Brown University's president, who clashed with Trump over funding, steps down

Brown University President Christina Paxson will leave her post at the end of the academic year, citing a federal funding freeze and clashes with the Trump administration over university funding and policies.

By Julia Harte Aug 3 - Brown University President Christina Paxson said on Monday that ​she would leave her post at the ​end of the academic year, following a difficult ‌period ​in which she clashed with President Donald Trump's administration over its threats to slash the Ivy League school's federal funding. Paxson said she had planned to leave her ‌job one year earlier, but extended her tenure at the university, located in Providence, Rhode Island, to "navigate a federal funding freeze that imperiled our mission," according to an open letter published on the school's website.

Brown was an early target of the ‌administration during Trump's second term in office as it cracked down on U.S. universities over what it called antisemitic ‌student protests against Israel's war on Gaza, diversity policies and a host of other issues. Protesters, including some Jewish groups, have said the administration has wrongly labeled criticism of Israel's assault on Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian territories as antisemitism and advocacy for Palestinian rights as support for extremism. After ⁠administration officials ​threatened to block $510 million in federal ⁠grants for Brown, Paxson reached a deal in July 2025 to restore the funding. The terms required the university to conduct a third-party ⁠evaluation of its campus climate, including for Jewish students, and propose actions to improve it. In October, though, Paxson declined an administration offer ​sent to nine elite universities, which said schools would be favored for federal funding if they capped the number ⁠of international students, defined gender based on biology and banned the use of race or sex in hiring and admissions.

Accepting the deal would "restrict academic ⁠freedom ​and undermine the autonomy of Brown's governance," Paxson said at the time. In her farewell letter on Monday, Paxson wrote that "while the federal landscape remains volatile for all colleges and universities, Brown is receiving major grants for pioneering research that ⁠will lead to tremendous innovation for this country."

Paxson also helped the university navigate tragedy during her tenure. In December, a former ⁠student opened fire on ⁠campus, leaving two students dead and nine wounded. The shooter went on to kill a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor before being found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Federal authorities ‌subsequently scrutinized Brown's emergency ‌notification and campus surveillance systems.