Cornell Deal

From the Cornell Daily Sun: The University reached a settlement* with the federal government to restore over $250 million in federal funds, according to a statement sent by President Michael Kotlikoff to the University community on Friday. Cornell has agreed to give $30 million to the federal government and invest an additional $30 million into research to strengthen U.S. agriculture over the next three years. The settlement stipulates that all funding to Cornell will be restored for grants that were paused and those that were yet to be funded. Grants that were previously deemed ineligible for funding will also be restored in full. 

The federal government also agreed to close all ongoing Civil Rights Title VI investigations into Cornell. The University does not admit to any wrongdoing and “expressly denies liability with respect to the subject matter of the Investigations,” according to the settlement. Under the agreement, the University must provide the federal government with anonymized undergraduate admissions data, including race, grade point average and standardized test scores broken down by specific colleges on a quarterly basis in compliance with existing regulations. The data will be subjected to a “comprehensive audit by the United States.” However, the information will be “maintained confidentially and exempt from public disclosure,” according to the agreement.

The settlement states that “no provision of this Agreement, individually or taken together, shall be construed as giving the United States authority to dictate the content of academic speech or curricula.” However, Cornell agreed to include the Department of Justice’s “Guidance for Recipients of Federal Funding Regarding Unlawful Discrimination,” released on July 29, as a training resource for all faculty and staff. The memo announcing the guidance says, “The federal government will not stand by while recipients of federal funds engage in discrimination,” noting the “significant legal risk of initiatives” such as diversity, equity and inclusion programs and the allowance of transgender athletes to compete on women’s teams...

Full story at https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/11/cornell-reaches-settlement-with-trump-administration-to-restore-federal-funding.

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*https://ia800402.us.archive.org/9/items/2-final-hjaa-report.-the-soil-beneath-the-encampments/Cornell-settlement-agreement%2011-7-2025.pdf.