The leader of President Donald Trump’s alma mater has signed a statement criticizing the White House’s treatment of educational institutions.
J. Larry Jameson, president of the University of Pennsylvania, joins more than 100 heads of colleges, universities, and scholarly societies in speaking out against the “unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education.”
Trump attended the Wharton School at UPenn from 1966 until 1968, when he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics. The first two years of his degree were completed at Fordham University, where he studied from 1964 until 1966. The president of Fordham University, Tania Tetlow, has also signed the joint statement.
“We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses,” the statement said. “We will always seek effective and fair financial practices, but we must reject the coercive use of public research funding.”
The statement was published hours after Harvard University sued the Trump administration in an attempt to stop the government from freezing billions in federal funding to the elite institution.
The scathing lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, accused the White House of using the funding “as leverage to gain control of academic decision making at Harvard.”
Trump froze $2.26 billion in federal funds and another $1 billion in grants earmarked for health research for the Ivy League school last week after it refused demands for sweeping policy changes.
Trump himself also threatened to use the IRS to revoke the university’s tax-exempt status.
The letter Harvard received—which included a series of demands regarding the school’s hiring policies, admissions, and curriculum—was apparently never meant to be sent in the first place, The New York Times reported last week.
The requests were so extreme that Harvard felt it had no choice but to publicly defy Trump.
“No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Harvard President Alan Garber said.
Despite the apparent mistake, Trump and his White House team were so incensed by the defiance that they doubled down on the demands, threatening the school’s federal funding if it refused to comply.
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