Trump’s response to the Trump administration’s demands: “The fight against the Marxist assault on our country, our universities, and our country”
“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?'” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
Harvard’s president yesterday rejected the administration’s demands, saying they were illegal and an intolerable attempt to dictate “what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
Much of the grant money was for research on a wide range of subjects, and the administration froze it within an hour.
“Harvard really had no choice given the extent of the demands the Trump administration had made upon it,” said Michael Dorf – a law professor at Cornell University.
Ted Mitchell, the president of the American Council on Education, an organization that represents more than 1,600 colleges and universities, said that by taking the lead, Harvard paved the way for other institutions to oppose the administration’s demands.
“If Harvard had not stood up, the ability of other institutions to define for themselves where that red line is would have been greatly hampered,” Mitchell said.
In March, the government announced that 60 universities were under investigation by the U.S. Education Department for allegedly failing to protect Jewish students.
The Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism said yesterday in a statement that the disruption of learning on campuses is unacceptable. If universities wish to continue receiving taxpayer support, they have to take the issue seriously and commit to meaningful change.
“We are going to choke off the money to schools that aid the Marxist assault on our American heritage and on Western civilization itself,” Trump said in a speech in Florida in 2023. “The days of subsidizing communist indoctrination in our colleges will soon be over.”
Former President Barack Obama, in a statement today, praised Harvard’s response and called the administration’s moves an “unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom.”
The White House said its actions were to fight antisemitism at college campuses. Though Trump has vowed to go after colleges and universities he deems as left leaning or too liberal for years. In the last month, the administration has canceled about $11 billion in federal grants at several prestigious universities.
“The catalog of horrors is large, thick and lengthy,” Mitchell said. There are many things the administration could do that would throw institutions off balance. Tax-exempt status is one of them.
Nearly all colleges and universities are tax-exempt organizations. They are given nonprofit status along with charities, religious institutions and some political organizations.
Republicans have long sought to curb the tax exemptions in higher education. Many of the country’s elite institutions were affected by a tax on university endowments that Congress passed last year.
Stop the moves at Harvard: Why the university should decide what it does and what it doesn’t: A lawsuit by a senator in the administration is calling for congressional action
Martin: Two lawsuits have been filed against the administration, trying to stop the moves at Harvard. The lawsuit says immigration enforcement policies that target non-citizens for their pro-Palestine views is in violation of the First Amendment. The other one speaks to these funding freezes.
“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,” he wrote in a public letter that took a stand against government overreach into academic freedom. He said that doing otherwise would threaten the values of any private university.
The professor at Harvard Law supports the university’s decision. He says it’s important for institutions to determine what is taught on their campuses.
“If we change what we think is important because of the orthodoxy in the White House, it will turn Harvard’s pursuit of truth, its motto, to just pursuit of popular opinion,” he said. Politicians and elected officials need to know that the role of academics isn’t important.
The administration sent Harvard a list of demands last Friday saying their requirements must be met or the university would risk losing $9 billion in federal funding.
Harvard receives $9 billion from the government and all but seven of it goes to hospitals and medical research. The mother of the man participated in Harvard studies to slow the progression of her disease.
The hospital’s federal funding was stripped by the president, causing the study to be canceled midway. That’s what the president is suggesting right now.
The university is highlighting its research projects. Is there any project about Alzheimer’s disease or something of that sort?
Why does the Trump Administration Describe Human Rights in a Comparative Study of the United Nations High School Students’ Rights and Demonstration?
When I was a law student, I learned law from the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard. The demand letter last Friday aimed at that particular clinic. I’m not sure why, but I think it’s because the administration doesn’t like its legal positions.
According to Harvard’s reply on Monday, it made changes to programs in order to promote ideological diversity over the last 15 months. I think that is an admission by the Trump administration that it had a point there.
Our job is to gain wisdom and understanding. It needs to involve diverse viewpoints. Conservatives who are willing to participate in these conversations is critical, and it shouldn’t be done at the point of a financial gun.
The man is called Bowie. Oh, we do. The president can’t just keep federal funds until the institution complies with his will, since no law allows that in this country. Laws governing how federal funds are used are important because they are used for research.
The Constitution also just prohibits public officials from abusing their power to punish their political enemies. The president is deporting students for protesting in Gaza. He doesn’t have the power to punish the rest of the university for how it disciplines those students.