The Trump White House is ramping up its fight against one of the top Ivy League schools in the country — Harvard University.
On Monday, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon joined the fray by sending a letter to Harvard saying they should no longer apply for federal grants.
This follows President Donald Trump’s message that his administration would be “taking away Harvard‘s Tax Exempt Status,” in a social media post last week. “It’s what they deserve!”
It is unclear if Trump has the power to do this, and conservatives like Utah Gov. Spencer Cox have argued it is a dangerous precedent to set.
In the letter from McMahon to Harvard, she says the university has not followed the Supreme Court’s mandate to end racial preferences in admissions.
McMahon also echoes billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who criticized the Harvard Corporation over the leadership of senior fellow Penny Pritzker, a billionaire who was the Commerce secretary during the Obama administration and is sister to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
McMahon’s letter also says Harvard invites foreign students into the U.S. who “engage in violent behavior and show contempt for the United States of America.”
“Given these and other concerning allegations, this letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek GRANTS from the federal government, since none will be provided,” McMahon’s letter says.
The letter lists several demands previously made by the Trump administration to the university, including ending racial preferences in admissions and hiring, “disciplinary reform and consistent accountability” for students and student groups, and cooperating with law enforcement.
Should Harvard give in to Trump’s demands?
Larry Summers, former president of Harvard University, told CBS News in an interview that aired Sunday that this war between President Donald Trump and Harvard is unlikely to end until the school gives into the White House’s demands.
“I think (Trump’s) end game is to try to get the university to bend the knee,” Summers said.
“Harvard’s had a big problem with antisemitism. It’s got a big problem with too many progressives relative to the number of conservatives. It’s got a big problem with paying too much attention to identity politics,” said Summers, who served as an undersecretary at the Treasury Department under former President Bill Clinton.
But, Summers called what Trump is doing to Harvard “extortion.”
“The laws say you have to have hearings. The laws say you have to give notice. The laws don’t say you can engage in extortion, and when you simply cut off all funding based on a set of conditions, that’s extortion,” he said.
In response to Summers, a White House spokesman told CBS News, “The real threat to higher education comes when places like Harvard let their students’ civil rights get trampled.”
“President Trump is standing up for every student denied an education or safe campus because left-wing universities fail to protect their civil rights,” the spokesperson added.
What happened between the Trump administration and Harvard?
The battle between the progressive educational institution and the Trump administration, which is determined to bring viewpoint diversity to higher ed, has escalated in recent weeks.
Back in March, the Trump White House sent Harvard a letter warning of an impending investigation should the university not address antisemitism on the Harvard campus.
Harvard returned to the table with a list of reforms it was ready to introduce. But in another letter a month later, Trump officials said Harvard hadn’t done enough and suggested changing the leadership structure, implementing merit-based hiring and admissions, and introducing “viewpoint diversity.”
Harvard declined. “The University will not surrender its independence or its constitutional rights,” Harvard President Alan M. Garber wrote amid the negotiations.
When the Ivy League school rejected the Trump White House’s demands, the administration froze $2.2 billion in federal funds, including grants. Harvard is fighting back: It sued the administration alleging they were in the violation of the First Amendment and Civil Rights Act.
Will Harvard win in court?
Aside from arguing violations of basic constitutional rights, the university will argue that the government didn’t adhere to the Administrative Procedure Act, which helps oversee the rules and processes for various agencies.
But Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told Semafor that he believes the president’s office can withhold federal funding, or “make adjustments” if the recipients of government grants don’t meet requirements.
“When we appropriate something, we hand it over to the executive. The executive has not only the power but the responsibility to make sure that the law is administered faithfully,” he said.
Lee served as a lawyer and federal prosecutor before becoming a senator.
“Those adjustments tend to be sort of in the moment. If there were large swaths of funds in the abstract that he just didn’t spend, then you get into a possible violation of the Impoundment Control Act,” Lee noted.
That law allows the president to rescind funds but only with the approval of Congress.
Lee said he has become “less and less enamored” with this law.
Partly because he thinks the president should be able to consider the money appropriated by Congress as the maximum limit, or “ceiling,” rather than the minimum, or “floor.”
“And presidents were not only allowed, but sort of expected, to look for ways to bring spending down, if they could spend less than that sum they were permitted to,” he added.
“So that’s why I think we’d be better off without the Impoundment Control Act. But it’s still law.”
Harvard‘s ‘disappointing’ report on antisemitism
Last week, the university released an internal report on instances of antisemitism and anti-Israel bias.
It detailed accounts of Jewish and Muslim students struggling to cope with the war between Israel and Hamas while facing fears over their security and censorship on campus.
Garber, the Harvard president, in a letter called the past academic year “disappointing and painful.”
“Some students reported being pushed by their peers to the periphery of campus life because of who they are or what they believe, eroding our shared sense of community in the process,” Garber wrote.
But that’s not all. This internal report details instances when Jewish students were silenced, excluded and even shunned by their peers while the faculty encouraged anti-Israel protests, as The Atlantic reported.
The bullying and harassment surged following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Garber told alumni on a call last week that the White House “sanctions” against the university won’t “particularly aid us in the fight against antisemitism,” as CNN reported.
Harvard isn’t facing a singular threat. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem threatened to revoke the Ivy League school‘s ability to enroll international students — about 27% of its total enrollment. Meanwhile, the Education Department is investigating the university’s gifts and contracts disclosure reports.
The White House is also telling universities to get rid of diversity, equity and inclusion practices and is deporting or canceling the visas of students involved in pro-Palestinian protests, as the Deseret News previously reported.