President Donald J. Trump’s administration froze $790 million in federal funding to Northwestern University, White House officials confirmed to the Tribune on Wednesday morning.
A White House spokesman pointed to a social media post from Pat Ward, its senior editorial producer, explaining the cuts.
“The money was frozen in connection with several ongoing, credible, and concerning Title VI investigations,” Ward wrote in his post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The Evanston-based research institution learned from media outlets on Tuesday that a “significant portion” of its federal funding would be frozen but had not officially been notified, according to university spokesman Jon Yates. The news coincided with a New York Times report that the Trump administration had frozen $1 billion in federal dollars to Cornell University.
Federal dollars fund “innovative and life saving research” at Northwestern and the school has “fully cooperated” with federal investigators, Yates said in a statement Tuesday evening.
Once the funding cuts were confirmed Wednesday morning, Northwestern did not immediately respond to a request for further comment on which specific programs and departments would be impacted.
The federal government has been zeroing in on Northwestern for months as part of a recent crackdown on alleged antisemitic action on campuses across the country, with a particular focus on how schools handled pro-Palestinian protests that swept campuses across the country last spring.
Many of the encampments at colleges across Chicago were eventually dismantled by police, leaving lawn chairs and colorful student artwork dotting the muddy grass of campus quads. Northwestern’s encampment, in Deering Meadow, was taken down in an agreement with students and faculty — believed to be the first between a major U.S. university and pro-Palestinian protesters.
In early February, Northwestern was put under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education through a newly created multiagency task force for what the federal agency called “widespread antisemitic harassment.”
The school was one of 60 institutions to receive a warning in March that it could lose money if it did not fulfill its obligations to Jewish students. The university is also on a U.S. Department of Justice list of 10 institutions accused of not protecting their Jewish students and faculty.
Northwestern’s president, Michael Schill, has testified before Congress about his commitment to making Jewish students, faculty and staff feel comfortable around Northwestern’s campus.
Last week, the university released a “progress report” detailing several steps the school has taken to secure its campus for Jewish students, faculty and staff. The school has seen a dip in instances of antisemitic conduct over the last year, that report stated.
Researcher Igor Efimov, a Northwestern experimental cardiologist, said Tuesday evening he was “flabbergasted” by news of the funding freeze at Northwestern.
He already has federal grant funding in limbo – money that was supposed to fund research to develop a new implantable device to treat atrial fibrillation, he said. An advisory council meeting of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, where the funding was to be approved, was canceled in February, and the next meeting isn’t until later this month, Efimov said. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute is at the National Institutes of Health, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“Now I don’t know what is going to happen,” Efimov said. “We are developing life-saving therapies for patients with heart disease, which is the No. 1 cause of death in the United States. If we don’t support this science, who’s going to support that?”
Please check back for more details, as this story is developing.
