Northwestern U. Will Pay $75 Million to Resolve Trump Investigations

Northwestern University will pay $75 million to the federal government to resolve claims that the institution discriminated against Jewish students and faculty members.

The 12-page agreement releases $790 million in research funding that has been held up for months amid concerns from the Trump administration about how the university’s former president, Michael H. Schill, handled disruptions from a pro-Palestinian encampment in the spring of 2024.

The new agreement terminates the deal that Schill reached with those activists, who were calling for the university to cut ties with Israel. That earlier deal included promises of increased transparency about Northwestern’s investments and additional support for Muslim, Middle Eastern, North African, and Palestinian students and faculty members.

“Today’s settlement marks another victory in the Trump administration’s fight to ensure that American educational institutions protect Jewish students and put merit first,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

Under the settlement with the Trump administration, Northwestern will also:

• prohibit protests that occur overnight or in academic buildings.
• ban flyers, chalking, and other on-campus displays outside designated areas.
• include data about complaints alleging antisemitism and how they were resolved in its annual civil-rights report.
• provide the government with data on admitted and rejected students, broken down by race, ethnicity, grades, and standardized-test performance.
• agree not to use race or sex in “implicit or explicit” ways in hiring, promotion, or tenure decisions.
• require antisemitism training for all students, faculty, and staff.
• maintain an adequately resourced police force.
• agree not to offer gender-affirming care within its Feinberg School of Medicine.
• review whether its business model is too reliant on international students, who typically pay full tuition.
• survey students on whether they feel welcome on campus within six months, and provide the results to the Trump administration.
• establish a “special committee” of the university’s Board of Trustees to oversee compliance.

Many of the provisions reference policies that Northwestern already adopted months ago. Northwestern is not allowed to revise them until 2028 without the consent of Trump’s assistant attorney general.

Northwestern was among a handful of prominent universities singled out early by the Trump administration over antisemitism concerns. Schill, the former president, was berated by congressional Republicans last year for agreeing to a deal with pro-Palestinian protesters.

According to an interview transcript made public this fall, Schill told a congressional committee that local law enforcement declined to intervene, so he decided his best option was to negotiate with the activists. Schill resigned in September amid continuing political pressure.

Henry S. Bienen, the university’s interim president, wrote in a message to the campus community that the agreement would resume the flow of federal funds and ensure researchers are eligible for future grants. The university has been self-funding research projects since April, Bienen said.

The settlement, Bienen said, “ends a deeply painful and disruptive period in our university’s history.” He added that the Trump administration deal does not “relinquish any control over whom we hire, whom we admit as students, what our faculty teach, or how our faculty teach.”