On July 30, Brown announced an agreement with the Trump administration to end three spurious investigations into the University and reclaim over $50 million in unpaid federal research grants. In President Trump’s preferred parlance, they ‘made a deal.’ But a deal is a voluntary agreement between two willing parties. This was no deal — it was a shakedown. The Trump administration froze research funds and then demanded ideological compliance to get them back.
When the Trump administration first threatened Brown’s research funds, I launched Stand Strong Brown, a coalition of more than 1,000 alumni, parents, faculty and staff urging the University to defend academic freedom, free speech and student safety. Brown’s capitulation is an enormous disappointment to our members, many of whom feel that Brown has forsaken the very ideals that defined their education and launched them on careers to promote the public interest.
Faced with a criminal president using the power of federal funding to enforce his world view, Brown had a choice: protect its institutional interests or fight for the critical role that universities play in a democracy as spaces of open inquiry, pluralism and dissent. By prioritizing the immediate preservation of Brown’s research capabilities, the University didn’t just fail its own community, it signaled that this abuse of power is acceptable, a decision with serious implications for American society.
As members of the Brown community try to make sense of this dark moment, we must ask ourselves two questions. First, did Brown do everything it could to fight back against illegal, authoritarian overreach? Brown was one of the first universities to settle, which on its face suggests the answer is no. More specifically, they chose not to challenge the Trump administration’s funding freeze in court. Harvard did sue and appears likely to succeed. Brown could have demonstrated that same courage by initiating their own legal fight, defending its autonomy and encouraging other schools to stand up as well.
There was no concerted effort by the University to tell the story of what Brown does and what we lose when our government tramples the independence of our academic institutions. Brown chose the path of least resistance — a behind-closed-doors negotiated settlement that keeps the research funds flowing. The financial pressures were real and urgent, no doubt. But in the face of existential threats to our democracy, we should expect our institutions to rise, not retreat.
This brings us to the second question: What values did Brown compromise on to reach this agreement? The agreement is predicated on concern for the safety of Jewish students above all others. It calls on Brown to “support a thriving Jewish community, research and education about Israel, and a robust Program in Judaic Studies…” and both requires a campus climate survey focused on the concerns of Jewish students and calls on Brown to take action against any faculty member accused of antisemitism in an anonymous course evaluation. All of this reinforces the Trump administration’s contention that college campuses are hotbeds of antisemitism, a view many Jewish community leaders at Brown reject. Meanwhile, there is no equivalent support in the agreement for Arab, Muslim or Palestinian students — many of whom have also reported bias or harassment.
The agreement’s singular focus on Jewish students sends a chilling message to others on campus: Your experiences don’t matter. For Palestinian, Muslim, Arab or other marginalized students, the silence is deafening. How will they feel attending a university that codifies concern for one group while offering none for others? It’s hard to imagine a more divisive foundation for campus life in the coming years.
In addition, Brown has agreed to sweeping oversight of its admissions policies. Though the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling outlawed the consideration of race in university admissions, Brown’s agreement goes further, banning any proxy for race such as personal background essays used to justify “discrimination” and agreeing to hand over detailed admissions data — demographic breakdowns and test score performances — far beyond what is required of other schools. All of this is likely to further decrease the diversity of future classes, a disturbing trend that is well underway. There is also an enormous risk that the Trump administration will use these records to find additional “violations” and further insert itself into Brown’s admissions process.
Finally, Brown has agreed to erase its transgender, nonbinary and gender expansive students by adhering to the Trump administration’s narrow, binary definitions of “male” and “female” for purposes of athletics, and allowing for trans-exclusionary bathrooms, locker rooms and even floors in residence halls. The agreement also limits access to gender-affirming care for minors. While the practical impact of some of these terms may be limited, their symbolic significance is enormous. The agreement adopts language from Trump’s executive orders that are currently being challenged in court — Brown is codifying these rules before their legality is even determined, a betrayal of transgender, nonbinary and gender-expansive members of our community that we should not accept.
There are other concerning provisions in the agreement, including that Brown will “not maintain programs that promote unlawful efforts to achieve race-based outcomes… Brown will cease any provision of benefits or advantages to individuals on the basis of protected characteristics … within the entire Brown University system” which could require the University to phase out race-conscious diversity recruitment in faculty hiring and to stop using race as a factor in student financial aid targeting. These practices were not banned by the Supreme Court’s ruling on admissions. By abandoning them now, Brown is not complying with a legal mandate, it is voluntarily walking away from key tools used to advance equity and inclusion on campus.
Many people will look at Brown’s agreement optimistically and say, at least it’s better than Columbia’s. They might be right. There is no $221 million fine and no installation of an ideologically motivated federal monitor. But in this perilous moment for American democracy, asking which college cut the best deal with an aspiring autocrat is asking the wrong question. The right one is: Did my alma mater show true courage in fighting against authoritarian overreach?
Sadly, the answer in Brown’s case is no, and their choice sets a dangerous precedent. Federal funding can now be wielded to reshape higher education behind closed doors, at the expense of students’ civil rights and institutional values. When policy making occurs via legalized extortion, the door remains open to more demands and deeper concessions. Armed with this agreement, the Trump administration will likely come back for another pound of Brown’s flesh. When it does, Brown will wish it had stood strong when it had the chance.
Daniel Souweine, '01 is the founder of Stand Strong Brown, which organizes members of the Brown community to defend academic freedom and free speech. He can be reached at dsouweine@gmail.com. Please send responses to this op-ed to letters@browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
