Elite United States (US) university Harvard was hit with a US$2.2 billion (about N$42 billion) federal funding freeze on Monday after rejecting a list of sweeping demands that the White House said was intended to crack down on campus anti-Semitism.
The call for changes to its governance, hiring practices and admissions procedures expands a list Harvard received on 3 April, which ordered officials to shut diversity offices and cooperate with immigration authorities for screenings of international students.
In a letter to students and faculty, Harvard president Alan Garber vowed to defy the government, insisting that the school would not “negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights”.
Trump’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism responded with a statement announcing the $2.2 billion hold in multi-year grants, plus a freeze on US$60 million (about N$1.1 billion) in government contracts.
“Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges – that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws,” it said.
“The disruption of learning that has plagued campuses in recent years is unacceptable. The harassment of Jewish students is intolerable. It is time for elite universities to take the problem seriously and commit to meaningful change if they wish to continue receiving taxpayer support.”
Campuses across the country were rocked last year by student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, with some resulting in violent clashes involving police and pro-Israel protests.
Trump and other Republicans have accused the activists of supporting Hamas, a US-designated terrorist group that led the deadly 7 October 2023 attack against Israel that sparked the conflict.
The Department of Education announced in March that it had opened an investigation into 60 colleges and universities for alleged “anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination”.
Garber’s letter came after the administration placed US$9 billion (about N$170 billion) in federal funding to Harvard and its affiliates under review, making its first demands.
On Friday, the government sent Harvard a much more detailed list, including demanding an “audit” of the views of students and faculty.
Harvard generated an operating surplus of US$45 million (about N$848 million) on a revenue base of US$6.5 billion (about N$122 billion) in the last financial year.
Garber said the school was “open to new information and different perspectives” but would not agree to demands that “go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration”.
“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 said.
Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who was lauded by Trump last year for her aggressive questioning of universities over anti-Semitism, called Harvard “the epitome of the moral and academic rot in higher education”.
The New York firebrand, a vocal supporter of Israel and US-Jewish causes, accused the university of tolerating “raging anti-Semitism”.
But the Ivy League university drew praise from liberals, including former president Barack Obama, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.
“Congratulations to Harvard for refusing to relinquish its constitutional rights to Trump’s authoritarianism,” Sanders posted on social media platform X.
“Other universities should follow their lead.”
MIT also announced Monday that it had filed a lawsuit to halt the Department of Energy’s termination of grants which support “the work of nearly 1 000 members of our community,” said university president Sally Kornbluth.
Harvard’s response to the White House’s demands diverged from the approach taken by Columbia University, the epicenter of last year’s pro-Palestinian protests.
The Trump administration cut US$400 million (about N$7.5 billion) in grants to the private New York school, accusing it of failing to protect Jewish students from harassment as protesters rallied against Israel’s Gaza offensive.
The school responded by agreeing to reform student disciplinary procedures and hiring 36 officers to expand its security team.
As well as the funding cut, immigration officers have targeted two organisers of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia: Mahmoud Khalil, whom the government is seeking to deport, and Mohsen Mahdawi, who was arrested Monday as he attended an interview to become a US citizen.
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