President Donald Trump’s administration said it will terminate US$450 million ($587 million) in grants to Harvard University, a day after the school’s president criticised the government for threatening key freedoms.
The latest cuts, announced by the Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism on Tuesday, are on top of more than US$2.2 billion in federal funds that were frozen last month. Harvard is suing the Trump administration over demands the government has made over its academic and disciplinary policies. President Alan Garber on Monday wrote to Education Secretary Linda McMahon to deny her allegation that the school has a partisan political bias, warning that government “overreach” is threatening key freedoms.
The government coalition slammed Harvard in a letter on Tuesday for failing to confront “pervasive race discrimination and antisemitic harassment.”
“Harvard’s campus, once a symbol of academic prestige, has become a breeding ground for virtue signalling and discrimination. This is not leadership; it is cowardice. And it’s not academic freedom; it’s institutional disenfranchisement,” the officials wrote.
The White House has also gone after colleges including Columbia, Princeton, Cornell and Northwestern, expanding its criticisms to their diversity efforts, but in recent weeks has focused its sights on Harvard and its alleged Democratic biases. President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested the Internal Revenue Service revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status, citing political activities.
The Trump administration has assailed Harvard, blasting the school’s response to rising antisemitism on campus after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel. A representative for Harvard didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest funding cuts.
See also: Trump's freebie Qatar jet is the stuff of nightmares in spyworld
Republican lawmakers unveiled legislation on Monday that would significantly increase taxes on endowments for the nation’s wealthiest universities, including Harvard. Under the bill, Harvard and four other schools would pay a rate of 21% on their net investment income, compared with the current 1.4%.
Garber’s letter to McMahon outlined recent changes at Harvard, including revisions to disciplinary procedures, actions to combat antisemitism and efforts to encourage freedom of thought and expression.
“Harvard’s efforts to achieve these goals are undermined and threatened by the federal government’s overreach into the constitutional freedoms of private universities and its continuing disregard of Harvard’s compliance with the law,” Garber wrote.
See also: Trump says Harvard will lose its tax-exempt status
The government added in the letter Tuesday that the Harvard Law Review awarded a US$65,000 fellowship to a protester who faced criminal charges for assaulting a Jewish student on campus, a decision that the government claims was “reviewed and approved” by a faculty committee.
“There is a dark problem on Harvard’s campus, and by prioritising appeasement over accountability, institutional leaders have forfeited the school’s claim to taxpayer support,” officials from the government’s task force to combat antisemitism wrote in the statement.
