WASHINGTON — More than $1 billion in federal funding for Cornell University and around $790 million for Northwestern University have been frozen while the government investigates alleged civil rights violations at both schools, the White House says.
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 it entails, or what grants to the schools are being affected.
The moves come as the Trump administration has increasingly begun using governmental grant funding as a spigot to try and 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 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.
In an email to the Northwestern community, university president Michael Schill said it had not been notified by the federal government of the cuts, according to The Daily Northwestern, the campus newspaper.
Last month, the Education Department sent letters to more than 60 universities — including Cornell and Northwestern — 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.
Officials have already singled out Columbia University, making an example of it with threats to withhold $400 million in federal funds.
The administration repeatedly 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 more in future grants — the Republican 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.