By Andrew Goudsward
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump’s administration said on Wednesday it struck a deal with the University of Virginia that required the school to adopt its legal view on diversity, equity and inclusion in exchange for a pause on civil rights investigations and continued eligibility for federal funding.
The agreement, made public by the Justice Department, marks the first time a state university has settled with the Trump administration in its wide-ranging campaign to pressure top U.S. universities over pro-Palestinian student protests and policies designed to increase diversity that the administration has condemned as discriminatory.
The university’s prior president resigned in June under pressure from Trump administration officials.
“This notable agreement with the University of Virginia will protect students and faculty from unlawful discrimination, ensuring that equal opportunity and fairness are restored,” Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.
University of Virginia President Paul Mahoney said in a statement that the agreement required no monetary payments, preserved academic freedom and represented “the best available path forward.”
“In the agreement, UVA acknowledges its obligation to follow civil rights laws,” Mahoney said. “The United States acknowledges the work we are doing to demonstrate full compliance and agrees to suspend the investigations while we continue that work.”
The Trump administration previously reached agreements for Columbia University to pay $200 million and Brown University to pay $50 million to resolve civil rights investigations and restore federal funding for research and other activities.
The deal requires the University of Virginia to adopt the Trump Justice Department’s view on what constitutes unlawful racial discrimination in university hiring, programming and admissions. It will require the university to provide data each quarter through the end of Trump’s second term in 2028.
The Justice Department said it would “pause” civil rights investigations into the university’s admissions policies and other issues, with those probes being formally closed if the university completes “planned reforms prohibiting DEI at the university.”
The department said the university would be treated as “fully eligible for future grants and awards.”
The university’s governing board in March voted to dissolve its office dedicated to DEI.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Scott Malone and Bill Berkrot)
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