PROVIDENCE – The Trump administration is planning to halt $510 million in contracts and grants awarded to Brown University, a White House official told the Associated Press Thursday.
However, university officials say they are aware of “troubling rumors” about federal action being taken on the local Ivy League institution but have “no new information to substantiate any of these rumors.”
The White House official spoke to the AP under condition of anonymity about the half billion dollars in grants and federal contracts that are on the line at Brown. In a campus message to Brown staff, Provost Francis J. Doyle III said the university is closely monitoring notifications related to grants, but “have nothing more we can share as of now.”
Doyle also advised faculty and staff should contact the U.S. Department of Revenue with concerns about specific research proposals and their relationship or exposure to federal actions.
Brown spokesperson Brian Clark on Friday told Providence Business News the university has “no information to substantiate what's being reported.”
If action is taken by the federal administration against Brown, the local university would be the fifth Ivy League institution targeted by President Donald Trump after several protests and alleged antisemitism occurred on college campuses across the country since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack and capture of Israeli citizens. It could also put Brown, which is already in financial difficulty – facing
a $46 million structural deficit and also had
implemented hiring freezes – into further monetary dire straits.
Columbia University had recently lost $400 million in federal money before agreeing to several demands from the federal government in the hopes of getting that funding returned.
Brown also back on March 11 was among 60 colleges across the country to be
put on notice by the U.S. Department of Education for possible Civil Rights Act Title VI violations relating to antisemitic harassment and discrimination occurring on their campuses. Brown and the other schools were warned about “potential enforcement actions” if such colleges don’t honor Title VI to protect Jewish students on campus.
Title VI prohibits any institution that receives federal funds from discriminating based on race, color and national origin. National origin includes shared Jewish ancestry, the Department of Education said.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, tensions rose on the Brown campus regarding the ongoing conflict. The matter has stirred various controversies on the Ivy League grounds last spring, including students being
arrested in protests – with those charges since being
dropped. Brown also has since implemented
various measures to combat discrimination on campus.
Brown would also be another local college impacted by federal funding cuts. The University of Rhode Island, currently
under investigation by USDOE for alleged Title VI violations,
had a $1.1 million National Institutes of Health grant canceled. That grant was to support the state land-grant school’s Enhancing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education Diversity – or ESTEEMED – program.
In February, URI announced its U.S. Agency for International Development grant-funded programming at the school was going to be
eliminated by the end of March. The decision affected 11 employees working on programs focused on food insecurities across several countries listed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency as reaching “concerning levels” of food insecurity.
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on X at @James_Bessette. Reports from PBN reporter Katie Castellani and the Associated Press are included in this story.
