US President Donald Trump has issued a stark warning to Harvard University, threatening to revoke its tax-exempt status after the institution refused what it deemed unlawful government demands to alter its academic programs, facing the risk of losing federal funding.
Following their initial actions against Columbia University, the Trump administration has been actively criticizing universities nationwide for their management of the pro-Palestinian student protest movement, which caused significant unrest on campuses last year.
Trump has condemned these protests as anti-American and antisemitic, accusing universities of spreading Marxism and “radical left” ideology. He has also pledged to cut federal grants and contracts to universities that do not comply with his administration’s demands.
In response, some professors, students, and university presidents argue that the protests are being unfairly linked to antisemitism as a pretext for an unconstitutional assault on academic freedoms.
Columbia, a private institution in New York City, agreed to enter negotiations after the Trump administration announced last month that it had terminated grants and contracts valued at $400 million, primarily for medical and scientific research.
Harvard President Alan Garber, in a letter released on Monday, described the demands made by the Trump administration—including an audit to ensure “viewpoint diversity” among its students and faculty, and the cessation of all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs—as unprecedented “assertions of power, detached from the law,” violating constitutional free speech rights and the Civil Rights Act.
Like Columbia, he stated that Harvard has been actively working to combat antisemitism and other forms of discrimination on its campus while upholding academic freedoms and the right to protest.
Just hours after Garber’s letter was published, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism declared it was freezing over $2 billion in contracts and grants to Harvard, the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university. The administration did not provide details on which grants and contracts had been cut, and Harvard has yet to respond to requests for comment.
Trump, a Republican, suggested in a social media post on Tuesday that he is considering seeking to terminate Harvard’s tax-exempt status if the university continues to promote what he referred to as “political, ideological, and terrorist-inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?'”
He did not elaborate on how he would achieve this. Under US tax code, most universities are exempt from federal income tax as they are considered to be “operated exclusively” for educational purposes.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump wants Harvard to apologize for what she termed “antisemitism that took place on their college campus against Jewish American students.”
She accused Harvard and other institutions of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race or national origin by recipients of federal funding.
Under Title VI, federal funds can only be terminated following a thorough investigation, hearings process, and a 30-day notification to Congress—none of which has occurred at Columbia or Harvard.
