By the Associated Press’s Colin Binkley
Washington (AP) On Wednesday, Brown University made an agreement with the Trump administration to stop looking into claims of discrimination and recover access to federal research funds.
Along with other concessions in accordance with President Donald Trump’s political objectives, the Ivy League school agreed to spend $50 million over ten years to workforce development organizations in Rhode Island. For instance, Brown will use the government’s definition of male and female and will have to eliminate any racial bias from the admissions process.
According to Christina H. Paxson, president of Brown, the agreement maintains Brown’s academic autonomy. One of the clauses states that the government cannot control Brown’s academic speech or curriculum.
During talks with the government, the University’s first objective was to stay faithful to its academic mission, core values, and identity as a Brown community. Paxson penned.
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The three-year agreement is quite similar to one that Columbia University inked last week, which the government referred to as a model for other universities. However, Brown’s does not have an independent monitor, in contrast to that arrangement.
During an inquiry into Brown’s handling of accusations of antisemitism, especially during pro-Palestinian protests on campus last spring, dozens of funds and contracts were canceled; the agreement with Brown restores them. Additionally, it demands that Brown receive $50 million in unpaid federal grant expenditures back from the federal government.
In order to address claims of antisemitism on its Providence, Rhode Island, campus, Brown committed to a number of steps. The school announced that it will encourage Jewish day school pupils to apply to Brown and reaffirm its collaborations with Israeli scholars. The government and Brown must work together to select an outside group by the end of this year to examine the campus environment for Jewish students.
According to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Brown’s agreement guarantees that students will be evaluated only on their qualifications, not their gender or color.
According to a statement from McMahon, the Trump Administration is effectively undoing the decades-long woke-capture of our country’s universities.
According to the settlement, Brown must reveal a plethora of information about applicants and accepted students, including their race, academic standing, and results on standardized tests. The government will conduct a thorough audit of the data.
It prevents Brown from favoring applicants based solely on their race. Such consideration is already prohibited by a 2023 Supreme Court ruling, but the agreement seems to go one step farther and prohibit Brown from utilizing any kind of proxy for racial admission, such as diversity narratives or personal statements.
Columbia’s settlement included a $200 million payment. The Trump administration is asking Harvard, a university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to pay far more in negotiations.
Another agreement, which included no penalties, committed the University of Pennsylvania to changing the academic records set by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.
This article was written by Cheyanne Mumphrey of the Associated Press.
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