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Donald Trump doubled down on his administration’s stand-off with Harvard university with a threat to remove the university’s tax exempt status.
His warning came less than a day after the White House said it would freeze more than $2.2bn in funding for Harvard following the university’s refusal to comply with demands for a series of overhauls to its governance and student discipline.
“Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting “Sickness?” Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!” the president wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Trump’s threat adds to concerns among US higher education institutions that government intends to widen its attacks for what it claims are failures to tackle alleged antisemitism on campuses.
The Trump administration is considering removing tax exempt status for US universities and overhauling the accreditation system that makes them eligible for federal funding including student loans.
“I think a lot of Americans are wondering why their tax dollars are going to these universities when they are not only indoctrinating our nation’s students but also allowing such a group’s egregious illegal behaviour to occur,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday.
“The President’s position on this is grounded in common sense, in the basic principle that Jewish American students, or students of any faith, should not be illegally harassed and targeted on our nation’s college campuses, and we unfortunately saw that illegal discrimination take place on the campus of Harvard,” she added.
Harvard said the demands from the administration encroached on academic freedom and lacked due process.
“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” Harvard’s president Alan Garber said on Monday.
The university is the first high profile institution to resist the administration’s demands following several weeks of threats and grant freezes.
Unlike Harvard, New York’s Columbia University bowed to administration demands after $400mn in grants were cut, which have yet to be reinstated. Instead the government is planning an aggressive court-supervised consent order to oversee the university.
But there are signs that universities are beginning to challenge the administration. “Harvard’s objections to the letter it received are rooted in the American tradition of liberty, a tradition essential to our country’s universities, and worth defending,” said Jonathan Levin, the president of Stanford University.
He added: “The way to bring about constructive change is not by destroying the nation’s capacity for scientific research, or through the government taking command of a private institution.”
Networks of university professors and teachers have already sued the administration, and there are broader actions under way to challenge a blanket freeze across universities on grants related to topics including diversity, equity and inclusion.
Universities are also challenging a cap on indirect costs associated with grants across the country from the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Energy.
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