Education
What Has the Trump Administration Gotten From Law Firms and Universities?
Harvard University claimed a victory in its legal case against the Trump administration on Wednesday, when a federal judge ruled that the government broke the law by freezing billions of dollars in research funding. The ruling, which the administration has pledged to appeal, potentially gave Harvard new leverage in its battle toward a settlement to restore funding, in exchange for payments demanded by President Trump.
About a dozen other universities and major law firms have struck deals with the government in recent months — instead of taking cases to court — to unfreeze funding or avoid restrictive executive orders.
Mr. Trump has used the full force of the federal government — opening civil rights investigations, freezing federal funding and threatening to cancel government contracts — to push for these agreements. These deals have reverberated across the legal industry and academia, and they could shape how other institutions respond to Mr. Trump’s methods.
Most of the deals involve paying millions of dollars, either in cash or legal services, to the administration. But the deals also include other concessions, like commitments to redefine discrimination, acquiesce to more government oversight and assess ideology.
Below, we break down what these deals have in common.
1. Money or legal services
Much of the focus around these deals has been around the money that Mr. Trump has demanded from each entity, payable either to his administration, or to state or compensation funds.
| Brown University | $50 million over 10 years |
Rhode Island work force development organizations |
| Columbia University | $200 million over 3 years |
The U.S. Treasury |
| $21 million | A compensation fund to resolve alleged civil rights violations against Jewish Columbia employees | |
| Nine major law firms | Legal services worth: $940 million |
The Trump administration, for causes like assisting veterans and law enforcement, ensuring fairness in the justice system and combating antisemitism |
| Paul Weiss | $40 million | |
| Skadden | $100 million | |
| Willkie | $100 million | |
| Milbank | $100 million | |
| Cadwalader | $100 million | |
| Kirkland & Ellis | $125 million | |
| Latham & Watkins | $125 million | |
| Simpson Thacher & Bartlett | $125 million | |
| A&O Shearman | $125 million |
The universities have taken varied approaches to their payments. Columbia agreed to pay a fine to the federal government. Brown’s payment will go to Rhode Island work force development programs, which the university’s president has said are aligned with their service and community engagement missions.
Critics have likened Mr. Trump’s methods of extracting money from these entities to extortion.
The law firms have faced internal backlash and external criticism for promising to pour resources into causes favored by the president. Shortly after the deals with them were signed, Mr. Trump publicly suggested that he might use their labor to achieve more of his own goals, including in the negotiations of trade deals or even representing him personally.
Other businesses, including Nvidia and Intel, have been drawn into making financial deals with the Trump administration in order to continue doing business or to sell their products to China. The specific details of most of those deals have not been made public.
2. Redefining discrimination
On his first day in office, Mr. Trump signed executive orders gutting racial equity policies and protections for transgender people. Those themes, along with addressing antisemitism and targeting international students, were evident in many of these agreements.
No “unlawful D.E.I. goals”: Columbia and Brown agreed to eliminate programs that aim to achieve diversity goals. (Both universities had already eliminated race-conscious affirmative action following a June 2023 Supreme Court decision outlawing it.) They promised to rely more on quantitative measures, instead of demographics, in their admissions practices.
Columbia University
“… shall maintain merit-based admissions policies. Columbia may not, by any means, unlawfully preference applicants based on race, color, or national origin in admissions throughout its programs. No proxy for racial admission will be implemented or maintained.”
Experts say relying on test scores and grades in admissions could result in wealthier, less diverse student populations at these elite institutions.
Law firms were similarly subject to these rules in their hiring practices.
Skadden | Cadwalader | Kirkland & Ellis | Latham & Watkins | A&O Shearman | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett | Milbank | Willkie
“… affirms its commitment to merit-based hiring, promotion, and retention. Accordingly, the Firm will not engage in illegal DEI discrimination and preferences.”
Transgender students: The University of Pennsylvania has been central in the debate around transgender athletes, specifically because of Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer who graduated in 2022 and held several of Penn’s swimming records. The school’s deal with Mr. Trump revoked her records and limited how transgender students may participate in its athletic programs.
University of Pennsylvania
“… will not allow male students to compete in any athletic program restricted to women, ensuring that only female students are eligible to compete as a member of women’s athletics.”
In this way, the university bowed to the administration’s new interpretation of Title IX, a law that until recently protected transgender athletes from sex discrimination in education.
Penn and the other universities also agreed to additional rules around single-sex facilities and medical services for transgender students.
