Tag: Freezes

  • Federal judge freezes Energy Department’s 15% cap on indirect costs

    Federal judge freezes Energy Department’s 15% cap on indirect costs

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    A federal judge Wednesday temporarily blocked the U.S. Department of Energy from implementing a 15% cap on grant funding for indirect costs. The ruling came just days after a dozen higher education associations and colleges sued the department, calling the new policy an overstep of authority and a threat to U.S. research and advancement.

    In the ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs said the plaintiffs — including higher ed groups like the American Council on Education and threatened colleges like the University of Michigan and Brown University — had successfully demonstrated that they would “sustain immediate and irreparable injury” if the policy were allowed to proceed in tandem with the lawsuit. 

    Burroughs’ temporary restraining order bars the Energy Department — until further court order — from terminating grants, either under the challenged policy or “based on a grantee’s refusal to accept an indirect cost rate less than their negotiated rate.” The judge is also requiring the department to submit biweekly reports confirming that the federal funds are being distributed during the pause.

    When announcing the funding cap last Friday, the Energy Department said the move would save $405 million annually and reduce what it called inefficient spending. Indirect research costs typically include overhead expenses such as facilities and administrative support staff.

    The department said the change would affect over 300 colleges and that it would terminate grants to any institutions that failed to comply.

    But the plaintiffs said the policy’s rapid implementation would give institutions no choice but to scale back funding and lay off staff.

    Their lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, called the Energy Department’s policy “a virtual carbon copy” of one announced in February by the National Institutes of Health. A federal judge permanently blocked NIH’s plan to cap indirect cost funding at 15% earlier this month, a decision the agency quickly appealed. The NIH plan would cost research universities billions in annual funding.

    “DOE’s action is unlawful for most of the same reasons and, indeed, it is especially egregious because DOE has not even attempted to address many of the flaws the district court found with NIH’s unlawful policy,” the plaintiff’s lawsuit said.

    The next hearing in the case is set for April 28 before the same court. 

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  • NIH Freezes Millions More in Funding for Columbia

    NIH Freezes Millions More in Funding for Columbia

    Columbia University was dealt another blow to research funding this week.

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    The Trump administration has frozen all U.S. National Institutes of Health funding for research grants at Columbia University, Science reported, cutting off the flow of $250 million to the private institution mere weeks after it yielded to sweeping demands related to pro-Palestinian campus protests.

    The federal government had already clamped down on $400 million in research funding for Columbia last month. But after the university agreed to enact various reforms the Trump administration demanded to address alleged antisemitism on campus, it appeared a reprieve was in order. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said last month that she believed Columbia was “on the right track” toward final negotiations to unfreeze the research funds.

    Instead, the Trump administration has gone in the opposite direction, cutting off even more research funding. According to Science, the NIH froze Columbia’s funding Monday at the direction of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is reportedly not only blocking new funding but also ceasing payments for work on existing projects. In addition, the agency will require prior approval to tap existing disbursements.

    “HHS strongly condemns anti-Semitic harassment against Jewish students on college campuses,” a department spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed by email. “In line with President Trump’s mission to combatting discrimination and promoting fairness, HHS is partnering with other federal agencies to conduct a comprehensive review of grants awarded to universities that have failed to protect students from discriminatory behavior. We will not tolerate taxpayer-funded institutions that fail to uphold their duty to safeguard students from harassment.”

    Critics assailed the move.

    “It’s shocking, but not surprising, as with so many previous developments in this matter,” said Michael Thaddeus, a Columbia math professor and vice president of the institution’s American Association of University Professors chapter. “And it shows that the Trump administration just has an animus against American universities.”

    Thaddeus called the actions “so patently unlawful” that litigation against the Trump administration would have a strong chance of success—yet Columbia hasn’t sued. The AAUP and the American Federation of Teachers union, with which the AAUP is affiliated, have filed a lawsuit over the prior $400 million cut.

    “If what you’re dealing with is threats from an extortionist, then capitulating to the threats of an extortionist is not a wise move,” Thaddeus said. “What’s happening is not an enforcement action, it’s a political vendetta.”

    Reinhold Martin, president of the Columbia AAUP chapter and an architecture professor, said “the defunding of science” reflects a structural pattern: “the movement of public funding out of the nonprofit sector into, eventually, we can fully expect, the for-profit sector. So that’s what this is about.”

    A Columbia spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed the university has not yet been notified of the freeze. “At this time, Columbia has not received notice from the NIH about additional cancellations,” the spokesperson said via email. “The University remains in active dialogue with the Federal Government to restore its critical research funding.”

    Columbia would not be the first university to learn about the loss of federal funding indirectly. The Trump administration also froze $790 million in federal research funding at Northwestern University earlier this week, which officials learned about via media reports. Cornell University was also dealt a $1 billion blow to its federal funding this week.

