Trump freezes $2bn in Harvard funding after university rejects demands

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has said it is freezing more than $2bn (£1.5bn) in federal funds for Harvard University, hours after the elite college rejected a list of demands from the White House.

“Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges,” the Department of Education said in a statement.

The White House sent a list of demands to Harvard last week which it said were designed to fight antisemitism on campus.

They included changes to its governance, hiring practices and admissions procedures.

Harvard rejected the demands on Monday and said the White House was trying to “control” its community.

It is the first major US university to defy pressure from the Trump administration to change its policies. The sweeping changes demanded by the White House would have transformed its operations and ceded a large amount of control to the government.

President Trump has accused leading universities of failing to protect Jewish students when college campuses around the country were roiled by protests against the war in Gaza and US support for Israel last year.

In a letter to the Harvard community on Monday, its President Alan Garber said the White House had sent an “updated and expanded list of demands” on Friday alongside a warning that the university “must comply” in order to maintain its “financial relationship” with the government.

“We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement,” he wrote. “The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”

Mr Garber added that the university did not “take lightly” its obligation to fight antisemitism, but said the government was overreaching.

“Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard,” he said.

Shortly after, Columbia agreed to several of the administration’s demands, drawing criticism from some students and faculty.

Earlier on Monday, a lawyer for an organiser of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University said her client had been arrested by immigration officials as he attended an interview as part of his application for US citizenship.

Mohsen Mahdawi, a green card holder who is due to graduate next month, was detained on Monday in Colchester, Vermont.

Others who took part in campus protests against the war, including Columbia University’s Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University’s Rumeysa Ozturk, have been detained in recent weeks.

-BBC