Harvard defies Trump’s demands, faces $2.3 billion federal funding freeze
Harvard University on Monday rejected a series of demands from the Trump administration, asserting that complying would effectively hand over control of the institution to a conservative government that has portrayed universities as dangerously left-leaning.
Just hours after Harvard made its position public, the administration of President Donald Trump announced a freeze on $2.3 billion in federal funding allocated to the university.
The funding suspension follows the administration’s announcement last month that it was reviewing $9 billion in federal contracts and grants awarded to Harvard. The review is part of a broader campaign targeting what the administration describes as antisemitism on college campuses, which it claims intensified during pro-Palestinian protests over the past 18 months.
On Monday, a Department of Education task force on combating antisemitism accused Harvard of exhibiting what it called “a 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.”
The latest move marks a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s confrontation with elite academic institutions, raising fresh concerns about academic freedom and free speech. Federal funding has already been withheld from several universities, with officials insisting that the institutions must make sweeping policy reforms and address what they say is a failure to combat antisemitism on campuses.
Deportation proceedings have reportedly begun for some foreign students detained after participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, while visas for hundreds of others have been cancelled.
In a public letter issued on Monday, Harvard President Alan Garber said the Department of Education’s demands would allow the federal government “to control the Harvard community” and undermine the university’s “values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge.”
“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.
The controversy surrounding antisemitism on university campuses predates Trump’s second term and was sparked by pro-Palestinian student protests that followed the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the Israeli military response in Gaza.
White House spokesman Harrison Fields said in a statement on Monday that President Trump was “working to Make Higher Education Great Again by ending unchecked anti-Semitism and ensuring federal taxpayer dollars do not fund Harvard’s support of dangerous racial discrimination or racially motivated violence.”
