Harvard University’s rejection of the Trump administration’s attempts to interfere has brought swift retaliation, with the education department saying it is freezing $2.2bn in grants and $60m in contracts to the university immediately.
The BBC reports that the White House had sent a list of demands to Harvard last week which it said were designed to fight antisemitism on campus. They included changes to its governance, hiring practices and admissions procedures.
Harvard rejected them, and defended its independence. It has been applauded by former President Barack Obama.
In explaining its rejection of Washington’s demands, Harvard President Alan Garber said the university would not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights under the First Amendment protecting free speech.
He said: “Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard.”
According to the BBC, the sweeping changes demanded by the White House would have transformed its operations and ceded a large amount of control to the government.
Its letter to Harvard on Friday, obtained by the New York Times, said the university had failed to live up to the “intellectual and civil rights conditions” that justify federal investment.
The letter included ten categories for proposed changes, including:
- reporting students to the federal government who are “hostile” to American values
- ensuring each academic department is “viewpoint diverse”
- hiring an external government-approved party to audit programs and departments “that most fuel antisemitic harassment”
- checking faculty staff for plagiarism
President Trump has accused leading universities of failing to protect Jewish students, when college campuses around the country were roiled by protests against the war in Gaza and US support for Israel last year.
The letter orders the university to take disciplinary action for “violations” that happened during protests.
The department of education decried Harvard’s defiance as evidence of a “troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges”.
Obama, a Harvard alum, described the freeze as “unlawful and ham-handed”.
He called on other institutions to follow Harvard’s lead in not conceding to Trump’s demands.
He wrote on social media: “Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions – rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect.”
The BBC reports that hundreds of faculty members at Yale University published a letter expressing their support for Harvard’s decision to reject the Trump administration’s demands.
“We stand together at a crossroads,” the letter read. “American universities are facing extraordinary attacks that threaten the bedrock principles of a democratic society, including rights of free expression, association, and academic freedom. We write as one faculty, to ask you to stand with us now.”
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