The Trump administration has frozen more than $1 billion in funding for Cornell and $790 million for Northwestern amid civil rights investigations into both schools, two US officials said.

The funding pause involves mostly grants from and contracts with the departments of agriculture, defence, education and health and human services, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the unannounced decision.

The moves are the latest and largest in a rapidly escalating campaign against elite American universities that has resulted in billions in federal funds being suspended or put under review in just over a month. Other schools that have had funds threatened include Brown, Columbia, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton.

Cornell and Northwestern are both facing investigations into allegations of antisemitism and accusations of racial discrimination stemming from their efforts to promote diversity.

Cornell officials said in a statement that they had received more than 75 stop-work orders from the defence department on Tuesday, but that they had no information to confirm that more than $1 billion in funding had been suspended. The affected grants, they said, supported research that they described as “profoundly significant to American defence, cybersecurity and health”.

“We are actively seeking information from federal officials to learn more about the basis for these decisions,” said the joint statement from Michael Kotlikoff, the university president, Kavita Bala, the provost and Robert Harrington, provost for medical affairs.

Jon Yates, a spokesman for Northwestern, said that the university had not been notified by the federal government that funding had been frozen.

Northwestern, is the first non-Ivy League school to have funding from the Trump administration targeted under investigations of alleged discrimination. The university issued a “progress report” last week that highlighted its efforts to protect Jewish students, including mandatory antisemitism training for all students, faculty and staff.

New York Times News Service