LOS ANGELES >> Roiled by multiple investigations from the Trump administration, the University of Southern California has announced a slate of cutbacks — including a staff hiring freeze — as it braces for what it called “federal funding uncertainty” in a letter released Monday.

Among the nine austerity measures are a reassessment of capital spending projects and restrictions on discretionary spending, according to the letter signed by university leaders including outgoing President Carol Folt.

The USC actions come at a time of unprecedented threats against universities by the Trump administration. It has vowed to cut federal funding — including key medical and science research grants — to institutions that do not comply with its directives. Donald Trump has ordered campuses to squelch antisemitism; eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs; and ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.

“Recent developments require us to take additional steps to increase our financial resilience in the face of exceptional financial uncertainty,” said the letter, which noted that USC received about $570 million in research funding in fiscal year 2024. “Taking bold action now will help us to meet the challenges facing us while protecting and advancing our important academic and research missions for generations to come.”

The belt-tightening plan, effective immediately, comes just months after an internal financial planning task force said in November that USC’s $158-million budget deficit required various “cost containment measures.”

The Trump administration has announced that USC faces investigations from the Department of Justice and the Office for Civil Rights over antisemitism allegations — and will be visited by a federal antisemitism task force. The scrutiny largely stems from allegations against pro-Palestinian protests last spring and an encampment that was cleared by police, who arrested some demonstrators.

The university has already made substantive changes: In February, USC deleted the website for its schoolwide Office of Inclusion and Diversity and merged it into another operation, scrubbed several college and department-level DEI statements, renamed faculty positions and, in one case, removed online references to a scholarship for Black and Indigenous students. Last spring it enacted restrictions on campus protests.

USC is not alone in enacting cost-cutting plans under the threat of losing research funding. Earlier this month, the University of California — also under investigation by the Trump administration, which accuses it of campus antisemitism — announced a hiring freeze and other measures. Dozens of additional universities are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education over alleged antisemitism or race-based discrimination.

Several faculty members at USC said they had been bracing for Monday’s announcement in light of Trump’s recent actions.

“Candidly, there have been plenty of reasons to be annoyed with USC in the last 15 years, but this is not one of them,” said Darby Saxbe, a psychology professor. “I think everyone recognizes this is universal to research (universities) across the country. The Trump administration is behaving with such hostility and capriciousness. ... There is so much malevolence.”

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