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's $250 million in federal grants were restored under a deal with U.S. President Donald Trump's administration announced on Friday, the fifth such agreement to be struck amid a conservative crackdown on institutions.

The agreement requires the university, known for its agricultural programs, to pay the government $30 million and invest another $30 million in agricultural research over three years.

Cornell also must provide admissions data to end government investigations of the Ivy League university over accusations of antisemitism and discrimination.

Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff 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."

Higher education advocate Jon Fansmith said the Cornell deal showed the Trump administration "losing leverage."

"We are seeing an increasing narrowness of what the agreements cover," said Fansmith, senior vice president for government relations with the American Council on Education, a higher education lobbying group.

The deal 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."

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.

Harvard, the richest and oldest university in the U.S., has 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 colleges 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 universities preferential consideration for federal funding in exchange for agreeing to a set of policies. Most rejected the proposal, citing academic freedom. MIT President Sally Kornbluth said the proposal's premise was "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 and Brad Brooks; Writing by Andrew Hay; Editing by Caitlin Webber, Donna Bryson and Rod Nickel)