President Donald Trump recommended Tuesday that Harvard College ought to lose its tax-exempt standing and be thought-about a “political entity,” a day after his administration pulled $2.2 billion in funding from the Ivy League faculty.
“Maybe Harvard ought to lose its Tax Exempt Standing and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it retains pushing political, ideological, and terrorist impressed/supporting ‘Illness?’” Trump wrote on TRUTH Social.
“Bear in mind, Tax Exempt Standing is completely contingent on appearing within the PUBLIC INTEREST!” the president added.
TRUMP ADMIN SLASHES OVER $2.2B IN FUNDING TO HARVARD AFTER SCHOOL DEFIES DEMANDS
Protesters collect outdoors Harvard College to indicate their disapproval of actions taken beneath the Trump administration on April 1, 2025. (Brett Phelps/The Boston Globe through Getty Photos)
White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt doubled down on the president’s place later Tuesday.
“I feel the president can also be begging a very good query. Greater than $2 billion out the door to Harvard once they have a greater than $50 billion endowment. Why are the American taxpayers subsidizing a college that has billions of {dollars} within the financial institution already?” Leavitt mentioned at a press briefing. “And we definitely shouldn’t be funding a spot the place such, grave antisemitism exists.”
Leavitt mentioned Trump’s place is “grounded in frequent sense, within the fundamental precept that Jewish American college students or college students of any religion, shouldn’t be illegally harassed and focused on our nation’s faculty campuses.”
“The president made it clear to Harvard, comply with federal regulation, not break Title VI, which was handed by Congress to make sure no scholar may be discriminated in opposition to on the idea of race, and you’ll obtain federal funding,” Leavitt mentioned. “Sadly, Harvard, has not taken the president, or the administration’s calls for critically. All of the president is asking do not break federal regulation after which you may have your federal funding.”
The Trump administration on Monday mentioned it was freezing greater than $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard University after the establishment refused to adjust to a set of phrases set forth by the Division of Training, Division of Well being and Human Providers and the Common Providers Administration final week.
Framed as “an increasing record of calls for” by Harvard’s management, the administration requested the college to make adjustments to stick to “merit-based” hiring and admissions practices and reform its recruitment of worldwide college students to “forestall admitting college students hostile to the American values and establishments inscribed within the U.S. Structure and Declaration of Independence, together with college students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism.”
Different requested reforms included guaranteeing “viewpoint variety in admissions and hiring,” altering packages with “egregious information of antisemitism or different bias,” and discontinuing variety, fairness and inclusion (DEI) insurance policies and initiatives.
In an April 11 letter to Harvard management, Trump administration officers mentioned that U.S. authorities “funding is just not entitlement” and “depends upon Harvard upholding federal civil rights legal guidelines, and it solely is sensible if Harvard fosters the sort of setting that produces mental creativity and scholarly rigor, each of that are antithetical to ideological seize.”
President Donald Trump speaks throughout a Cupboard assembly on the White Home on April 10, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Photos)
In a press release on Monday, Harvard College President Alan Garber mentioned the phrases of settlement make “clear that the intention is to not work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive method.”
HARVARD WON’T COMPLY WITH TRUMP ADMIN’S DEMANDS AMID THREATS OF CUTTING FEDERAL FUNDING
“Though a few of the calls for outlined by the federal government are aimed toward combating antisemitism, the bulk signify direct governmental regulation of the mental circumstances at Harvard,” Garber wrote.
He argued the phrases required an “audit” of the scholar physique, college and workers “viewpoints” and to cut back the ability of sure college students, college, and directors “focused due to their ideological views.”
Protesters collect outdoors Harvard College on April 1, 2025. (Brett Phelps/The Boston Globe through Getty Photos)
“No authorities – no matter which get together is in energy – ought to dictate what non-public universities can educate, whom they will admit and rent, and which areas of research and inquiry they will pursue,” Garber wrote.
Harvard’s response was praised by Democrats, together with former President Barack Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, whereas conservatives mocked the Ivy League faculty’s outrage given its $53.2 billion endowment.
“There’s one other approach: Refuse taxpayer cash,” Hillsdale School, a personal Christian establishment in Michigan, posted on X.
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“Time to defund,” Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, wrote on X. “And tax that $50 billion endowment.”
Richard Grenell, a longtime Trump ally who served in a number of administration roles, had a message to Harvard: “Don’t ask for taxpayer cash if you happen to don’t need taxpayer strings.”
“You’ve ruined my diploma together with your far left activism,” Grenell wrote. “As a Harvard graduate, I help the Federal authorities implementing legal guidelines that you simply violate.”
