Brown University has reportedly become the fifth university to be targeted by the Trump administration for funding cuts, joining Ivy League peers Harvard University, Princeton University, Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania.
The Trump administration is planning to freeze $510 million in grants to the Providence, Rhode Island, university, according to multiple reports. The Daily Caller first reported the news.
“We are aware there are troubling rumors emerging about federal action on Brown research grants,” Brown provost Frank Doyle, Ph.D., wrote in an April 3 message to colleagues, which was reviewed by Fierce Biotech. “It is important to share that, at this moment, we have no information to substantiate any of these rumors.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment from Fierce Biotech.
It was not immediately clear which grants the Trump administration is planning to freeze nor what research would be impacted as a result. Cuts to the other targeted schools have upended research on hospital-acquired infections, deadly viruses and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, among other areas of study.
According to The Daily Caller, the funding freeze is set to occur as part of a review of Brown’s response to alleged antisemitism on campus and the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.
If true, that rationale would align with why the administration has said it is reviewing or terminating funding to Harvard, Princeton and Columbia. In a March 10 announcement, the Department of Education published a list of 60 universities that are “presently under investigation for Title VI violations relating to antisemitic harassment and discrimination,” which included the three schools as well as Brown.
The list also includes Cornell University and Yale University, Ivy League schools that have not yet been targeted for federal funding cuts.
After protesters called on Brown to “divest the endowment from Israel and the military-industrial complex” following Israel’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, the Brown Corporation voted not to divest on Oct. 9, 2024. Brown said the university has “no direct investments in any of the companies targeted for divestment” and “any indirect exposure for Brown in these companies is so small that it could not be directly responsible for social harm.”
Brown appointed professor and historian Matthew Guterl, Ph.D., to be vice president of diversity and inclusion effective March 1. In the Feb. 6 announcement of Guterl’s appointment, the university said the decision “reflects our continued commitment to diversity and inclusion at Brown.”
Trump began his second term with a flurry of actions to end DEI practices across the government, and he has also spoken out against the DEI measures of companies like Apple.
In his March 20 executive order calling for the Department of Education to be dismantled, which would require approval from Congress, Trump also ordered that “programs or activities receiving any remaining Department of Education funds will not advance DEI or gender ideology.”
Unlike the other schools, Penn was subjected to its funding cuts due to the university allowing a transgender athlete to compete on the women’s swimming team in 2022. The athlete’s ability to compete was fully in line with NCAA rules and applicable laws at the time, Penn president J. Larry Jameson, M.D., Ph.D., said in a March 25 statement.
The five targeted universities are among the wealthiest and most influential in the U.S. They have a combined endowment value of about $1.3 trillion, and faculty affiliated with the schools have won a total of 87 Nobel Prizes. This includes 2023 physiology or medicine prize winner Drew Weissman, M.D., Ph.D., from Penn, whose work led to the creation of mRNA vaccines, and microRNA discoverer Gary Ruvkun, Ph.D., of Harvard Medical School, who won the 2024 physiology or medicine prize.