Pressure and response

Executive orders, funding freezes, investigations, lawsuits and licence threats aimed at named institutions since January 2025 - and what each one did about it. The point of the table is the comparison, so the entities that refused or litigated are here alongside the ones that paid. Among the law firms the pattern is stark: every firm that settled did so before testing the order in court, and every firm that went to court won. A handful of entries are marked Anticipatory: no demand was ever made of them, and they are kept separate from compelled compliance for that reason.

52
Cases listed
24
Settled or complied
11
Fought and won
7
Refused
Sector
Response
Institution Date Sector Response Amount Source
Los Angeles Times record Media Anticipatory cnn.com
ABC News / Disney (defamation suit) Media Settled $15M washingtonpost.com
Meta (ended fact-checking) Tech Anticipatory npr.org
Costco Corporate Fought and won npr.org
Meta Platforms record Tech Settled $25M washingtonpost.com
Kennedy Center record Non-profit Complied washingtonpost.com
Covington & Burling record Law firm Refused cnn.com
The Washington Post (opinion page) Media Anticipatory nbcnews.com
Paul Weiss record Law firm Settled $40M pro bono whitehouse.gov
Elias Law Group record Law firm Refused whitehouse.gov
Skadden record Law firm Settled $100M pro bono cnbc.com
Voice of America / USAGM record Government Fought and won firstamendment.mtsu.edu
Willkie Farr & Gallagher Law firm Settled $100M pro bono cnn.com
Milbank record Law firm Settled $100M pro bono usnews.com
A&O Shearman Law firm Settled $125M pro bono bloomberg.com
Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft record Law firm Settled $100M pro bono thehill.com
Kirkland & Ellis record Law firm Settled $125M pro bono bloomberg.com
Latham & Watkins Law firm Settled $125M pro bono bloomberg.com
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett Law firm Settled $125M pro bono bloomberg.com
Apple Tech Anticipatory $100B pledge macrumors.com
Perkins Coie Law firm Fought and won clearinghouse.net
Jenner & Block Law firm Fought and won cbsnews.com
WilmerHale record Law firm Fought and won clearinghouse.net
Associated Press Media Fought and lost cnn.com
Susman Godfrey record Law firm Fought and won npr.org
University of Pennsylvania University Settled abcnews.com
Paramount / CBS News record Media Settled $16M cnbc.com
George Mason University record University Refused gmu.edu
Columbia University record University Settled $221M wgbh.org
Brown University record University Settled $50M aljazeera.com
Duke University record University Refused insidehighered.com
Nvidia / AMD record Tech Complied 15% of China revenue npr.org
Princeton University record University Refused dailyprincetonian.com
Harvard University record University Fought and won harvardmagazine.com
Sinclair / Nexstar Media Complied cnn.com
Disney / ABC (Kimmel) record Media Complied npr.org
YouTube / Google record Tech Settled $24.5M npr.org
CBS News / The Free Press record Media Anticipatory $150M acquisition nbcnews.com
Massachusetts Institute of Technology record University Refused bostonglobe.com
University of Virginia record University Settled no payment npr.org
Cornell University record University Settled $60M jta.org
UCLA / University of California University Fought and won dailybruin.com
NPR record Media Fought and won $36M contract npr.org
Northwestern University University Settled $75M highereddive.com
BBC record Media Still litigating $10bn sought deadline.com
TikTok / ByteDance Tech Complied cnn.com
Anthropic record Tech Refused, punished cnn.com
American Bar Association Non-profit Still litigating aljazeera.com
Wall Street Journal record Media Fought and won $10bn sought npr.org
Smithsonian Institution record Non-profit Contested spokesman.com
The Washington Post record Media Fought and won $3.8bn sought cnn.com
The New York Times record Media Still litigating cnn.com

52 of 52 entries carry a date; 52 carry a source; 34 link to a full 47watch record. Anything that could not be established from a source is left blank rather than estimated.

Last updated August 7, 2026. Suggest an addition
Dataset licensed CC BY 4.0 — reuse with attribution.