Agreement with Federal Government to Restore Brown Research Funding, Resolve Compliance Reviews 2025
The voluntary agreement preserves the ability for students and scholars to teach and learn without government intrusion, and includes a $50 million commitment from Brown to support workforce development in Rhode Island.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — On Wednesday, July 30, Brown University reached a voluntary agreement with the federal government to restore funding for the University's federally sponsored medical and health sciences research and resolve three open reviews assessing Brown’s compliance with federal nondiscrimination obligations. The agreement will reinstate payments for active research grants and restore Brown's ability to compete for new federal grants and contracts, while also meeting Brown’s core imperative of preserving the ability for its students and scholars to teach and learn without government intrusion.
Brown President Christina H. Paxson shared details on the agreement in a letter to the Brown community.
“The University's foremost priority throughout discussions with the government was remaining true to our academic mission, our core values and who we are as a community at Brown,” Paxson wrote. “This is reflected in key provisions of the resolution agreement preserving our academic independence, as well as a commitment to pay $50 million in grants over 10 years to workforce development organizations in Rhode Island, which is aligned with our service and community engagement mission.”
Since early this year, Paxson has publicly asserted Brown's commitment to meeting its obligations to follow the law, as well as the University’s willingness to understand any valid concerns the government may have about the ways in which the University fulfills those legal obligations. Paxson stated in a March communication that was broadly circulated publicly that Brown should uphold its ethical and legal obligations while also steadfastly defending academic freedom and freedom of expression, for both the University as an institution and for individual members of the Brown community.
“By voluntarily entering this agreement, we meet those dual obligations,” Paxson wrote to the campus. “We stand solidly behind commitments we repeatedly have affirmed to protect all members of our community from harassment and discrimination, [and] we protect the ability of our faculty and students to study and learn academic subjects of their choosing.”
She added, “We applaud the agreement’s unequivocal assertion that the agreement does not give the government the ‘authority to dictate Brown’s curriculum or the content of academic speech.’”