Cornell University agrees to pay $60M in deal with Trump administration over frozen research funds
Written by ABC Audio ALL RIGHTS RESERVED on November 7, 2025
(NEW YORK) — Cornell University reached an agreement with the Trump administration to “immediately restore” its frozen federal funding after months-long negotiations over alleged civil rights violations, the school announced on Friday.
The multimillion-dollar agreement will be paid out over three years. Cornell agreed to invest $30 million into U.S. agriculture research and another $30 million will go directly to the federal government “as a condition for ending pending claims that have been brought against the university,” the school said.
This is the administration’s latest settlement with Ivy League institutions over alleged violations, following massive deals with the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia and Brown in recent months.
Similar to the other university leaders, Cornell University President Michael Kotlikoff maintained that it had not done any wrongdoing or broken federal civil rights laws.
The administration halted federal funding to Cornell in April along with Northwestern University and many other Ivy League schools in its quest to root out so-called unlawful DEI practices. Cornell said it has been subject to more than $250 million in federal funding interruptions, which have disrupted the research of faculty and students across all campuses.
President Kotlikoff explained that the agreement is taking place after “good faith” discussions with the administration, which enabled the school to return to its education and research practices in partnership with the federal government.
In a statement to the Cornell community, Kotlikoff noted “the agreement explicitly recognizes Cornell’s right to independently establish our policies and procedures, choose whom to hire and admit, and determine what we teach, without intrusive government monitoring or approvals.”
“In short, it recognizes our rights, as a private university, to define the conditions on our campuses that advance learning and produce new knowledge,” the statement added.
Kotlikoff will also certify compliance with the agreement on a regular basis and provide anonymized admissions data while continuing to conduct campus climate surveys and carry out foreign gift and contract reporting, according to the statement.
In a post on X, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon applauded the latest deal as a “transformative commitment” to restore merit and end DEI policies on college campuses.
“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,” McMahon wrote.
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