The Trump administration’s effort to slash federal funding to universities has found its latest targets, with the government reportedly freezing $1 billion in funds to Cornell University and $790 million to Northwestern University.
Both schools are facing funding cuts due to ongoing investigations into alleged antisemitism on their campuses, according to reports from The New York Times and Fox News.
On March 10, Cornell and Northwestern were included on a Department of Education list of 60 universities that were “under investigation for Title VI violations relating to antisemitic harassment and discrimination.” The list also included other recently targeted schools Brown University, Harvard University, Princeton University and Columbia University.
“Cornell is aware of media reports suggesting that more than $1 billion in federal grants have been frozen,” Cornell’s president, provost and provost for medical affairs said in a joint statement on April 8. “While we have not received information that would confirm this figure, earlier today Cornell received more than 75 stop work orders from the Department of Defense related to research that is profoundly significant to American national defense, cybersecurity, and health.”
Research affected by the freeze includes work on cancer, robotics and superconductors, among other topics, according to Cornell’s statement.
Northwestern has also not received official word of the funding freeze from the government, but the university is aware of the media reports, a spokesperson for the university told Fierce Biotech in an email.
“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,” the spokesperson said. “This type of research is now at jeopardy.”
“The University has fully cooperated with investigations by both the Department of Education and Congress,” the Northwestern spokesperson added.
Unlike the other schools, the University of Pennsylvania had $175 million in funding frozen not because of antisemitism but because a transgender athlete competed on the school’s women’s swimming team in 2022. The athlete’s ability to compete was in full compliance with NCAA rules and applicable laws, Penn president J. Larry Jameson, M.D., Ph.D., said in a March 25 statement.