    Elsewhere in the Ivy League, the Trump administration has frozen $510 million at Brown University, $175 million at the University of Pennsylvania and $210 million at Princeton University. The funding freezes mainly come in response to allegations of antisemitism related to pro-Palestinian campus protests, though federal investigations into the claims are ongoing.

    Outside of Columbia, scholars noted that even though the university gave in to Trump’s demands, the administration still seemed unsatisfied.

    “The NIH just froze ALL grant funding owed to Columbia University, meaning that the university’s concessions to the Trump administration clearly didn’t go far enough to satisfy the federal government,” Robert Kelchen, a professor of education and head of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, wrote in a BlueSky post.

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  • UC System Freezes Hiring, Bans Diversity Statement Mandates

    UC System Freezes Hiring, Bans Diversity Statement Mandates

    The University of California System’s president announced a systemwide hiring freeze and other “cost-saving measures, such as delaying maintenance and reducing business travel where possible.”

    “Because every UC location is different, these plans will vary,” president Michael V. Drake said in a Wednesday letter to the campuses of one of the country’s largest higher education systems. He said “every action that impacts our University and our workforce will only be taken after serious and deliberative consideration.”

    Drake pointed to a “substantial cut” to the system in the California state budget atop the Trump administration’s disruptive national reduction in support for postsecondary education. He said the administration’s executive orders and proposed policies “threaten funding for lifesaving research, patient care and education support.”

    “The Chancellors and I are preparing for significant financial challenges ahead,” Drake wrote.

    Whenever hiring does resume, UC universities and their components will no longer be able to require that applicants submit diversity statements. Janet Reilly, chair of the UC Board of Regents, said in a separate statement Wednesday that the board directed the system to eliminate such mandates.

    “While the University has no systemwide policies requiring the submission of diversity statements as part of employment applications, some programs and departments have used this practice,” Reilly said.

    Paulette Granberry Russell, president and chief executive officer of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, told Inside Higher Ed that, “while I think diversity statements added value on the front end of a search,” it’s far more important to have a structured approach to faculty hiring. She said this approach should eliminate biases and consideration of “non–job-related criteria,” such as accents or lack of eye contact, from the process.

    Diversity statements, she said, are “not the defining factor in whether or not somebody’s going to be successful” if they earn the position.

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  • University of California freezes hiring as it braces for funding cuts

    University of California freezes hiring as it braces for funding cuts

    Dive Brief:

    • The University of California is implementing a hiring freeze across its 10 campuses as it navigates potential funding cuts at both the federal and state levels, system President Michael Drake said in a message Wednesday. 
    • Drake also directed UC locations to roll out other cost-cutting measures, such as delaying maintenance and reducing travel expenses. 
    • “I recognize this is a time of great uncertainty for many in our UC community and in higher education across the country,” Drake said. “Throughout our history as an institution and as a nation, we have weathered struggles and found new ways to show up for the people we serve.”

    Dive Insight:

    UC joins an ever-growing cohort of higher education institutions taking preemptive steps to brace their budgets against a storm of funding cuts and financial attacks coming from the Trump administration. 

    Harvard University, the University of Notre Dame and Northwestern University are just a few of the major research universities that have also frozen hiring in recent weeks as they brace for federal funding cuts potentially coming from multiple directions. 

    Many institutions have cited the 15% cap on indirect research cost funding that the National Institutes of Health announced in February. Such a reduction would amount to billions of dollars collectively and could translate into funding shortfalls in the tens of millions of dollars for many universities. 

    NIH is the largest funder of UC research, having provided a total $2.6 billion to the system in the 2023-24 academic year, according to the system. Among the system’s campuses that could be hardest hit, UCLA stands to lose $65 million under the funding cap, UC San Francisco $121 million and UC San Diego $102 million, according to a New York Times analysis.  

    Faced with massive cuts to its research funding from the agency, UC filed a declaration in support of the lawsuit against NIH brought by the California attorney general and more than 20 other states.

    A judge overseeing multiple lawsuits against NIH has paused the funding cap, but uncertainty abounds among higher education leaders over the issue and other potential funding stoppages in Washington. 

    “The University’s legal team prepared for this moment and has been working diligently to protect the University and our mission through the courts,” Drake said. “These efforts have allowed us to stave off some of the immediate and projected financial impacts — but not all.”

    Even before President Donald Trump took office, UC faced potential future budget strains from state-level cuts. A fiscal 2025-26 budget proposal unveiled in January by Gov. Gavin Newsom would reduce UC’s funding by $271 million. At the time, Drake— who plans to step down as system leader at the end of the 2024-25 academic year —  expressed concern about how the cuts would affect UC students and services. 

    Prior to that, the system had been improving its financial trajectory, with the system’s overall total budget loss shrinking significantly in fiscal 2024 to $178 million, less than a tenth of the prior year’s shortfall. 

    In his message Wednesday, Drake said he asked the presidents of all UC locations to “prepare financial strategies and workforce management plans that address any potential shortfalls,” adding that “every action that impacts our University and our workforce will only be taken after serious and deliberative consideration.”

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