Columbia University
“… will uphold its commitment to Title IX … by providing safe and fair opportunities for women including single-sex housing for women who request such housing and all-female sports, locker rooms, and showering facilities …”
Brown University
“… will not perform gender reassignment surgery or prescribe puberty blockers or hormones to any minor child for the purpose of aligning the child’s appearance with an identity that differs from his or her sex.”
According to Brown, the number of minors enrolled at the university is typically less than 10 percent of all first-year undergraduates; the campus does not have surgical facilities; and its doctors do not typically prescribe puberty blockers.
Fighting antisemitism: Columbia agreed to pay $21 million to a compensation fund to resolve alleged civil rights violations against its Jewish employees. It also agreed to a review of its regional studies programs, starting with the Middle East, to ensure that they are “comprehensive and balanced.” The agreement does not define how those terms will be applied.
The school will also appoint new faculty members who will have joint positions in both the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and other departments, and add a student liaison to coordinate and advise on antisemitism issues.
Both Columbia’s and Brown’s agreements have provisions outlining support for Jewish life on campus.
Brown University
“… is committed to taking significant, proactive, effective steps to combat antisemitism and ensure a campus environment free from harassment and discrimination. These shall include actions to support a thriving Jewish community, research and education about Israel, and a robust Program in Judaic Studies, through outreach to Jewish Day School students to provide information about applying to Brown, resources for religiously observant Jewish community members, renewed partnerships with Israeli academics and national Jewish organizations, support for enhanced security at the Brown-RISD Hillel, and a convening of alumni, students, and faculty to celebrate 130 years of Jewish life at Brown in the 2025-2026 academic year.”
International students: Columbia’s agreement with the Trump administration outlines provisions on international students, including asking them their reasons for wanting to study in the United States and reducing the school’s reliance on international student enrollment. (Columbia has about 13,700 international students, about 38 percent of its total student body.)
Columbia University
“… will examine its business model and take steps to decrease financial dependence on international student enrollment. The reforms should be made durable by adoption of any necessary organizational and personnel changes.”
3. Government oversight
Through the deals with Columbia and Brown, the Trump administration also gained access to information about their applicants, including details on race, grades and test scores.
Columbia University | Brown University
“… shall provide … the United States with admissions data … showing both rejected and admitted students broken down by race, color, grade point average, and performance on standardized tests, in a form permitting appropriate statistical analyses by October 1 of each year …”
Both schools are also required to make anonymized information on enrolled students available to the public, including demographics and grade point averages of each class.
Columbia also agreed to pay for a monitor, approved by the school and the government, to ensure that both sides abide by their commitments. It must now also inform the Department of Homeland Security when an international student is arrested. (Universities were already required to inform Homeland Security when an international student was suspended or expelled.)
Brown agreed to hire an external organization to conduct a campus survey by the end of the year on the school’s climate for Jewish students.
Similarly, the law firms also agreed to hire outside counsel to ensure adherence.
Paul Weiss
“… will engage experts, to be mutually agreed upon within 14 days, to conduct a comprehensive audit of all of its employment practices …”
Willkie
“… will engage independent outside counsel to advise the Firm in confirming that employment practices are fully compliant with Law …”
4. Assessing ideology
Some of the law firms targeted by Mr. Trump were associated with lawyers who have previously investigated him, or who have worked closely with those who did. Other firms had prominent Democrats on staff, or employed people who frequently criticized the president.
To that end, in each of their agreements, the law firms agreed to work on a wider range of cases, regardless of the political affiliation of the lawyer or prospective client.
Paul Weiss
“… will take on a wide range of pro bono matters that represent the full spectrum of political viewpoints of our society, whether ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal.’”
Milbank
“… shall not deny representation to any clients on the basis of the political affiliation of the prospective client, or because of the opposition of any Government Official.”
Kirkland & Ellis | Latham & Watkins | A&O Shearman | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett
“… will not deny representation to clients … because of the personal political views of individual lawyers.”
In return for the concessions, Mr. Trump revoked his executive order against the law firm Paul Weiss that would have suspended its security clearances, restricted its access to federal buildings and threatened its contracts with the government. The eight other law firms struck deals pre-emptively to avoid being subject to similar executive orders.
For most of the universities, the administration restored hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding that it had previously frozen. It also closed pending investigations into the schools of antisemitism or alleged violations of civil rights. Both the presidents of Columbia and Brown have publicly stated that these deals preserve the schools’ academic freedom.
Brown University
Yes
Yes Yes
–
No
Columbia University
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
University of Pennsylvania
–
No
Yes
– No
–
No
Nine major law firms
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Concessions in deals with the Trump administration
What’s next
Like Harvard, four major law firms have fought back against the president instead of striking a deal. Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Susman Godfrey, and Jenner & Block all filed lawsuits, which resulted in federal judges temporarily blocking Mr. Trump’s executive orders targeting them. The administration has recently begun to appeal these rulings.
