Founded in 1636, Harvard University is one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the world. It has produced many Nobel laureates and eight US presidents. However, the current US president, Donald Trump, has declared Harvard “a JOKE” — one he doesn’t find funny. According to Trump, the university teaches “hate and stupidity” and hires “woke, radical left, idiots.” This, he stated in a post on his own social media platform, Truth Social, in mid-April, was why Harvard “should no longer receive federal funds.”
Government agencies immediately (approximately €2.2 billion) that had been earmarked for the university. Then, in May, a government antisemitism task force informed the university leadership that an additional $450 million of funding was .
On Thursday, May 22, the Trump administration escalated the conflict further. The US Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, issued a letter revoking the university’s license to enroll foreign students. Harvard was given a 72-hour deadline to provide the administration with specific if it wished to regain its license.
Harvard promptly sued the administration, and scored an initial legal victory the following day when US District Judge Allison D. Burroughs found in the university’s favor. She accepted its argument that the government order would cause Harvard “immediate and irreparable injury,” and pending a further hearing.
What is the Trump administration’s justification for its actions?
As Trump himself and many of those close to him have repeatedly indicated, they are troubled that, in their eyes, Harvard’s teaching and research are dominated by left-wing content and ideologies. However, the US Constitution makes clear that the government can only restrict freedom of speech in a few, very specific instances. Last month, more than 100 US universities signed an open letter, citing the Constitution, and protesting “unprecedented government overreach and political interference.”
The legal pretext for the funding cuts is the that have taken place at many US universities as a reaction to . The war is Israel’s response to the terrorist attack launched from the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. There have been many reports that Jewish students have been targeted in antisemitic attacks during protests in the United States. The US, along with Germany, Israel and other countries, characterize Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Why does the US government have Harvard in its sights?
The new US government has withdrawn funding, or has threatened to do so, from around 60 universities. In March, for example, it pulled $400 million of federal funding from Columbia University in New York, accusing the university leadership of “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”
Columbia sued the administration over the cancellation of funding, with several other government demands, such as banning the wearing of masks during protests, hiring new security personnel and making changes to the management of the department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies. In spite of this, the US Department of Health and Human Services nonetheless upheld the accusation of inaction.
Harvard, which is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a suburb just outside Boston, is so far the only university to openly resist the administration’s demands. Part of the reason why it can afford to challenge the government is that it has an endowment of more than $50 billion. This endowment may now be targeted by the government.
What would the new measures mean for Harvard?
If the administration is successful in blocking Harvard from enrolling international students, one consequence will be that many international students will lose their US residence permits, unless they are able to enroll at a different university.
This would not only deprive Harvard of international talent. There are around 6,800 non-US citizens enrolled at the university, which receives around $400 million per year from them in tuition fees. Fees are the same for US students — around $59,000 per year — but many are awarded scholarships that the university funds. Overall, Harvard therefore earns more from international students than from American ones.
The US government is also considering imposing heavy taxes on capital gains from . Endowment funds are invested primarily in securities, yielding hundreds of millions of dollars per year. During his first term in office, Trump introduced a capital gains tax of 1.4% for universities with endowments that exceed $500,000 per student. Now, he proposes to add further tiers, and for capital gains on endowments in the highest category — in excess of $2 million per student — to be taxed at 21%.
In the USA Today national newspaper, the economist Phillip Levine estimated that elite universities like Yale, Stanford, MIT, Princeton, and, of course, Harvard, could each face tax bills of between $400 and $850 million a year under the new scheme.
What is the US government demanding of Harvard?
According to a letter sent by three government agencies to the university administration, the US government is demanding that Harvard implement sweeping reforms by August 2025, supposedly in order to counter what it perceives as the dominance of left-wing ideologies at Harvard faculties.
These reforms include introducing new guidelines to limit the “power” of students and faculty, especially those university staff “more committed to activism than scholarship.” Jobs and study places, the letter states, should in future be awarded solely on the basis of merit: The university must “cease all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” Programs promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are to be discontinued. Furthermore, it says, the reforms will broaden the range of viewpoints represented, and prevent the admission of students’ “hostile” to “American values and institutions.”
It is not clear what will happen next. Judge Burroughs, who temporarily blocked the government order on Friday, has scheduled a hearing for May 29 to decide whether or not the hold should be extended. These are probably just the first steps in what may be a long legal battle.
This article has been translated from German.
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