US Education Department Secretary Linda McMahon halts funding in escalation of dispute centred around anti-Semitism claims.
The administration of United States President Donald Trump has announced that Harvard University will no longer receive public funding for research in a sharp escalation of its dispute with the top university.
In a letter to Harvard on Monday, US Education Department Secretary Linda McMahon said the elite university had made a “mockery” of higher education and should no longer seek federal grants, “since no will be provided”.
“Harvard will cease to be a publicly funded institution, and can instead operate as a privately-funded institution, drawing on its colossal endowment, and raising money from its large base of wealthy alumni,” McMahon wrote in the letter.
The move comes after the Trump administration last month froze nearly $2.3bn in federal funding to Harvard over what it claimed was its failure to tackle rampant anti-Semitism on campus.
The administration announced the freeze after Harvard rejected a series of demands that it said would subject the university to undue government control, including that it accede to external audits of faculty and students to ensure “viewpoint diversity”.
In her letter, McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, outlined a series of grievances often made by conservatives against the university, including that it had fostered lax academic standards and admitted foreign students who “engage in violent behaviour and show contempt toward the United States of America”.
“Where do many of these ‘students’ come from, who are they, and how do they get into Harvard, or even into our country – and why is there so much HATE?” McMahon wrote in the letter, emulating Trump’s use of all-capital letters to emphasise certain words.
“These are questions that must be answered, among many more, but the biggest question of all is, why will Harvard not give straightforward answers to the American public?”
Harvard, which is fighting the Trump administration’s earlier funding freeze in court, said in a statement that McMahon’s latest demands would have “chilling implications for higher education”.
“Today’s letter makes new threats to illegally withhold funding for lifesaving research and innovation in retaliation against Harvard for filing its lawsuit on April 21,” a university spokesperson said.
“Harvard will continue to comply with the law, promote and encourage respect for viewpoint diversity, and combat antisemitism in our community. Harvard will also continue to defend against illegal government overreach aimed at stifling research and innovation that make Americans safer and more secure.”
US universities have faced controversy over alleged anti-Semitism on their campuses since the eruption last year of nationwide student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.
In two reports released last month, separate Harvard task forces said that students and staff had faced both anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim bias on campus.
In response to the reports, Harvard President Alan Garber expressed concern that some students had been pushed “to the periphery of campus life because of who they are or what they believe”, and pledged to redouble efforts to ensure the university was a place where “mutual respect is the norm”.
Trump and prominent conservatives in the US have also long accused Harvard and other universities of propagating extreme left-wing views and stifling right-wing perspectives.
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