Brown University Bows to Trump Administration in $500M Funding Fight

After months of resistance and financial strain, Brown University has finally yielded to the Trump administration’s demands agreeing to sweeping reforms in exchange for the restoration of more than half a billion dollars in frozen taxpayer funds.

University President Christina Paxson announced the deal Wednesday, confirming that Brown will pay $50 million over ten years to workforce development groups and implement significant policy overhauls addressing discrimination, antisemitism, and gender definitions. The deal comes after the Trump administration froze $510 million in research funding in April, citing Brown’s failure to uphold federal standards and its failure to protect Jewish students amid rising campus antisemitism.

“Many aspects of our mission and our community have been under threat,” Paxson admitted, acknowledging the immense pressure Brown has been under since the funding freeze.

Translation: Brown cracked. And for good reason.

In recent years, elite universities like Brown have grown into hotbeds of radicalism, where antisemitic protests are tolerated, free speech is stifled, and biology is bent to suit progressive ideologies. When President Trump’s administration had seen enough, it pulled the plug on funding and forced a reckoning.

As part of the agreement to restore funding:

• Brown will codify biological definitions of “male” and “female,” aligning with federal standards for athletics, housing, and academic policy.

• The university will no longer allow gender mutilation surgeries or hormone treatments for minors on campus.

• Brown has committed to protect Jewish students and crack down on campus antisemitism, including new training and reporting procedures.

• Discriminatory admissions policies long used to favor certain demographics over others will be reformed to meet nondiscrimination standards.

In her open letter, Paxson tried to paint the agreement as a victory for academic integrity. But behind the PR spin lies a clear reality: Brown was forced to choose between ideological posturing and half a billion dollars in research funding. With $800 million in emergency loans already on the books and donor pressure mounting, the choice became obvious.

This is a landmark win for the Trump administration’s broader campaign to hold universities accountable. Over the past year, federal agencies have increased scrutiny of elite institutions that use public money while promoting policies hostile to free speech, religious liberty, and scientific truth. Brown is just the beginning.

Under Trump’s leadership, federal funding is no longer a blank check. Universities must now prove they’re acting in good faith not enabling antisemitic mobs or medical experimentation on minors in the name of “gender affirmation.”

And it’s working.

The Brown capitulation sends a loud message to every Ivy League campus and beyond: embrace reality, or lose federal support.

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