U.S. President Donald Trump walks to the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., February 24, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Bhargav Acharya

(Reuters) -Cornell University said on Friday it had reached a deal with President Donald Trump's administration to immediately restore more than $250 million in research funds that were frozen in April amid a conservative crackdown on institutions on ideological grounds.

The agreement requires the university to make concessions, including providing admissions data, to end government investigations of the Ivy League university over accusations of antisemitism and discrimination in admissions. It marked the fifth such deal the Trump administration has made in its campaign against elite U.S. universities.

Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff said the university would pay the government $30 million and invest an additional $30 million in agricultural research over three years under the agreement. Cornell is known for its agricultural programs.

He stressed his university had not been found in violation of U.S. civil rights laws in any government investigations or compliance reviews.

ADMINISTRATION CITES BLOW AGAINST DEI

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said on X the Cornell deal was another victory in the push to end what she called “divisive DEI policies” at Ivy League universities, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion measures.

In April, citing what it called insufficient efforts to curb antisemitism, the administration froze funding to the university, which is based in Ithaca, New York.

Kotlikoff expressed relief a deal had been reached that would ease financial pressure.

"The months of stop-work orders, grant terminations and funding freezes have stalled cutting-edge research, upended lives and careers and threatened the future of academic programs at Cornell," he said in a statement.

He said the agreement allowed Cornell to decide hiring and admissions policies, as well as what it taught, "without intrusive government monitoring or approvals."

The agreement states that "The United States does not aim to dictate the content of academic speech or curricula, and 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 provide the government with undergraduate admissions data through 2028 on race, grade point average and performance on standardized tests. The Trump administration has included similar terms in deals with other universities as it analyzes whether race is used to determine college admissions.

PRESSURE ON UNIVERSITIES

The Trump administration has been pressuring top U.S. universities over pro-Palestinian student protests it has labeled antisemitic and policies designed to increase diversity that the administration has condemned as discriminatory. The administration has also targeted DEI programs at banks, corporations and law firms.

Some law firms have fought back, with four successfully suing the administration to block orders restricting their work. Harvard, the richest and oldest university in the U.S., has also been targeted and launched a legal battle, but continues to explore a settlement. Trump said in September that a deal with Harvard was close.

Columbia University and other schools struck agreements over the summer. Columbia agreed to pay over $200 million to the U.S. government in its settlement and had earlier acquiesced to a series of demands that included scrutiny of departments offering courses on the Middle East and other concessions that were widely condemned by U.S. academics.

The Trump administration has faced setbacks in its fight, including an August court ruling ordering the release of more than $500 million in funding to UCLA it had frozen.

Last month, it offered nine schools preferential consideration for federal funding in exchange for agreeing to a set of policies. Most of the schools rejected the proposal, citing academic freedom. MIT President Sally Kornbluth said the proposal's premise "is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone." The White House later extended the offer to any school, but the response has been muted.

(Reporting by Bhargav Acharya, David Ljunggren, Kanishka Singh; Writing by Andrew Hay; Editing by Caitlin Webber, Donna Bryson and Rod Nickel)