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Brown University President Christina Paxson said Monday she will step down at the end of the academic year, after she oversaw negotiations with the Trump administration over the past 18 months.
Paxson, who started her tenure in 2012, said stepping down is the “right decision” for her and her family and the “best path” forward for the Ivy League institution.
“Fifteen years is a significant tenure for any president, and in that time, this amazing community of faculty, staff, students, alumni, parents and friends showed up in so many ways to achieve the bold aspirations in the strategic plan we developed together near the beginning of my presidency,” Paxson wrote in a letter to the Brown community.
Brown Chancellor Brian Moynihan, who is also the CEO of Bank of America, praised Paxson as an “amazingly steadfast and stalwart leader” and wrote the Brown Corporation will convene a “national search” for her successor.
Once she departs her post in June 2027, Paxson will relinquish her title as the longest-tenured Ivy League president. Christopher Eisgruber, the president of Princeton University since 2013, is set to take that mantle when Paxson steps down.
Paxson has had a contentious relationship with President Trump and administration officials over the past year-plus. In April 2025, the administration halted more than $500 million in federal research funding from going to Brown and launched a trifecta of probes into the university’s compliance with antidiscrimination laws.
Those investigations centered on the Rhode Island-based university’s response to campus protests against the Israeli military campaign in Gaza during its war against Hamas, along with its policies regarding admissions decisions and transgender students.
In July, Brown reached a deal with the administration to end the investigations and restore the funding. Paxson noted Monday she extended her tenure as president to “navigate” Brown through the funding freeze.
Under the agreement, the university agreed to pay $50 million over a decade to workforce development organizations in Rhode Island, separate men’s and women’s sports facilities on the basis of sex assigned at birth and committed to banning programs that contain “unlawful efforts to achieve race-based outcomes.”
But later in the year, Paxson pushed back against a compact the administration proposed to a group of public and private universities. The compact would require the universities to make changes to their campus policies in exchange for an advantage in receiving federal funds, a framework Paxson argued “would restrict academic freedom” in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
On Monday, McMahon called on universities to “describe” their commitments to teaching, research and “national service” on their websites by the end of this year.
Paxson referenced the back-and-forth with the administration in her Monday letter, writing the “federal landscape remains volatile for all colleges and universities.” But the 66-year-old noted Brown is still “receiving major grants for pioneering research that will lead to tremendous innovation” for the country.
“Our faculty, staff and students are doing both basic and applied research that holds the promise of advancing medical treatment, improving human wellbeing through technological progress, helping us understand the human condition and society, and influencing policy that addresses critical issues facing nations and communities,” she added.
Paxson also said the university remains committed to admitting students “with a diversity of ideas, perspectives and experiences to Brown.”
The Brown president’s announcement came less than seven months after a former Brown graduate student killed two students and wounded nine other students inside an engineering building on campus. Authorities found the perpetrator died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound days later.
During the search for the shooter, Trump blamed Brown and not the FBI for the delay in finding him.
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