Trump administration freezes $2.2 billion in grants to Harvard over campus activism
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- The Harvard funding freeze came after the university said is won’t comply with Trump administration demands over campus governance.
- Harvard President Alan Garber said the demands violated the university’s First Amendment rights.
BOSTON — The federal government says it’s freezing more than $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard University because the institution said Monday that it won’t comply with the Trump administration’s demands to limit activism on campus.
In a letter to Harvard on Friday, the administration called for broad government and leadership reforms, a requirement that Harvard institute what it calls “merit-based” admissions and hiring policies as well as conduct an audit of the study body, faculty and leadership on their views about diversity.
The demands, which are an update from an earlier letter, also call for a ban on masks — which appeared to target pro-Palestinian demonstrators. They also pressure the university to stop recognizing or funding “any student group or club that endorses or promotes criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harassment.”
Harvard President Alan Garber, in a letter to the university community Monday, said the demands violated the institution’s 1st Amendment rights and “exceeds the statutory limits of the government’s authority under Title VI,” which prohibits discrimination against students based on their race, color or national origin.
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“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,” Garber wrote, adding that the university had taken extensive reforms to address antisemitism.
“These ends will not be achieved by assertions of power, unmoored from the law, to control teaching and learning at Harvard and to dictate how we operate,” he wrote. “The work of addressing our shortcomings, fulfilling our commitments, and embodying our values is ours to define and undertake as a community.”
The demands on Harvard are part of a broader push of using taxpayer dollars to pressure major academic institutions to comply with President Trump’s political agenda and to influence campus policy. The administration has also argued that universities allowed what it considered to be antisemitism to go unchecked at campus protests last year against Israel’s war in Gaza; the schools deny it.
Felony charges have been filed against 12 pro-Palestinian protesters allegedly involved in vandalism at Stanford. The charges are among the most serious faced by those involved in campus protests last year.
Harvard is one of several Ivy League schools targeted in a pressure campaign by the administration, which also has paused federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, and Princeton to force compliance with its agenda. Harvard’s demand letter is similar to the one that prompted changes at Columbia University under the threat of billions of dollars in cuts.
The demands from the Trump administration prompted a group of alumni to write to university leaders calling for Harvard to “legally contest and refuse to comply with unlawful demands that threaten academic freedom and university self-governance.”
“Harvard stood up today for the integrity, values, and freedoms that serve as the foundation of higher education,” said Anurima Bhargava, one of the alumni behind the letter. “Harvard reminded the world that learning, innovation and transformative growth will not yield to bullying and authoritarian whims.”
More universities are discovering that international student visas were cancelled last week, causing growing concern and confusion at UCLA and other California campuses.
It also sparked a protest over the weekend from members of the Harvard community and residents of Cambridge and a lawsuit from the American Assn. of University Professors on Friday challenging the cuts.
In their lawsuit, plaintiffs argue that the Trump administration has failed to follow steps required under Title VI before it started cutting funds, and giving notice of the cuts to both the university and Congress.
“These sweeping yet indeterminate demands are not remedies targeting the causes of any determination of noncompliance with federal law. Instead, they overtly seek to impose on Harvard University political views and policy preferences advanced by the Trump administration and commit the University to punishing disfavored speech,” plaintiffs wrote.
Casey writes for the Associated Press.
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