Several other law firms have been questioned by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on their hiring practices and potential discrimination against white candidates, raising concerns of threats from the White House.
The Trump administration has vowed to appeal the court’s ruling that its funding cuts against Harvard were illegal. It remains unclear whether the school will receive its money. Mr. Trump has also frozen federal funding to other universities, including Princeton, Cornell, Duke, Northwestern and the University of California, Los Angeles, setting the stage for potential negotiations. In August, the administration proposed that U.C.L.A. pay more than $1 billion to reach a settlement. This month, after a difficult tenure that included attacks from Republicans in Congress and funding cuts, the president of Northwestern resigned.
Several other schools are watching for funding cuts as they come under the scrutiny of the Department of Education and a government task force that says it is devoted to rooting out antisemitism.
Sources
This analysis is based on publicly available text pertaining to the agreements between the Trump administration and Brown University, Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, A&O Shearman, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Cadwalader, Latham & Watkins, Kirkland & Ellis, Milbank, Willkie, Skadden and Paul Weiss.
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How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It’s a question New Yorkers hear a lot, often delivered with a mix of awe, pity and confusion.
We surveyed hundreds of New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save. We found that many people — rich, poor or somewhere in between — live life as a series of small calculations that add up to one big question: What makes living in New York worth it?
Jaden Baldeon is a recent college graduate who is trying to carve a life out for himself while making sure his family has a good one, too. And at 20 years old, he is one of the newest entrants to the city’s work force who is feeling its high prices most acutely.
He lives at home with his mother and two siblings in a two-bedroom apartment in the East Bronx. He makes $18 per hour working part-time at a swimming school and makes roughly $550 biweekly, contributing about half of that each month to household expenses.
Now that classes are over, the weather is warming and more people are heading to the pool, he plans to increase his hours to full-time, from 30 to more than 40 hours. He hopes to do so to keep his family members from feeling the worst of the cash crunch.
“As soon as I hit 18, a lot of the adult responsibilities have come into play,” he said, adding that he and his mother have had a lot of conversations about budgeting and spending.
As the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic and El Salvador, Mr. Baldeon said he feels the pressure to succeed, especially because many of his relatives worked full-time by the time they were his age.
He added that he feels he is “breaking barriers” by earning his associate of liberal arts degree. He received the degree in May from Seton College at the University of Mount Saint Vincent, which offers a debt-free two-year degree and provides students with financial literacy education, access to free meals and a laptop. He is considering returning to the university in the fall to continue studies for his undergraduate degree.
His college experience and home life have taught him the real value of a dollar — and helped him find new ways to save for the life he wants.
“You don’t want to live and just be surviving. You want to have nice things,” he said. “That’s what it’s been: balancing both of those things and trying to help out here and there.”
A Tight Schedule
Maintaining a strict daily regimen has helped Mr. Baldeon budget and track his spending. For most of the final months of the spring semester, he planned out his daily schedule to determine whether he would use public transportation from his home in the Bronx to classes on campus in Riverdale, which costs roughly $6 round trip, or take his university’s free shuttle.
On the weekends, he works part-time at the Goldfish Swim School in New Rochelle, where he earns about $18 an hour doing tech support, membership management and front desk check-ins. He commutes to work using Metro-North, which costs roughly $7.00 per round-trip ticket. (He keeps an eye out for the less expensive off-peak tickets, too.)
But even his best-laid plans come against the realities of commuting in the city.
“Transportation is kind of a gamble,” he said, noting the occasional schedule delays and lack of available seating. “So sometimes I just have to opt for an emergency cab.”
When he returns home from classes late at night or if he works a late shift, he sometimes chooses a ride-share service and has an Uber One membership to help secure a lower price for cars, which can cost $40 or more during rush hour. If a ride home is more expensive, he uses local car service alternatives in his neighborhood that are discounted and allow cash payments.
A Model Saver
Living at home has helped Mr. Baldeon save on housing while in college and take some of the financial strain off his mother. He said that he contributes most often to household goods and regularly uses coupons to get them at even more of a discount.
He most often buys paper goods and also helps buy groceries, which gives his family more of a financial cushion to enjoy better-quality items and opt more often for fresh produce over canned or frozen. Recently, he started buying laundry detergent in bulk from local vendors rather than directly from the store, allowing his family to save around $10 dollars and get a larger supply.
Student discounts help, too: Mr. Baldeon recently opened a student Discover card to build credit and used the card to buy a special mop for the floors in his home. His student email address has helped him get discounts on audiobooks, music and other perks.
