Universities continue to grapple with federal leverage over research funding. Northwestern and Cornell are still working to unfreeze federal research dollars after the administration used funding holds as bargaining tools; university officials say the freezes were being used to press policy changes on campus practices. Across several cases, the government sought broad institutional commitments in exchange for restored awards. In a related development, a draft settlement the Justice Department floated to UCLA would have required a $1.2 billion payment and sweeping institutional changes — including limits on certain medical procedures for minors and constraints on admissions and diversity practices — in exchange for restoring frozen research funds. The draft was released after a faculty lawsuit and has drawn criticism from university leaders who say the proposed terms would devastate public university finances and academic autonomy. The episodes underscore a new tactic by the administration: conditioning federal research and grant flows on institutional policy shifts. University leaders, research administrators and legal teams are now intensifying efforts to negotiate terms that preserve academic freedom while restoring critical research support.