Northwestern University agrees to pay $75 million as part of deal with Trump administration that restores frozen funds
Northwestern University It agreed to pay $75 million as part of a deal with the Trump administration that restored previously frozen federal funds and ended a months-long government investigation into allegations of “illegal discrimination,” including “race-based admissions” and a “hostile” environment for Jewish students. Ministry of Justice It was announced on Friday.
The agreement requires Northwestern to comply with federal anti-discrimination laws, overhaul its policies regarding campus demonstrations and implement mandatory anti-Semitism training for students, faculty and staff, conditions similar to those imposed on other campuses. The university will pay the payment until 2028.
The university’s revenue of $790 million federal funding It was suspended earlier this year Title VI civil rights The investigation is part of a broader administration effort to examine university policies and campus speech. Freezing was one of the largest and most destructive practices implemented on any campus during the administration’s crackdown on elite US universities.
The Justice Department said that under the agreement, the government “will close any pending investigations and consider Northwestern as eligible for future grants, contracts, and awards.”
According to a statement made to the school newspaper, the university said it expects payments to resume within a few days and to have full funding restored within 30 days. Daily Northwest. This includes overdue payments on all federally funded grants and contracts that have not been terminated, the newspaper said.
CNN has reached out to Northwestern and the White House for more information.
Northwestern is among the few universities making direct payments to the federal government as part of these settlements. Agreement Brown Universityrather, it determined that its payment would fund workforce development groups in Rhode Island. And unlike Columbia UniversitySubject to external monitoring, Northwestern will audit its own compliance.
The deal places Northwestern among several universities subject to federal scrutiny, including Columbia, Brown and. CornellMaking payments worth millions of dollars and University of VirginiaAdopting strict, multi-year reporting requirements through 2028 to recover federal funds.
The federal funding freeze and related investigation caused significant upheaval at Northwestern. resignation Chairman Michael Schill’s speech in September cited “serious and often painful challenges” and warned that “difficult problems remain, especially at the federal level.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
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