Harvard University punished with 2b funding freeze for defying Trump

Harvard University has been hit with a $2.3bn federal funding freeze after the Ivy League institution took a stand against the Trump administration’s ongoing demands.

The freeze, representing 35.9 percent of Harvard's $6.4bn operating expenses, immediately followed a letter on Monday from Harvard University lawyers to the Trump administration, stating that it rejected the government’s demands.

The letter, issued by Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and LLP King & Spalding LLP, said that “The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”

University president Alan Garber also issued a public letter on Monday saying the university refused to capitulate to the Trump administration’s demands “to control the Harvard community” and threaten its “values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production and dissemination of knowledge”.

Harvard rejected the government’s demands, including reporting foreign students for code violations, reforming its governance and leadership, discontinuing its diversity, equity, and inclusion programmes, and changing its hiring and admission policies, especially for international students.

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One of the most detailed sections in its letter was the section on reforming programmes over antisemitism or other bias, detailing which university programmes it deemed problematic, including but not limited to the Center for Middle Eastern Studies; the Carr Center for Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School; the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures; and the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic. 

Garber said such interference was “unprecedented” and “beyond the power of the federal government”. He also said the university would not negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights.

“No government - regardless of which party is in power - should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” his letter continued.

Gerber’s response was condemned by Elise Stefanik, a Republican congresswoman who helped launch a congressional investigation into Harvard’s response to antisemitism.

“Harvard University has rightfully earned its place as the epitome of the moral and academic rot in higher education,” she said in a statement. “It is time to totally cut off US taxpayer funding to this institution that has failed to live up to its founding motto, Veritas.”

Harvard’s stance was met with derision by President Donald Trump, who said the university should “apologise”, according to press secretary Karoline Leavitt in a press briefing.

Harvard is the first university to take a stand against the government, which said it is investigating 60 universities over allegations of antisemitism. Several Ivy League schools have already had funding threatened or cancelled. 

The Trump administration announced in March that Columbia University would lose $400m in federal grants and contracts over accusations that it has not done enough to combat antisemitism.

Under review

The Trump administration announced it was reviewing $9bn in federal funds and grants to Harvard on 31 March. It said it would review more than $255.6m in current contracts and $8.7bn in grants spread over multiple years. 

The administration accused the university of failing to adequately protect Jewish students on campus from antisemitic discrimination and harassment, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“Harvard has served as a symbol of the American Dream for generations - the pinnacle aspiration for students all over the world to work hard and earn admission to the storied institution,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement at the time.

“Harvard’s failure to protect students on campus from anti-Semitic discrimination - all while promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry - has put its reputation in serious jeopardy,” the secretary added.

On 3 April, the Trump administration sent an initial list of demands to “right these wrongs” as part of its crackdown on what it calls antisemitism on campuses across the US, referring to the widespread campus protests against Israel's war on Gaza.

Then, on 11 April, the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism sent Harvard an expanded list of demands.

The "Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism" is made up of four government agencies, including the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, and the US General Services Administration.

The task force was set up in February following Trump’s executive order, "Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism", signed at the end of January.

Harvard crackdown on Palestinian speech

Before the stand it took yesterday, Harvard University cracked down on pro-Palestinian protests after intense pressure from US lawmakers and the previous Biden administration. Pro-Palestinian protests on US campuses have been characterised by the administration as "antisemitic.

In its response to the Trump administration's demands, Harvard’s lawyers said the university “has undertaken substantial policy and programmatic measures” during the past 15 months to fight antisemitism, promote ideological diversity, and maintain order on campus. 

While it did not stipulate these measures in the letter, the university had dismissed the leader of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and banned pro-Palestine students from Widener Library after a “study-in” protest. Its medical school cancelled a class session with patients from Gaza, calling the lecture one-sided and cut ties to Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank.

The university also placed the Palestine Solidarity Committee on probation following a rally, and its divinity school suspended its religion, conflict and peace initiative.

In addition, it agreed to adopt the broad International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which broadly considers anti-Zionist or anti-Israeli criticism as antisemitism. It did this as part of a settlement of two federal lawsuits accusing the school of not doing enough to prevent antisemitic discrimination and harassment.

Critics say the university has failed its pro-Palestine students.

Universities sue Department of Energy

Meanwhile, a group of nine universities anounced on Monday - including Brown University, Cornell University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University - they are suing the Department of Energy (DOE) over cuts to federal research funding in areas such as advanced nuclear technology, cybersecurity, novel radioactive drugs, and upgrades to rural electrical grids.

The universities asked the federal court in Massachusetts to immediately block the Trump administration from moving forward with a policy change meant to reduce government spending in support of “indirect” research costs, which are not readily attributable to specific projects.

Indirect costs are often used to fund facilities, equipment and research staff that provide value across multiple research projects, rather than being tied to a single project, according to the lawsuit.

Arbitrary cuts to indirect research costs will force universities to lay off staff, shutter expensive facilities, and devastate the careers of young scientists, the universities alleged.

“If DOE’s policy is allowed to stand, it will devastate scientific research at America’s universities and badly undermine our nation’s enviable status as a global leader in scientific research and innovation,” the universities wrote in their lawsuit.

The National Institutes of Health announced a similar cut to indirect research costs and is being sued by 12 universities. A federal judge issued an order blocking the Trump administration from proceeding with those cuts, while the lawsuit over them proceeds.

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