Trump administration is considering freezing $510 million in grants to Brown University

By Samantha Waldenberg, Carma Hassan and Emma Tucker, CNN

(CNN) — More than half a billion dollars in grant money is on the line at Brown University as the Trump administration reviews the Ivy League university’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies and its response to antisemitism, a White House official told CNN. News and opinion website The Daily Caller first reported the freeze on Thursday.

A spokesperson for Brown University told CNN the university “had no information to substantiate this.”

Brown University is one of more than 50 schools being investigated by the Department of Education for alleged violations “relating to antisemitic harassment and discrimination.”

The move comes after a Brown University assistant professor and doctor, Dr. Rasha Alawieh, was deported last month from Boston to Lebanon after federal agents found photos of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s supreme leader on her cell phone, a source familiar with the case told CNN at the time.

Brown is the latest Ivy League school to face funding halts or cuts since President Donald Trump took office. On Tuesday, the Trump administration suspended research grants totaling $210 million to Princeton University as part of an ongoing investigation into antisemitism on campus, according to the White House and the Department of Energy.

Columbia University was the first college to see its funding slashed – by $400 million – as part of the president’s threats to cut federal money to colleges accused of tolerating antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war that began in October 2023. The school has repeatedly stated it will not tolerate antisemitism.

Columbia then announced sweeping policy changes in late March, making apparent concessions following President Donald Trump’s revocation of federal funding over campus protests.

The Trump administration also paused $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania and placed more than $9 billion in contracts and grants under review at Harvard University in March.

The last academic year saw widespread campus unrest, including pro-Palestinian protests and encampments, counterprotests, building takeovers, arrests and scaled-back graduation ceremonies as Columbia became the epicenter of the nationwide demonstrations.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said in March that Brown University assistant professor Alawieh, 34, “traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, to attend the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah – a brutal terrorist who led Hezbollah, responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade terror spree.”

“Our client is in Lebanon, and we’re not going to stop fighting to get her back in the US to see her patients, and we’re also going to make sure that the government follows the rule of law,” an attorney representing Alawieh’s family in a federal complaint fighting the deportation, Stephanie Marzouk, told reporters in mid-March outside a Boston courthouse.

Alawieh acknowledged to federal agents she attended Nasrallah’s February 23 funeral – a public event attended by thousands – during her visit, a source familiar with the case told CNN last month. She described Nasrallah to officers as a highly regarded religious leader and told them she follows his religious and spiritual techniques but not his politics, the source said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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CNN’s Gloria Pazmino contributed to this report.