The Federal Government has announced a freezing of approximately $ 2.2 billion in subsidies and contracts to Harvard University after the institution refused to meet the demands of the Trump administration to stop campus activism. | Photo credit: Brian Snyder/Reuters
The Federal Government says that it is freezing more than USD 2.2 billion in subsidies and contracts to Harvard University, since the institution said on Monday that it will not meet the demands of the Trump administration to limit activism on the campus.
In a letter to Harvard on Friday, the administration requested general reforms of the government and leadership, a requirement that Harvard institutes what calls admissions “based on merit” and contracting policies, as well as an audit of the diversity of the study, the faculty.
The demands, which are an update of an earlier letter, also require a prohibition of facial masks, which seemed to go to pro-palestinian protesters. They also press the University to stop recognizing or finance “any group of students or club that supports or promises criminal activities, illegal violence or illegal harassment.” The president of Harvard, Alan Garber, in a letter to the Harvard community on Monday, said that the demands violated the rights of the first amendment of the university and “exceeds the legal limits of the government’s authority under title VI”, which prohibits or nustering students based on CS -based students.
“No government, regardless of which party in power, should dictate what private universities can teach, who can admit and hire, and what areas of study and research can,” Garber wrote, adding that the university.
“These purposes will not be achieved through statements of power, without being fine with the law, to control teaching and learning in Harvard and dictate how we operate,” was written. “The work of addressing our deficiencies, fulfilling our commitments and embodying our values is ours to define and undertake as a community.” Harvard’s demands are part of a broader impulse for the use of taxpayers’ dollars to press the main academic institutions to understand the political agenda of President Donald Trump and influences the campus policy. The Administration has also argued that universities allowed what it considered it was anti -Semitism without control in the protests of the campus last year against the Israel War in Gaza; The schools deny it.
Harvard is one of the several Ivy League schools directed in a pressure campaign of the administration, which also has federal funds for the University of Pennsylvania, Brown and Princeton fulfilling its agenda. Harvard’s demand letter is similar to the one that caused changes at Columbia University under the threat of billions of dollars in cuts.
The demands of the Trump administration led a group of alumni to write to the university leaders who asked that “be legally disposed and refuse to meet the illegal demands that threaten the academic freedom and self -government of the university.” “Harvard stood today for integrity, values and freedoms that serve as the basis of higher education,” said Anurima Bhargava, one of the alumni behind the letter. “Harvard reminded the world that learning, innovation and transformative growth will not yield to intimidation and authoritarian whims.” It also caused a protest during the weekend of the members of the Harvard community and the Cambridge residents and a demand from the American Association of University Teachers on Friday challenging the cuts.
In their claim, the plaintiffs argue that the Trump administration has not followed the steps required under Title VI before it begins to cut funds, and notifying the cuts both to the University and Congress.
“These radical but undetermined demands are not remedies aimed at the causes of any determination of breach with the federal law. Instead, they openly seek to impose political opinions and political preferences of Harvard University advanced by the Trump administration and commit the university to punish distrustful discourse,” wrote the plaintiffs.
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Posted on April 15, 2025