Trump vs Harvard: How the fight started, where it is heading

US President Donald Trump has threatened Harvard with a ban on foreign students.

The development comes just a day after Trump threatened Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

“Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The Trump government has frozen federal funding to the tune of $2 billion to Harvard.

The university has vowed to protect its ‘independence and constitutional rights.’

But when did this fight begin? And where is it heading?

‘Choke off money’

Trump campaigned on ‘fixing’ institutes of higher learning during the 2024 presidential campaign.

“We are going to choke off the money to schools that aid the Marxist assault on our American heritage and on Western civilisation itself. The days of subsidising communist indoctrination in our colleges will soon be over,” he said at one rally, as per Town and Country.

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“To every college president: Vanquish the radicals and take back our campuses for all of the normal students,” he added at another.

Then, the showdown between Trump and Harvard became inevitable on October 7, 2023 – the day Hamas attacked Israel.

As per The Times of India, that was when some students at Harvard issued a letter essentially blaming Israel for the situation in Gaza.

Then, Bill Ackman, a right-wing billionaire got into the act.

Ackman, who attended Harvard, attacked the university’s students on social media.

I have been asked by a number of CEOs if @harvard would release a list of the members of each of the Harvard organizations that have issued the letter assigning sole responsibility for Hamas’ heinous acts to Israel, so as to insure that none of us inadvertently hire any of their… https://t.co/7kzGOAGwp9

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) October 10, 2023

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Ackman would go on to lead a public and high-profile campaign against then Harvard president Claudine Gay –  the first black president of the university.

Ackman would later go on to compare Yale to Hamas.

Gay, who would testify before Congress on anti-Semitism at Harvard, would ultimately resign as university president in January.

Harvard in January agreed to provide additional protections for Jewish students under a settlement resolving two lawsuits accusing the Ivy League school of becoming a hotbed of antisemitism.

Trump sworn in

Then, Trump was sworn in on January 20, 2025.

Less than two weeks later, on January 30, the 47th President of the United States signed an executive order aimed at campus antisemitism.

According to the White House, the new order “takes forceful and unprecedented steps to marshal all Federal resources to combat the explosion of anti-Semitism on our campuses and in our streets since October 7, 2023.”

As per NPR, the order took aim at foreign students who are “Hamas sympathizers” and “pro-jihadist” protesters.

“We put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and will deport you,” a White House fact sheet about the Executive Order stated.

The order also directed officials to encourage schools to keep an eye on these protesters.

In February, the US Justice Department launched the “Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism.”

The task force “is motivated by one thing and one thing only: tackling antisemitism,” White House spokesman Kush Desai was quoted as saying by the Wall Street Journal.

“Antisemitic protesters inflicting violence and taking over entire college campus buildings is not only a crude display of bigotry against Jewish Americans, but entirely disruptive to the intellectual inquiry and research that federal funding of colleges is meant to support.”

Harvard, Columbia in crosshairs

In February, announced the list of universities it would investigate – Harvard and Columbia being the two most prestigious schools on the list.

Then, in March, Trump’s education department ramped things up further by sending letters to over 60 universities including Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Columbia.

The communication warning them to protect Jewish students or face action.

“The Department is deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite US campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year. University leaders must do better,” wrote Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.

“US colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by US taxpayers. That support is a privilege and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal antidiscrimination laws.”

The Trump administration in March first took aim at Columbia University, accusing the school of not doing enough to tackle anti-Semitism.

The university paused $400 million in federal funding to Columbia – amid a torrent of criticism from civil rights activists.

The university, weeks later, would capitulate to Trump’s demands.

Then, on March 31, it was Harvard’s turn to come in the crosshairs.

The Trump administration at the time said it was reviewing $9 billion in federal contracts and grants to Harvard as part of a crackdown on what it says is antisemitism that erupted on college campuses during pro-Palestinian protests in the past 18 months.

“While Harvard’s recent actions to curb institutionalized antisemitism — though long overdue — are welcome, there is much more that the university must do to retain the privilege of receiving federal taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars,” Josh Gruenbaum, a senior official at the General Services Administration, was quoted as saying by The New York Times.

“This administration has proven that we will take swift action to hold institutions accountable if they allow antisemitism to fester,” Gruenbaum added. “We will not hesitate to act if Harvard fails to do so.”

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said “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.”

“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,” she added.

Trump sends Harvard demands, university refuses to back down

On Friday, the Trump government issued its list of demands for Harvard.

In a letter on Friday, the education department stated that Harvard had “failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment.”

The department demanded that Harvard, work to reduce the influence of faculty, staff and students who are “more committed to activism than scholarship” and have an external panel audit the faculty and students of each department to ensure “viewpoint diversity.”

The letter also stated that Harvard, by this August, must only hire faculty and admit students based on merit and cease all preferences based on race, color or national origin. The university must also screen international students “to prevent admitting students hostile to American values” and report to federal immigration authorities foreign students who violate conduct rules.

On Monday, Harvard announced it would not comply with the administration’s demands.

Harvard’s decision was praised by many on social media including ex-president Barack Obama – himself a Harvard man.

“Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions – rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope other institutions follow suit,” Obama wrote on social media.

Federal funding freeze, threat to tax-exempt status

Within hours of Harvard taking its stand, the administration of President Donald Trump announced it was freezing $2.3 billion in federal funding to the school.

A Department of Education task force on combating antisemitism accused America’s oldest university of having a “troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges - that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws.”

Harvard President Alan Garber wrote in a public letter on Monday that demands made by the Department of Education last week would allow the federal government “to control the Harvard community” and threaten the school’s “values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge.”

“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.

He said demands the Trump administration made of the Massachusetts university, including an audit to ensure the “viewpoint diversity” of its students and faculty and an end to diversity, equity and inclusion programs, were unprecedented “assertions of power, unmoored from the law” that violated constitutional free speech and the Civil Rights Act.

Trump on Tuesday took to social media to threaten Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

“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!” Trump wrote.

Trump has not mentioned how this would be achieved.

Under the US tax code, most universities are exempt from federal income tax because they are deemed to be “operated exclusively” for public educational purposes.

Trump on Wednesday threatened to bar foreign students from enrolling Harvard.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Trump wanted to see Harvard apologize for what she called “antisemitism that took place on their college campus against Jewish American students.”

Where is it heading?

The battle is heading to court.

Harvard, with an endowment of $53 billion, is America’s wealthiest university.

Harvard’s high-priced lawyers have vowed not to comply with demands that “invade university freedoms.”

“The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” the lawyers have said. “Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.”

Last week, a group of Harvard professors sued to block the Trump administration’s review of nearly $9 billion in federal contracts and grants awarded to the school.

A few of Harvard’s peer institutions lent support on Tuesday to the school’s stand against the Trump administration.

“Princeton stands with Harvard,” Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber wrote on social media, encouraging people to read the Harvard president’s rebuke of the government’s demands.

Stanford University President Jonathan Levin and Provost Jenny Martinez said in a statement they fully backed Harvard.

“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,” the pair wrote.

They added that while universities need to “address legitimate concerns with humility and openness” it’s clear that “the way to bring about constructive change is not by destroying the nation’s capacity for scientific research…”

With inputs from agencies