On April 8, 2025, the US administration froze more than $790 million in federal grants and contracts for Northwestern University (NU) on grounds that the university had allegedly failed to respond adequately to the administration’s unsubstantiated allegations of antisemitism on campus.

The funding freeze was first reported by the New York Times on April 8. NU President Michael Schill emailed the NU community two hours later, saying the university had learned of the funding freeze from “members of the media.” When a reporter from the school newspaper, the Daily Northwestern, reached out to the White House that same day to ask about the funding freeze, a White House official referred the reporter to a post that Patrick Ward, a senior producer at Fox News, had made on the social media platform X at 7:30 am that morning. On April 10, Schill again emailed the NU community saying that around 100 research projects had received stop-work orders from the Department of Defense since the freeze was announced two days prior. On April 17, according to a screenshot posted on X by a Nature journalist, an NIH administrator sent an internal email stating that the US Department of Health & Human Services had stated that it should “hold off on making awards to schools where the funds have been frozen, ie., Columbia, Brown, Northwestern, Cornell, Weill-Cornell, Harvard.” As of May 1, according to an email from NU administrators to the community, NU still had not received any official notice about the full scope of the funding freeze, its rationale, or any actions it could take to have it reversed.

Scholars at Risk is concerned about formal state pressure on institutional autonomy and academic freedom, including arbitrary withholding or cancellation of research grants and contracts outside of normal procedures and without transparent investigations or any due process or opportunity to rebut any allegations or evidence presented. In context with similar actions against other institutions on similarly unsubstantiated allegations that are not related to specific grants or contracts, the funding freeze strongly suggests an attempt to force compliance with extralegal demands or risk serious harm to the academic and financial standing of the institution.

While legislative and executive officials have an oversight role over institutions receiving public funds or benefits, they have a responsibility to refrain from abusing the oversight role in ways that erode autonomy and academic freedom, including by threatening, imposing extra-legal sanctions, or otherwise dictating academic or operational decision-making. Formal government state threats and pressures undermine university autonomy, academic freedom, and the university’s ability to contribute to democratic society generally.

Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/us/politics/cornell-northwestern-university-funds-trump.html
https://apnews.com/article/trump-cornell-northwestern-federal-funding-frozen-37192b49730304960929dcb72f09469c
https://dailynorthwestern.com/2025/04/08/top-stories/federal-government-freezes-790-million-in-funding-for-northwestern/
https://dailynorthwestern.com/2025/05/01/campus/northwestern-officials-confirm-significant-impacts-on-university-research-due-to-funding-freeze/
https://dailynorthwestern.com/2025/04/10/top-stories/nu-graduate-projects-receive-stop-work-orders-from-department-of-defense/
https://x.com/WardDPatrick/status/1909569549067772359
https://x.com/maxdkozlov/status/1913327818873700556