Trump freezes Harvard funding after university rejects demands
President Donald Trump has threatened to freeze federal funding for multiple elite universities if they do not adhere to his demands.
Harvard University is in a fierce standoff with President Donald Trump’s administration after refusing federal directives.
Trump has threatened to withhold funding from several universities in the U.S., under the banner of fighting antisemitism. He has alleged they did not did enough to combat antisemitism during the protests against the war in Gaza, which brought allegations of both antisemitism and Islamaphobia.
In the face of Trump’s threats, Columbia University made drastic concessions to try to regain its funding, drawing harsh criticism that it caved too quickly on free speech and academic freedom.
Harvard, on the other hand, has not bent to the administration’s wishes, putting billions of dollars in federal funding and its tax-exempt status at risk. Here is what to know about the developing battle:
What Trump demands did Harvard refuse?
In a letter to the president of Harvard, representatives from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education and the General Services Administration, the Trump administration laid out the following demands:
- Change the governance of the leadership to reduce the power of students, faculty and administrations “more committed to activism than scholarship.”
- End “all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” in its hiring, and review existing faculty for plagiarism. Also, to end similar preferences in its admissions process.
- Change admissions processes “to prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.”
- Bring in an external party approved by the federal government to audit the groups within the school for diverse ideological viewpoints.
- Bring in an external party approved by the federal government to audit programs, “programs and departments that most fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture.”
- Stop all DEI programs within the school
- Update its student discipline policies where they are”insufficient to prevent the disruption of scholarship, classroom learning and teaching, or other aspects of normal campus life.” This demand also includes a mask ban.
- Create a process for any Harvard affiliate can report noncompliance to university leadership and the federal government
“The University shall make organizational changes to ensure full transparency and cooperation with all federal regulators,” the letter concludes, adding that quarterly reporting should be submitted to the federal government until the end of 2028.
In response, Harvard president Alan Garber said the demands overstepped the power of the federal government.
“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” the letter stated.
Trump freezes billions of dollars in funding to Harvard
On April 14, hours after the school said it would not comply with the demands, the Trump administration announced it would freeze $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard University.
“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,” the U.S. Department of Education Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism said in a statement.
Trump later went to Truth Social to threaten to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status, suggesting it should be taxed as a “political entity” instead.
What other colleges and universities has Trump targeted?
Harvard is not the first school the Trump administration has targeted. Others that he has wielded demands on include Princeton, Brown, Cornell, Northwestern, and Columbia.
Harvard is the nation’s wealthiest college with a $53 billion endowment, putting it in a better place than other colleges to take a funding blow while resisting the move legally. The federal funding Harvard receives goes to everything from student aid to research, but Harvard does much more research than the federal dollars account for.
A higher education lobbyist previously told USA TODAY that Harvard may have to pay a price, but it did the right thing and opened a path for other schools to resist the Trump administration’s demands.
Contributing: Zachary Schermele, Zac Anderson, and Thao Nguyen
Kinsey Crowley is a trending news reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected]. Follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky at @kinseycrowley.bsky.social.