Trump administration freezes $2.2 billion in grants to Harvard over campus activism

Michael Casey · The Associated Press

· Posted: Apr 14, 2025 9:28 PM EDT | Last Updated: 32 minutes ago

The national authorities says it's freezing much than $2.2 cardinal successful grants and $60 cardinal successful contracts to Harvard University, aft the instauration said Monday it won't comply with the Trump administration's demands to limit activism connected campus.

In a missive to Harvard Friday, the medication called for wide authorities and enactment reforms, "merit-based" admissions and hiring policies, and an audit of the survey body, module and enactment connected their views astir diversity.

The demands, which are an update from an earlier letter, besides telephone for a prohibition connected look masks — a measurement that appears to people pro-Palestinian protesters — and unit the assemblage to halt recognizing oregon backing "any pupil radical oregon nine that endorses oregon promotes transgression activity, amerciable violence, oregon amerciable harassment."

Harvard president Alan Garber, successful a Monday missive to the Harvard community, said the demands violated the university's First Amendment rights and exceed "the statutory limits of the government's authorization nether Title VI," which prohibits favoritism against students based connected their race, colour oregon nationalist origin.

"No authorities — careless of which enactment is successful powerfulness — should dictate what backstage universities tin teach, whom they tin admit and hire, and which areas of survey and enquiry they tin pursue," Garber wrote, adding that the assemblage had taken extended reforms to code antisemitism.

"These ends volition not beryllium achieved by assertions of power, unmoored from the law, to power teaching and learning astatine Harvard and to dictate however we operate," helium wrote.

"The enactment of addressing our shortcomings, fulfilling our commitments, and embodying our values is ours to specify and undertake arsenic a community."

The demands being made of Harvard are portion of a broader propulsion to usage payer dollars to unit large world institutions to comply with U.S. President Donald Trump's political docket and to power field policy. The medication has besides argued that universities allowed what it considered to beryllium antisemitism to spell unchecked astatine field protests past twelvemonth against Israel's warfare successful Gaza; the schools contradict it.

Harvard is 1 of respective Ivy League schools targeted successful a unit run by the administration, which besides has paused national backing for institutions — including the University of Pennsylvania, Brown and Princeton — to unit compliance.

Harvard's request missive is akin to the 1 that prompted changes at Columbia University nether the menace of billions of dollars successful cuts.

The demands from the Trump medication prompted a radical of alumni to constitute to assemblage leaders calling for it to "legally contention and garbage to comply with unlawful demands that endanger world state and assemblage self-governance."

"Harvard stood up contiguous for the integrity, values, and freedoms that service arsenic the instauration of higher education," said Anurima Bhargava, 1 of the alumni down the letter. "Harvard reminded the satellite that learning, innovation and transformative maturation volition not output to bullying and authoritarian whims."

It besides sparked a protestation implicit the play from members of the Harvard assemblage and residents of Cambridge, and a suit from the American Association of University Professors connected Friday challenging the cuts.

In their lawsuit, plaintiffs reason that the Trump medication has failed to travel steps required nether Title VI earlier it starts cutting funds, and giving announcement of the cuts to some the assemblage and Congress.

"These sweeping yet indeterminate demands are not remedies targeting the causes of immoderate determination of noncompliance with national law. Instead, they overtly question to enforce connected Harvard University governmental views and argumentation preferences precocious by the Trump medication and perpetrate the University to punishing disfavoured speech," the plaintiffs wrote.