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Northwestern University has agreed to pay the U.S. Treasury $75 million over three years to resolve federal investigations into its handling of antisemitism on campus, it was announced on Friday.
The deal restores the the university’s access to hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.
It is among the largest settlements to emerge from the Trump administration’s review of antisemitism on college campuses. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi called the agreement “another victory in the Trump administration’s fight to ensure that American educational institutions protect Jewish students and put merit first.”
University Strikes Deal After Months of Turmoil
Northwestern also agreed to review admissions processes and introduce new training requirements for international students.
However, Interim Northwestern President Henry Bienen announced: “As an imperative to the negotiation of this agreement, we had several hard red lines we refused to cross: We would not relinquish any control over whom we hire, whom we admit as students, what our faculty teach, or how our faculty teach. Northwestern runs Northwestern. Period.”
Part of Broader National Reckoning
The settlement comes as universities nationwide confront escalating federal pressure related to campus antisemitism. Earlier this month, a federal judge blocked the administration from imposing a fine exceeding $1 billion on the University of California system. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin described the threatened penalty as “coercive and retaliatory,” ruling that investigators failed to follow standard civil rights procedures.
Other institutions have also reached substantial agreements to conclude their cases. Columbia University agreed in July to pay $200 million. Cornell University accepted a $30 million fine. Brown University committed to reforms on antisemitism, admissions, and women’s sports, alongside a $50 million contribution to workforce development programs.
For Jewish students, the outcome may offer a path toward stronger accountability and a firmer response to antisemitism on campuses.
