Tag: suspends

  • Trump administration suspends dozens of Princeton University’s research grants

    Trump administration suspends dozens of Princeton University’s research grants

    Federal agencies have suspended “several dozen” federal research grants to Princeton University, the Ivy League institution announced Tuesday. The move comes as the Trump administration attacks high-profile colleges over campus antisemitism allegations.

    Multiple agencies, including the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA, notified the university of the freezes on Monday and Tuesday, Princeton President Chris Eisgruber said in a community message. 

    He noted that “the full rationale” for the agencies’ cancellation wasn’t clear yet but stated the university will comply with the law and is “committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination, and we will cooperate with the government in combating antisemitism.”

    He added that Princeton would at the same time “vigorously defend academic freedom and the due process rights.”

    A reporter for The Daily Caller, a conservative outlet, reported late Monday that the Trump administration was pausing $210 million in funding to Princeton amid an ongoing campus antisemitism investigation. 

    The Education Department on Tuesday did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation of the pause.

    Like many college campuses, Princeton saw significant protest activity last spring, including a hunger strike, an encampment lasting three weeks and over a dozen arrests. During that time, the Biden administration opened an investigation into the university after a complaint was filed by a conservative activist, who filed more than 30 similar complaints at U.S. educational institutions.

    In March, the U.S. Department of Education under President Donald Trump named Princeton as one of 60 institutions that could face enforcement action over unaddressed antisemitism, though the agency didn’t specify any specific civil rights law violations. 

    The suspension of Princeton’s research grants is just the most recent of the Trump administration’s escalating financial attacks on colleges and the higher education sector. 

    On Monday, the administration announced it was reviewing billions of dollars in federal grants and contracts at Harvard University, another well-known institution mentioned on the Education Department’s March list. 

    Those moves come less than a month after the Trump administration canceled $400 million in research funding to Columbia University. 

    The Ivy League institution ceded to many of the government’s demands — including by adding three dozen security officers and appointing a senior vice provost to review its regional studies program. Late last month, the Trump administration called it “a positive first step in the university maintaining a financial relationship with the United States government.”

    Following the weeks of turmoil at the university, Columbia Interim President Katrina Armstrong stepped down late last week after less than eight months.

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  • ABA suspends DEI standards for accreditation

    ABA suspends DEI standards for accreditation

    The American Bar Association is suspending diversity, equity, and inclusion standards for the law schools it accredits amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on DEI efforts, Reuters reported.

    An ABA council reportedly voted on the change Friday, suspending DEI standards through August as the organization—which accredits nearly 200 law schools—considers permanent changes.

    ABA officials did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

    The change comes as the ABA has clashed with the Trump administration in recent weeks, accusing the president of “wide-scale affronts to the rule of law itself” in issuing rapid-fire executive orders that have targeted DEI and birthright citizenship, and sought to shrink the federal government through mass firings and other actions that some legal scholars have deemed unlawful.

    In the aftermath, the Trump administration barred political appointees to the Federal Trade Commission from holding ABA leadership posts, participating in ABA events, or renewing their memberships. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson accused the ABA of a “long history of leftist advocacy” and said “recent attacks” on the administration made the relationship “untenable.” 

    State officials have also pressured ABA to drop its DEI standards. In January a group of 21 attorneys general, all from red states, sent a letter to the ABA urging it to drop DEI standards.

    The ABA has reportedly been reviewing its standards on DEI since 2023, when the U.S. Supreme Court upended affirmative action with its ruling in favor of Students for Fair Admissions against Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

    Some Republican officials have celebrated the ABA’s move. “This is a victory for common sense! We are bringing meritocracy back to the legal system,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X.

    ABA’s suspension of DEI standards comes after the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology dropped diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility from its accreditation criteria.

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