US President Donald Trump on Thursday slammed Harvard as a “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institution,” as the famed university defends his administration’s funding freeze in court.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has pushed to bring numerous institutions to heel over charges they tolerated anti-Semitism on their campuses, jeopardizing their finances, tax-exempt status and the enrollment of foreign students.
Harvard, however, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Monday, refusing to back down.
The lawsuit claims the actions amount to political meddling intended to undermine the independence of the Ivy League university and demands that a funding freeze and restrictions placed on federal grants be ruled illegal.
Trump said on his Truth Social platform that the institution is a liberal mess and that it has accepted students “from all over the World that want to rip our Country apart.”
His broadside was delivered the day after he signed an executive order that targeted higher education and changed the way federal officials choose which colleges and universities are eligible to receive billions of dollars from student loans and some grants.
Any actions that aim to advance the representation of “racial and ethnic minority individuals” are targeted by the executive order, which Trump describes as “unlawful discrimination.”
Trump and his White House team have publicly justified their campaign against universities as a reaction to what they say is uncontrolled “anti-Semitism” and a need to reverse diversity programs aimed at addressing historical oppression of minorities.
The administration claims protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that swept across US college campuses last year were rife with anti-Semitism.
Many US universities, including Harvard, cracked down on the protests over the allegations at the time, with the Cambridge-based institution placing 23 students on probation and denying degrees to 12 others, according to protest organizers.
Harvard President Alan Garber said that Trump’s administration had launched “numerous investigations” into the university’s operations.
Trump’s claims about diversity tap into long-standing conservative complaints that US university campuses are too liberal, shutting out right-wing voices and favoring minorities.
In the case of Harvard, the White House is seeking unprecedented levels of government control over the inner workings of the country’s oldest and wealthiest university — and one of the most respected educational and research institutions in the world.
Harvard has rejected the government’s supervision demands, prompting the Trump administration to freeze $2.2 billion in funding.
In Wednesday’s executive order, Trump decreed that “American students and taxpayers deserve better, and my Administration will reform our dysfunctional accreditation system so that colleges and universities focus on delivering high-quality academic programs at a reasonable price.”
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