The Trump administration is planning to halt more than half a billion dollars in contracts and grants awarded to Brown University, adding to a list of Ivy League colleges that have had their federal money threatened as a result of their responses to antisemitism, a White House official said Thursday.
Nearly $510 million in federal contracts and grants are on the line, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the plan and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Separately, the US government set conditions that Harvard University must meet — including a mask ban and removal of diversity, equity and inclusion programs — to receive federal money. The conditions to Harvard were revealed in a letter seen by Reuters and the university confirmed receiving the letter.
In an email Thursday to campus leaders, Brown Provost Frank Doyle said the university was aware of “troubling rumors” about government action on its research money. “At this moment, we have no information to substantiate any of these rumors,” Doyle said.
Brown would be the fifth Ivy League college targeted by President Donald Trump’s administration, which is using federal money to enforce its agenda at colleges. Dozens of universities — including every Ivy League school except Penn and Dartmouth — are facing federal investigations into antisemitism following a wave of pro-Palestinian protests against Israel last year.
Columbia University was the first one targeted, losing $400 million in federal money with threats to terminate more if it didn’t make the campus safer for Jewish students. The school agreed to several demands from the government last month, including an overhaul of student discipline rules and a review of the school’s Middle East studies department.
A pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel rally held at Harvard University, October 15, 2023. (Screenshot: X; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)
The government later suspended about $175 million in federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania over a transgender swimmer who previously competed for the school. On Monday, a federal antisemitism task force said it was reviewing almost $9 billion in federal grants and contracts at Harvard amid an investigation into campus antisemitism.
And on Tuesday, Princeton University said the administration had halted dozens of its research grants.
The pressure has created a dilemma for US colleges, which rely on federal research funding as a major source of revenue.
Trump’s administration has promised a more aggressive approach against campus antisemitism, accusing former president Joe Biden of letting schools off the hook. It has opened new investigations at colleges and detained and deported several foreign students with ties to pro-Palestinian protests. An incoming assistant professor of medicine at Brown was deported to Lebanon last month for having “openly admitted” to supporting Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and attending the slain terror chief’s funeral, the Department of Homeland Security said.
Protesters rally outside the Rhode Island State House in support of deported Brown University Dr. Rasha Alawieh, March 17, 2025, in Providence, Rhode Island. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
During last school year’s campus protests against Israel over the Gaza war, which was sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 terror onslaught, Brown stood out for a deal it struck with student activists. In exchange for the students’ dismantling an encampment, the university committed to having its governing board vote on whether to divest from companies that protesters said were facilitating Israeli military control of Palestinian territories.
The Corporation of Brown rejected the divestment proposal.
Conditions on Harvard
In a letter on Thursday to Harvard President Dean Garber, officials at the US Education Department, Health Department and the General Services Administration said the school must ban the use of masks, eliminate DEI programs and agree to cooperate with government and law enforcement agencies.
Many pro-Palestinian protesters have worn masks during demonstrations, which they claim helps them hide their identity to avoid exposure and harassment. Some government officials say masks serve as a means of avoiding accountability.
The letter also said Harvard must review and make changes to programs and departments that “fuel antisemitic harassment” and hold students accountable for policy violations.
A student protester stands in front of the statue of John Harvard, the first major benefactor of Harvard College, draped in the Palestinian flag, at an encampment of students protesting against the war in Gaza, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)
Harvard, separately, said on Wednesday it placed the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee on probation and banned it from hosting public events until July over what it called protest policy violations.
Media outlets reported last week that two of the leaders of Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Director Cemal Kafadar and Associate Director Rosie Bsheer, will be leaving their positions.
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