President Donald Trump’s administration said it was freezing $2.2 billion in grants to Harvard University on Monday after the school rejected a series of demands to change its policies or risk losing its federal funding.
“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,” university president Alan M. Garber wrote in a letter on Monday.
“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 continued. “The work of addressing our shortcomings, fulfilling our commitments, and embodying our values is ours to define and undertake as a community.”
Later on Monday, the Trump administration said in a statement it was freezing $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in 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,” said the joint statement, which was issued by the General Services Administration, the Department of Education, and Health and Human Services.
The Trump administration has demanded Harvard cut its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and make changes to certain programs that his administration feels have fueled “antisemitic harassment.”
“Harvard is not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration,” lawyers for Harvard wrote in a letter to administration officials.
The Trump administration announced in March that it was reviewing approximately $9 billion in federal grants and contracts given to Harvard as part of its investigation into how institutions have tackled antisemitism.
The administration also asked Harvard to make changes to its admissions process and work with immigration officials.
The move by Harvard makes it the first university to fight back against the Trump administration over funding threats.
Harvard’s decision comes after Columbia University, another Ivy League institution, recently agreed to meet a series of demands in order to obtain $400 million in restored federal grant and contract funding that the administration canceled last month.
Columbia announced that it had agreed to bring onboard nearly 40 “special officers” who would have the power to remove individuals from its campus or arrest them, if needed. It also agreed to ban face masks on campus for the intent of withholding identification, although exceptions are carved out for religious or health reasons. And it agreed to tap a new senior vice provost to oversee the university’s Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies.
A week after agreeing to Trump’s demands, the interim head of Columbia resigned.
Read the full article here
