Princeton, the fourth Ivy League university threatened with federal cuts

Princeton University President Chris Eisgruber informed students and faculty that federal agencies are cutting 'several dozen' research grants. This move adds to a series of similar actions targeting elite universities, with Harvard being the latest, just days ago.

"The full rationale for this action is not yet clear," Eisgruber wrote in an internal email obtained by The Wall Street Journal. A White House official, speaking anonymously to the same newspaper, confirmed that the move was a precautionary pause pending an investigation into anti-Semitism at the school.

The same motive appears behind the federal funding review for Harvard and Columbia, both of which eventually caved in to Trump administration demands. Earlier this month, the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) was also targeted, with over $175 million in funding frozen, though the reason cited was its "its inclusion of transgender athletes in women's sports."

The president of the Ivy League institution also detailed, according to the WSJ, that the suspension of funds would affect multiple agencies, including the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and NASA. He also pledged that his administration would uphold the law and combat anti-Semitism, though he did not propose any specific initiatives.

In a recent article in The Atlantic, Eisgruber described the actions against Columbia as an "attack" that threatens the strong performance of national universities, calling it "the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s."

In addition to calling on "every citizen and officeholder" to oppose the cuts to Columbia, he warned that it would not be the last. However, he did not anticipate that his own university would be among the next targets.