semitism, or Anti-Christian, or Anti-Anything Else! Woke is officially DEAD at Brown. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
While the initial freeze of $500 million in the school’s federal funding in April was ostensibly part of an effort to combat campus antisemitism, the deal struck by the school also requires it to adopt “biology-based definitions for the words ‘male’ and ‘female,’” and not perform “gender reassignment surgeries on minors or prescribe them puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.” Brown has a medical school and hospital.
The university’s president, Christina H. Paxson, said in a letter to the Brown community that the school had not agreed to any incursions of academic freedom.
“Beyond the financial stresses of terminated and unpaid research grants and contracts, we have observed a growing push for government intrusion into the fundamental academic operations of colleges and universities, and with the stated purpose of compelling a commitment to comply with laws focused on prohibitions against antisemitism and discrimination,” she wrote, adding, “We applaud the agreement’s unequivocal assertion that the agreement does not give the government the ‘authority to dictate Brown’s curriculum or the content of academic speech.’”
In April, following the initial funding cut, dozens of rabbis and cantors who graduated from Brown University wrote an open letter to Paxson, who is Jewish, asking her to “not cede control to those who weaponize antisemitism.”
“President Trump’s attack on Brown and other universities has nothing whatsoever to do with combatting antisemitism,” the letter read. “It weaponizes antisemitism and could, ironically, evoke classical sentiments of resentment toward the Jewish community, whose name is being scapegoated as a conduit for an ulterior motive. That motive is to destroy institutions of higher education and to crush dissent through fear and threat.”
Rabbi Josh Bolton, the executive director of Brown RISD Hillel, said in a statement that “this agreement affirms what we already know so deeply, that Brown — especially under President Paxson’s leadership — is truly one of the great campuses for Jewish life anywhere in the U.S.”
“The settlement also makes clear that the work is not nearly done,” Bolton continued. “We all have a stake in building a campus community where students of every background and perspective can feel at home. We will continue with joy and determination to ensure this for Jewish students, as we will on behalf of all students.”
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