\n<\/p>\n
Cornell University has reached a deal with the Trump administration to pay the government a $30\u00a0million settlement\u2014and invest another $30\u00a0million in agricultural research\u2014in exchange for having its frozen federal research funding restored. <\/p>\n
The agreement, announced Friday, makes Cornell the latest institution to strike a deal with the federal government in an effort to settle investigations into alleged civil rights violations. The settlement follows similar arrangements at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Brown University and the University of Virginia. Concessions varied by university, with Columbia making the biggest payout at $221\u00a0million.<\/p>\n
Collectively, those institutions were targeted for a range of alleged violations, including allowing transgender athletes to compete on women\u2019s sports teams, failing to police campus antisemitism amid pro-Palestinian protests and operating supposedly illegal diversity, equity and inclusion practices as the Trump administration cracked down on DEI initiatives.<\/p>\n
Now the university will see roughly $250\u00a0million in frozen federal research funding immediately restored. The federal government will also close ongoing civil rights investigations into Cornell.<\/p>\n
While some institutions, including Columbia, have given tremendous deference to the federal government and agreed to sweeping changes across admissions, hiring and academic programs, the deal at Cornell appears to be relatively constrained, despite the $30\u00a0million payout.<\/p>\n
Under the agreement, Cornell must share anonymized admissions data broken down by race, GPA and standardized test scores with the federal government through 2028; conduct annual campus climate surveys; and ensure compliance with various federal laws. Cornell also agreed to share as a training resource with faculty and staff a July memo from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi barring the use of race in hiring, admissions practices and scholarship programs. And in addition to paying the federal government $30\u00a0million over three years, Cornell will invest $30\u00a0million \u201cin research programs that will directly benefit U.S. farmers through lower costs of production and enhanced efficiency, including but not limited to programs that incorporate [artificial intelligence] and robotics,\u201d according to a copy of the agreement.<\/p>\n
Cornell leaders cast the deal as a positive for the university.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am pleased that our good faith discussions with the White House, Department of Justice, and Department of Education have concluded with an agreement that acknowledges the government\u2019s commitment to enforce existing anti-discrimination law, while protecting our academic freedom and institutional independence,\u201d Cornell president Michael Kotlikoff said in a statement shared with Inside Higher Ed<\/em>. \u201cThese discussions have now yielded a result that will enable us to return to our teaching and research in restored partnership with federal agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n Education Secretary Linda McMahon also celebrated the deal in a post on\u00a0X.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Trump Administration has secured another transformative commitment from an Ivy League institution to end divisive DEI policies. Thanks to this deal with Cornell and the ongoing work of DOJ, HHS, and the team at ED, U.S. universities are refocusing their attention on merit, rigor, and truth-seeking\u2014not ideology. These reforms are a huge win in the fight to restore excellence to American higher education and make our schools the greatest in the world,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n Some outside observers, however, excoriated the settlement as capitulation to authoritarianism.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Trump administration\u2019s corrupt extortion of higher ed institutions must end. Americans want an education system that serves the public good, not a dangerously narrow far right ideology that serves billionaires,\u201d American Association of University Professors President Todd Wolfson said in a statement, which also urged colleges to fight intrusion by the federal government.<\/p>\n This is a breaking news story and will be updated.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cornell University has reached a deal with the Trump administration to pay the government a $30\u00a0million settlement\u2014and invest another $30\u00a0million in agricultural research\u2014in exchange for having its frozen federal research funding restored. The agreement, announced Friday, makes Cornell the latest institution to strike a deal with the federal government in an effort to settle investigations<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[794,18799,2571,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-32609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-administration","9":"tag-cornell","10":"tag-settles","11":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}