Brown University and the Trump administration have come to an agreement to restore the Ivy League’s federal funding and resolve federal investigations into alleged discrimination.
Brown agreed to spend $50 million on workforce development in Rhode Island and take a series of steps to protect women and Jewish students on campus, while ending its promotion of gender ideology and transgender medical interventions.
“Because of the Trump Administration’s resolution agreement with Brown University, aspiring students will be judged solely on their merits, not their race or sex,” secretary of the Department of Education Linda McMahon said.
“Brown has committed to proactive measures to protect Jewish students and combat Antisemitism on campus. Women’s sports and intimate facilities will be protected for women and Title IX will be enforced as it was intended.”
The school’s athletic locker rooms and bathrooms will be separated based on biological sex and the university will give women the option of using female-only housing, restrooms, and showers. Brown will also offer female students the option of single-sex floors in campus housing.
It will define “male” and “female” based on President Trump’s executive orders on restoring the sex binary to federal government and ending male participation in women’s sports.
Brown will use those definitions for all athletic events and school activities meant for women, and in female-only campus facilities.
Furthermore, Brown will cease to perform gender transition surgeries or hormone therapies on minors.
For Jewish students, Brown will combat campus antisemitism and ensure they are protected. Its accommodations for Jewish students will include a Judaic studies program, outreach to Jewish students to apply, partnerships with Jewish and Israeli organizations, resources for observant Jews, and research and education about Israel.
The Trump administration and Brown will select an outside group to conduct a survey on the campus climate for Jewish students and others later this year. Brown agreed to provide the survey results to the federal government and implement changes based on it. Likewise, Brown will turn over spreadsheets in September 2025 and 2026 of all the complaints it has received for alleged discrimination and harassment.
To eradicate discrimination, Brown will end any race-based quotas or programs that distribute benefits depending on race. Brown agreed to use merit-based admissions policies and not use any backdoor methods to conduct race-based admissions through proxies.
In exchange for all of those concessions, The federal government will end its funding freeze on Brown’s scientific research and give Brown fair treatment in applications for future grants. The Trump administration is closing investigations into alleged racial discrimination and discrimination based on nationality. It did not find any illegal conduct by Brown during the investigations.
Brown disclosed the voluntary agreement Wednesday and university president Christina Paxson shared details about it in a letter to the community.
“At its core, the agreement preserves the integrity of Brown’s academic foundation, and it enables us as a community to move forward after a period of considerable uncertainty in a way that ensures Brown will continue to be the Brown that our students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents and friends have known for generations,” Paxson wrote.
She celebrated the agreement for ensuring the government does not interfere with Brown’s academics and prevent the university from conducting vital research. She also addressed the main concessions Brown made to the Trump administration, including the ones on gender ideology and transgenderism, which will likely generate backlash among liberal faculty and students.
Brown is one of numerous schools to face federal funding freezes and investigations for alleged civil rights violations. Columbia University, one of Brown’s Ivy League peers, recently entered a $221 million settlement with the federal government to end its civil rights investigations and restore federal research funding in exchange for taking various steps to fight antisemitism and stop considering race in admissions.