INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880
The Corne¬ Daily Sun Vol. 142, No. 12
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2025 n ITHACA, NEW YORK
16 Pages — Free
CORNELL REACHES SETTLEMENT
$60 million deal with Trump administration announced Friday By GABRIEL MUÑOZ Sun City Editor
Nov. 7 — 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 reg-
ulations. 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.” To continue reading this article, please visit www.cornellsun.com. LEV KATRECZKO / SUN CONTRIBUTOR
Gabriel Muñoz can be reached at gmunoz@cornellsun.com.
Federal finances | Cornell reached a settlement with the Trump administration to restore over $250 million in federal funding.
How Does Cornell’s Settlement Kotlikoff Holds Virtual Town Hall Compare to Four Elite Colleges’ Deals? By ZEINAB FARAJ and BENJAMIN LEYNSE Sun Features Editor and Sun News Editor
By AMELIA GARCIA Sun Multimedia Contributor
Nov. 11 — Cornell became the fifth university to reach a settlement agreement with the Trump administration on Friday, agreeing to a mix of financial and policy concessions to restore federal funding and dismiss civil rights lawsuits. The Sun compared Cornell’s numerical and policy agreements to the four earlier deals struck at Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University and the University of Virginia. By the Numbers Columbia’s deal was the first reached and remains the most crushing, with the university seeing a $200 million fine to be paid over three years. Columbia will also pay $21 million to a class claimant fund to directly compensate Columbia employees who experienced antisemitism at the university since Oct. 7, 2023. Cornell agreed to pay $30 million to the federal government and invest an additional $30 million into research to strengthen U.S. agriculture over the
next three years, marking the second-highest payment to the federal government and overall settlement amount thus far. Brown’s deal does not include any payments to the federal government, but instead commits $50 million over the next decade to Rhode Island workforce development programs. UPenn and UVA’s settlements do not include financial concessions. By the Policies The five universities that have reached settlements agreed to significant policy and financial concessions and have since seen their federal funding restored. To continue reading this article, please visit www.cornellsun.com. Amelia Garcia can be reached at agg76@cornell.edu.
AMELIA GARCIA / SUN CONTRIBUTOR, SOURCE: CNN, CREATED WITH DATAWRAPPER
Comparing colleges | Cornell agreed to pay $30 million to the federal government and invest $30 million into agricultural research across three years, a time commitment matching Columbia’s.
News
SNAP suspension Organizations providing food aid in Tompkins County have been strained for resources.
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Sports
Coveted cup Cornell football made a historic showing to steal Penn’s homecoming and the Trustee’s Cup.
| Page 16
Nov. 8 — In a virtual town hall event, President Michael Kotlikoff addressed Cornell’s settlement with the federal government that reinstated frozen research funding, fielding pre-screened questions from the Cornell community on Friday afternoon. The $60 million deal effectively restored over $250 million in suspended federal funds and ended several federal discrimination investigations into Cornell. Over 80 grants totaling $40 million previously suspended by the Department of Defense were reinstated immediately, Kotlikoff said at the event. Kotlikoff gave a brief introduction before answering questions asked in a Q&A-style discussion led by Kyle Kimball, vice president of University Relations. Among other topics addressed, Kotlikoff said the University remained financially insecure despite the reinstatement of research funding. He also defended the University’s incorporation of federal guidelines for discrimination as a training resource for all faculty and staff. The guidelines outline the federal government’s stance on discriminatory practices in higher education, which deem race-based decisions on admissions and hiring, diversity equity and inclusion programs, transgender athletes in sports and more as “unlawful.” The Sun compiled the questions Kotlikoff was asked as well as his responses. “Have the [stop-work orders] been lifted and how many, if any, amounts can you give us?” In February, the federal government began issuing stop-work orders, rising to
MING DEMERS / SUN FILE PHOTO
Research resumes | Cornell is set to regain over $250 million in research funding. over 120 orders and amounting to about $250 million in cuts by May. Stop work orders are directives from a contracting officer to a contractor to stop all or parts of work for 90 days, at which point they expire or are extended. Provost Kavita Bala confirmed that the number of active stop-work orders remained essentially unchanged in an October interview with The Sun. In a statement on Friday, Kotlikoff said the University reached a settlement with the federal government to restore over $250 million in research funding. See SETTLEMENT page 5 Zeinab Faraj and Benjamin Leynse can be reached at zfaraj@cornellsun.com and bleynse@cornellsun.com.