Harvard issues blistering response to Trump’s demands setting up billion-dollar showdown with White House

Donald Trump’s list of demands for elite universities has been rejected by Harvard, setting up a showdown between America’s wealthiest university and the leader of the free world.  

Harvard announced Monday that it won’t comply with the demands from the Trump administration as part of its campaign against antisemitism, which could put almost $9 billion in funding at risk.

The school came under great scrutiny over campus antisemitism in response to Israel’s war against Hamas, forcing then-President Claudine Gay to resign amid mounting pressure from forces outside the university. 

Current Harvard President Alan Garber, in a letter to the Harvard community Monday, said the demands violated the university’s First Amendment rights and ‘exceeds the statutory limits of the government´s authority under Title VI,’ which prohibits discrimination against students based on their race, color or national origin.

‘No government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,’ Garber wrote, adding that the university had taken extensive reforms to address antisemitism.

‘These ends will not be achieved by assertions of power, unmoored from the law, to control teaching and learning at Harvard and to dictate how we operate,’ he wrote. 

‘The work of addressing our shortcomings, fulfilling our commitments, and embodying our values is ours to define and undertake as a community.’

A spokesperson for the White House told DailyMail.com that Harvard’s funding is now at risk. 

Donald Trump’s (pictured) list of demands for elite universities has been rejected by Harvard, setting up a showdown between America’s wealthiest university and the leader of the free world

Harvard announced Monday that it won’t comply with the demands from the Trump administration as part of its campaign against antisemitism, which could put almost $9 billion in funding at risk

‘President Trump is working to Make Higher Education Great Again by ending unchecked anti-Semitism and ensuring federal taxpayer dollars do not fund Harvard’s support of dangerous racial discrimination or racially motivated violence,’ Harrison Fields said. 

‘Harvard or any institution that wishes to violate Title VI is, by law, not eligible for federal funding.’

In a letter to Harvard Friday, the administration called for broad government and leadership reforms, a requirement that Harvard institute what it calls ‘merit-based’ admissions and hiring policies as well as conduct an audit of the study body, faculty and leadership on their views about diversity.

The demands, which are an update from an earlier letter, also call for a ban on face masks – which appeared to target pro-Palestinian protesters. 

They also pressure the university to stop recognizing or funding ‘any student group or club that endorses or promotes criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harassment.’

The demands on Harvard are part of a broader push of using taxpayer dollars to pressure major academic institutions to comply with President Donald Trump´s political agenda and to influence campus policy. 

The administration has also argued that universities allowed what it considered to be antisemitism to go unchecked at campus protests last year against Israel’s war in Gaza; the schools deny it.

Harvard is one of several Ivy League schools targeted in a pressure campaign by the administration, which also has paused federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, and Princeton to force compliance with its agenda. 

However, Harvard – which holds the largest university endowment in the world – appears to be prepared to stand its ground against the Trump administration.  

Current Harvard President Alan Garber, in a letter to the Harvard community Monday, said the demands violated the university’s First Amendment rights and ‘exceeds the statutory limits of the government´s authority under Title VI’

Part of the letter written to Harvard demanding change on campus antisemitism

The letter written by university President Alan Garber in response

The demand letter is similar to the one that prompted changes at Columbia University under the threat of billions of dollars in cuts.

The Trump administration demands prompted a group of alumni to write to university leaders calling for it to ‘legally contest and refuse to comply with unlawful demands that threaten academic freedom and university self-governance.’

‘Harvard stood up today for the integrity, values, and freedoms that serve as the foundation of higher education,’ said Anurima Bhargava, one of the alumni behind the letter. ‘Harvard reminded the world that learning, innovation and transformative growth will not yield to bullying and authoritarian whims.’

It also sparked a protest over the weekend from members of the Harvard community and from residents of Cambridge and a lawsuit from the American Association of University Professors on Friday challenging the cuts.

In their lawsuit, plaintiffs argue that the Trump administration has failed to follow steps required under Title VI before it starts cutting funds, and giving notice of the cuts to both the university and Congress.

‘These sweeping yet indeterminate demands are not remedies targeting the causes of any determination of noncompliance with federal law. Instead, they overtly seek to impose on Harvard University political views and policy preferences advanced by the Trump administration and commit the University to punishing disfavored speech,’ plaintiffs wrote.

The position stands in stark contrast to their Ivy League siblings at Columbia, who caved to Trump weeks ago. 

The Trump administration pulled the grants and other federal funding, and had threatened to cut more, over the university’s handling of rampant protests against Israel. 

Hundreds of demonstrators gather on Cambridge Common during a rally at the historic park in Cambridge

A student protester stands in front of the statue of John Harvard, the first major benefactor of Harvard College, draped in the Palestinian flag, at an encampment of students protesting against the war in Gaza

Those protests led to ICE detaining activist Columbia grad student Mahmoud Khalil, 30, a legal resident in the US. 

The policy changes, detailed in a letter sent by the university’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, came one week after the Trump administration ordered the Ivy League school to enact reforms or lose all federal funding.

In her letter, Armstrong said the university would immediately appoint a senior vice provost to conduct a thorough review of the portfolio of its regional studies programs, ‘starting immediately with the Middle East.’

Columbia will also revamp its long-standing disciplinary process and bar protests inside academic buildings. Students will not be permitted to wear face masks on campus ‘for the purposes of concealing one’s identity.’ 

An exception would be made for people wearing them for health reasons.

In an effort to expand ‘intellectual diversity’ within the university, Columbia will also appoint new faculty members to its Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies department.

It will also adopt a new definition of antisemitism and expand programming in its Tel Aviv Center, a research hub based in Israel.

The White House has labeled the protests antisemitic, a label rejected by those who participated in the student-led demonstrations.

A message seeking comment was left with a spokesperson for the Education Department.

As a ‘precondition’ for restoring funding, federal officials demanded that the university to place its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department under ‘academic receivership for a minimum of five years.’

They also told the university to ban masks on campus, adopt a new definition of antisemitism, abolish its current process for disciplining students and deliver a plan to ‘reform undergraduate admissions, international recruiting, and graduate admissions practices.’

Historians had described the order as an unprecedented intrusion on university rights long treated by the Supreme Court as an extension of the First Amendment.

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