US freezes billions in funding after Harvard says it will fight Trump’s demands
The government responds to university with a $2.26 billion freeze of the school’s grants and contracts.
Harvard University said Monday it will resist the Trump administration’s demands to change its governance structure over campus antisemitism concerns, saying the government is overstepping its authority.
Hours later the government announced a US$2.26 billion freeze (AU$3.4b) of Harvard’s multiyear grants and contracts.
The exchange escalates the fight between the nation’s wealthiest university and the federal government, which had already threatened to withhold nearly $9 billion in grants and contracts to the school and its affiliated hospitals.
“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” Harvard President Alan Garber said in a letter to the school’s community.
The Trump administration said Monday that the school’s response “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.”
Trump on Tuesday responded to Harvard’s decision with a social-media post that read: “Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting “Sickness?” Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!”
Harvard’s resistance to the administration’s demands is the most significant pushback against the government since it began pressuring universities earlier this year.
The Trump administration task force on antisemitism wrote the school earlier this month asking it to take nine actions that “we regard as necessary for Harvard University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government.” Most of the demands concern how the university operates. The government is asking for a comprehensive mask ban as well as changes to governance, leadership and admissions and an end to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs.
Notably the government also is seeking to reach into the classroom, demanding “necessary changes” be made “to address bias, improve viewpoint diversity, and end ideological capture,” which fuel antisemitic harassment, the task force’s letter said.
In a Monday letter to the task force, attorneys for the university said, “Harvard has made, and will continue to make, lasting and robust structural, policy, and programmatic changes to ensure that the university is a welcoming and supportive learning environment.” But the task force is making demands “in contravention of the First Amendment” and is ignoring due process.
Garber said the demands outlined by the task force mostly represent “direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual
conditions’ at Harvard.” They include requirements to audit viewpoints of the student body, faculty and staff.
Harvard is one of several universities that have come into the crosshairs of the Trump administration, which is using the threat of withholding federal funding to try to extract changes from the elite rungs of academia.
This month Harvard issued $750 million in the bond market that it could use to free up cash flow in case it is unable to reconcile with the task force.
Columbia University ceded to administration demands last month in an attempt to restore $400 million in funding cuts, though conversations are ongoing and the return of the funds isn’t assured.
Other schools with funding frozen or under review include Brown, Princeton, Northwestern and Cornell. Some universities have learned about actions against them first through media reports.
Harvard is represented by two lawyers with ties to President Trump: William Burck at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, who has represented Trump business interests, and Robert Hur, a King & Spalding partner previously a U.S. lawyer under Trump.
On Friday, the Harvard chapter of the American Association of University Professors sued the Trump administration in federal court, accusing it of exploiting civil-rights laws to undermine academic freedom and free speech. AAUP filed a similar lawsuit over the Columbia funding cuts.
The lawsuits argue the Trump administration is circumventing the usual way of addressing antisemitism or other civil-rights issues on campuses, which is to launch an investigation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, issue findings and then seek a voluntary resolution. Historically, federal funding has rarely been cut off over civil-rights issues.
The federal government’s actions “overtly seek to impose on Harvard University political views and policy preferences advanced by the Trump administration and commit the University to punishing disfavoured speech, ” Friday’s faculty lawsuit argues.
Pro-Palestinian protests disrupted campuses across the country for months last year, as students, faculty and sometimes outsiders voiced discontent with the Israel-Hamas war. Many protests descended into vandalism and violence and left some Jewish staff and faculty feeling targeted or unsafe.
In their letter to the task force on Monday, lawyers for the school said Harvard has made significant strides over the past 15 months to address these issues including imposing meaningful discipline for those who violate university policy and promoting ideological diversity.
“As a result, Harvard is in a very different place today from where it was a year ago,” the school said.
The Wall Street Journal
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