Leftist Hate
Trump administration targets billions in funding to Harvard over rabid antisemitism
By Susan Svrluga & Danielle Douglas-Gabriel The Washington Post
Published April 1, 2025
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The Trump administration will scrutinize billions of dollars in federal funding to Harvard University, according to an announcement Monday by multiple federal agencies, another escalation in the administration's aggressive efforts to force change at prominent universities that had been divided by protests over the Israel-Gaza war.
The Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, recently formed by the administration to address complaints of discrimination on college campuses, will review the more than $255 million in contracts between the federal government, Harvard and its affiliates. And it will look at more than $8.7 billion in multiyear grant commitments to Harvard and its affiliates to ensure the school is in compliance with federal regulations, the announcement from the departments of Health and Human Services, Education, and the U.S. General Services Administration said. Harvard affiliates include local hospitals whose physicians teach at Harvard Medical School.
The reviews follow dramatic cuts at Columbia University. This month, the Trump administration said it was cutting off $400 million in federal grants because it said the school was not doing enough to protect Jewish students. Colleges across the country struggled last spring to balance students' right to free speech during intense protests over the Israel-Gaza war with the need to ensure student safety on campus, with some Jewish students saying pro-Palestinian protests were at times hostile, antisemitic and frightening. This academic year has been much quieter at most schools.
Columbia officials recently agreed to make changes and are in negotiations with the federal government in hopes of restoring funding.
A spokeswoman for the Education Department said funding to Harvard and its affiliates is being reviewed, not canceled.
Trump has been sharply critical of universities for what he has characterized as a failure to respond to antisemitism - and soon after taking office in January he signed an executive order designed to counter it.
The Trump administration has made clear that its actions on this issue would be wide-ranging. Federal agencies warned 10 universities they would be visited by the antisemitism task force, and an additional 60 schools were warned of potential enforcement action if they did not comply with federal civil rights law to protect Jewish students.
Higher education leaders have been bracing for hits on an array of fronts from the administration, which signaled during the campaign that elite universities would be targets for failing to stop disruptive protests, give voice to conservative views and other perceived problems. Trump promised to "get this anti-American insanity" out of institutions that he said were indoctrinating students.
Now, the Trump administration has shown that federal funding will be used to enforce change.
"Harvard's failure to protect students on campus from anti-Semitic discrimination - all while promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry - has put its reputation in serious jeopardy," Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a written statement. "Harvard can right these wrongs and restore itself to a campus dedicated to academic excellence and truth-seeking, where all students feel safe on its campus."
"If this funding is stopped, it will halt life-saving research and imperil important scientific research and innovation," Harvard President Alan M. Garber said in a message to the campus community Monday.
He said that antisemitism is an urgent problem that he has experienced directly while serving as president, and he detailed some of the steps Harvard has taken to combat it over the past 15 months. The university will engage with the federal task force and will take measures that will move Harvard forward while protecting its community and academic freedom.
Protests at Harvard over the Israel-Gaza war were not as disruptive as some of those at Columbia, but Harvard has come under scrutiny from Republican lawmakers and others over the past year and a half for its response to demonstrations.
That scrutiny has had high-profile impact, toppling powerful presidencies: Last year, Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned in the wake of a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism, the second Ivy League president to do so. Months later, Columbia President Minouche Shafik resigned, saying the turmoil on campus had taken a considerable toll on her family.
Harvard has announced efforts to address complaints of antisemitism and Islamophobia that have emerged during the Israel-Gaza war. The university convened a presidential task force in January 2024 and has since implemented changes in response to the group's preliminary findings, including standardizing its procedures for disciplinary cases, pursuing disciplinary action and updating campus use policies. The school now uses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, and communicated to campus that Jewish and Israeli identities are included in its anti-bullying, antidiscrimination policies.
Still, the school's task force has faced criticism from students and faculty for missing deadlines to issue final recommendations.
And some faculty and others have objected to rules they found overly restrictive of free speech rights. Last fall, some professors chalked messages on campus sidewalks to object to a rule requiring prior approval for such expressions.
During the review process, the federal government will work with relevant contracting agencies to assess whether stop-work orders should be issued for any identified contracts, according to the announcement, and Harvard has been ordered to provide a comprehensive list of all contracts with the federal government not included in the initial review.
"While Harvard's recent actions to curb institutionalized anti-Semitism - though long overdue - are welcome, there is much more that the university must do to retain the privilege of receiving federal taxpayer's hard-earned dollars," said Josh Gruenbaum, Federal Acquisition Service commissioner and a member of the task force. "This administration has proven that we will take swift action to hold institutions accountable if they allow anti-Semitism to fester. We will not hesitate to act if Harvard fails to do so."
Some higher education experts say the Trump administration's efforts to combat antisemitism are politically motivated.
"This new review is just one more component of the administration's relentless assault on American higher education," Ethan Ris, an associate professor of higher education leadership at the University of Nevada at Reno. "The idea of canceling federal grants and contracts, almost all of which involve scientific research, in order to root out anti-Semitism at Harvard is particularly absurd."
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, said the administration is sticking to a playbook of making accusations without evidence and threatening without following procedures laid out in federal law. The Trump administration says it is reviewing Harvard for compliance with civil rights regulations, but is sidestepping the process for civil rights investigations, he said.
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