The Donald Trump administration has frozen more than $ 1 billion in funding for Cornell University and $ 790 million for North -West University as it investigates both institutions for alleged civil rights violations, according to a US official who spoke to Reuters on Tuesday. “The financing that is interrupted mostly includes grants and contracts with the federal departments of health, education, agriculture and defense,” said the official on condition of anonymity said Reuters. The Trump administration has threatened to withhold federal funding from universities due to protest marches in the Palestinian campus, as well as concerns about diversity, fairness and inclusion programs and transgender policies. Last month, the administration sent a letter to 60 universities, including Cornell and Northwestern, warned that enforcement actions could be done if an overview found that the schools failed to address what it described as anti -Semitism. The University of Cornell said that, although it did not receive official notice on the total amount or value of the freezing of funding, it received stopwork orders from the Department of Defense on research in defense, health and cyber security. The university added that it was looking for further information from the government. The North -West University has acknowledged that media reports over freezing funding, but confirmed that it had not received any official notice from the government. The university also said that he worked with the ongoing investigation. “Federal funds that receive Northwestern innovative and lifelinient research, such as the recent development by northwestern researchers of the smallest pacemaker in the world, and research that attracts the fight against Alzheimer’s disease. This kind of research is now in jeopardy,” a northwestern spokesman said. Trump tried to cause the pro-Palestinian campus protests against the American ally of Israel’s devastating military assault on Gaza, which caused a humanitarian crisis in the enclave, and followed a deadly attack on October 2023 by the Islamic group Hamas. The US president called the protesters anti -Semitic and considered them sympathetic to Hamas’ militants and as threats to foreign policy. Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the Trump administration confuses their criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza and advocacy for Palestinian rights with anti -Semitism and support for Hamas. Trump’s oppression of schools advocates for human rights has expressed concern about free speech and academic freedom in response to the Trump administration’s suppression of universities. Last week, the US government announced a $ 9 billion review of federal grants and contracts at Harvard University and determined specific conditions that the university should meet to to receive federal financing. Similarly, the University of Princeton revealed that the government had frozen dozens of its research awards, Reuters reported. In addition, the Trump administration canceled $ 400 million at Columbia University last month, which was in the middle of last year’s pro-Palestinian campus protests. The University of Columbia has agreed to make significant changes as demanded by the Trump administration to begin discussing its federal financing. In addition, over the past few weeks federal agents have held several protesters from foreign students from different campuses and work to deport them. The government has also recalled the visas of many foreign students involved in protests. Proponents of rights expressed concern about Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias during the Israeli Gaza conflict, but the Trump administration has not yet announced any action in response. Furthermore, the administration suspended $ 175 million at the University of Pennsylvania in March because of its policy on the participation of transgender sports. (With input of Reuters)
After Princeton Vries Donald Trump more than $ 1 billion in financing for Cornell, northwestern universities. Here’s why | Today news
