The Trump administration plans to freeze more than $500 million in federal funding to Brown University, making the school the fifth to face a financial penalty amid a crackdown over what the White House says is antisemitism on campuses.
The freeze has not formally been announced and university officials say they have not been given a reason. But it comes as Trump tears through the Ivy League, issuing sanctions and making demands on schools that are considered among the country’s most elite. The administration instituted several of the funding freezes under its bid to combat antisemitism.
Amid the rumors, Jewish leaders at Brown along with members of the board that oversees the school issued a statement late Thursday praising Jewish life on campus and suggesting, without mentioning the Trump freeze, that criticizing the school based on the experience of Jewish students is inappropriate. The statement noted the recent construction of an eruv allowing observant Jews to carry items on Shabbat, the 2023 introduction of kosher dining and the existence of a daily prayer service.
“With all of the ongoing discussions about antisemitism on college campuses, one might easily suspect that these environments are disaster zones for Jewish life,” the group — which included the rabbis from both Hillel and Chabad, as well as students — said in a statement. “At Brown University, this is not the case.”
Brown University was the site of pro-Palestine protest encampments
Like dozens of other schools, Brown was the site of a pro-Palestinian protest encampment in the spring of 2024. The school drew some criticism for making a deal with the protesters to end the encampment and, as part of the deal, to bring divestment from Israel to a vote by the Brown Corporation.
But the corporation roundly rejected the divestment request and the school later suspended the group Students for Justice in Palestine, leading to what one Jewish student wrote in the student newspaper was a return to “tranquility” on campus.
In recent weeks, as Trump took aim at schools with pro-Palestinian protests, saying that they included “Hamas sympathizers” who should be deported, Brown’s president publicly commented. Christina Paxson, who is Jewish, said a “troubling picture” was emerging that portended a major shift in the longtime relationship between the federal government and research universities — and said that Brown would hew to its values in the face of pressure.
Her statement came after Columbia University, the first school to be targeted and the epicenter of the encampment movement, neared a deadline to respond to the Trump administration’s decision to freeze $400 million of its funding. The next day, Columbia announced concessions in a bid to regain the funding.
Brown drew ire from some critics recently when it issued a statement prior to spring break urging international students not to travel abroad, given the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown that has included efforts to deport students who participated in the pro-Palestinian protests.
The school recently hired two lobbying firms, including one with deep ties to Trump’s Republican Party, to represent the school in Congress. It is the first time in more than two decades that Brown has retained such lobbyists, the Brown Daily Herald student newspaper reported.
