Trump Administration Threatens to Cut All Harvard Funding

The Trump administration has concluded that Harvard University failed to protect Jewish students from harassment and is threatening to cut all federal funding from the Ivy League school if it fails to take action. A federal task force sent a letter to Harvard on Monday finding the university violated civil rights laws requiring colleges to protect students from discrimination based on race or national origin. It says investigators found Harvard was at times a "willful participant in anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students, faculty, and staff" and that campus leaders allowed antisemitism to fester on the campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard's relationship with the federal government," officials said in the letter, which was obtained by the AP and first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Harvard did not immediately comment. It's the latest intensification in the White House's battle with Harvard, which lost more than $2.6 billion in federal research grants after rejecting a list of federal demands calling for sweeping changes to campus governance, hiring, and admissions. The Trump administration for months has accused Harvard of tolerating antisemitism on campus, but a formal finding paves the way for a negotiated agreement or—if one isn't reached—an attempt to cut the school off from federal dollars.

Much of the investigation's evidence focuses on campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war. Harvard President Alan Garber has acknowledged problems with antisemitism and anti-Muslim bias on campus, but says Harvard has made strides to fight prejudice. He announced new initiatives in April after Harvard released internal reports finding evidence of antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus. "Harvard cannot—and will not—abide bigotry," Garber wrote.

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The Monday letter finds that Harvard violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Such findings have almost always been resolved through voluntary resolutions between schools and the government. The Trump administration has taken a much sharper edge than its predecessors, however. It has been decades since an administration even attempted to fully strip a school or college of its federal funding over civil rights violations.