“I just try to save anytime I can, in all transparency,” he said.
Saving is becoming a family affair. His younger sister, who is in middle school, landed a position with the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program, marking her first job. His younger brother, in high school, is looking for a summer job. It’s unlikely that much of their earnings will go toward the household expenses, though. Mr. Baldeon said he hopes his siblings will use their first paychecks to learn about financial responsibility and pay for things themselves over the summer — something he did when he got one of his first jobs through the program.
“It was a very good feeling to have some money of my own,” he said. “It was definitely quality of life for me, too, so that’s what I want to stress to them as well.”
Eyes on the Future
Living at home, working more hours and delaying a return to college has helped Mr. Baldeon put money aside for what could be his biggest future expense: a car.
Four more wheels, he said, will make his commute to work much easier and give his mother and siblings more time to run errands during the week. His dream model? A Subaru WRX Impreza.
“It could be used, older, I don’t care,” he said. “As long as it’s that one.”
Mr. Baldeon was born and raised in New York and loves it as his home. But after he moves out of his mother’s house, he said he probably won’t stay in the city much longer. He is considering going upstate to Rochester, where he has family, or a more rural place where his dollar can stretch a little further to allow him to build a home for himself.
“I want something of my own for sure,” he said. “So I want to get out of the city.”
We are talking to New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save.
“So —” “I’m going to the University of Oregon.” “Colorado School of Mines.” “Syracuse University.” “C.S.U.—L.A.” “I wanted to be like a medical student. I realize now that I want to become an electrician.” There used to be straightforward messaging about how to achieve success in America. “Go to school, go to college, get a degree, make money.” But times have changed. Student debt has skyrocketed. Jobs are hard to find, and now A.I. is threatening to upend the economy. “Like you can barely find jobs nowadays.” “I’ve heard a lot about coders — how A.I. just completely eliminated them.” “It feels as though the economy is like just continuously moving against us.” “I don’t think there’s a perfect American dream anymore. I think, honestly.” In California, the world’s A.I. capital, the state is keenly aware that students are looking for new options. “No one cares how much you know because ChatGPT knows more.” It’s part of a nationwide conversation happening in government, at schools and increasingly on the internet. “Why the hell would you go to college? Like, seriously.” “There’s so many people with multiple degrees that are broke.” “I became a millionaire from construction like a year and a half ago.” “I would see all these people saying, ‘I dropped out of high school, I dropped out of college, and I’m a millionaire.’ And I was like, ‘I need to learn how to do that.’” California is pouring money into hands-on trade programs in public schools. There’s a construction labor shortage in the state, and in 2021, the state doubled a grant for classes like this to help solve it. “Yeah — hit it like it owes you money. So start it off steep so you can swing your hammer back. State of California educational system has seen that if students are not going to go to a four-year college. They should have an option. I would say over 95 percent of my students, maybe even higher, have never used any tools before in their life. And I would say almost 100 percent had never used a power tool. Ta da — see, you know how to do it. “No, I had no idea this class existed. I didn’t even really consider construction seriously until I took this class.” “I actually did consider, oh, maybe I should go to trade school. Or maybe I should focus less on aero-engineering as a degree.” “A.I. is not going to build a home. A.I. isn’t going to weld anything either.” “We had somebody come and talk to our class about electricians and can still make $200,000 a year.” More students across the country are choosing to go to trade school — but working with your hands still comes with a stigma, and the college path still holds a lot of power. “Yeah — yeah. Almost 100 percent.” “I think a lot of people, especially older generations, still believe that trades are like dirty.” “I have students who are very good carpenters, and their parents still want them to go to college, and I totally respect that.” “I come from an immigrant family, and so pressure has been even more heavy. They’re supportive. They’re just a little disappointed that I’m not going to college.” “They don’t want their sons or daughters to go into the trades. They think it is less than. And I try to have this conversation with them and say the trades are a good place to go to make a living. There you go.” But for this generation of Bay Area kids, who grew up in the pandemic and are seeing major changes in the tech industry, the overall feeling is that no path is safe. “As you can see, we just built these little kitchen tiles and to me they look great. If you make a wrong decision, that could lead you into a debt spiral and you’re just kind of stuck.” “I don’t have any friends that are really wanting to go into the tech industry at all because of A.I.” “You’re paying $400,000 and then what are you going to get from it?” “Like, am I going to be able to make all this back when I get a job?” “And we have a storage cabinet in here. This generation, especially, you really have to think about what you’re going to do. Because if your plan is not future-proof, the world is going to eat you. It’s so small, but it’s a pretty cozy little home.”
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