Harvard filed a lawsuit against US President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday, escalating the conflict between the famed university and the Republican, who has threatened its funding and sought outside political supervision.
Trump has attempted to drag numerous famous colleges to heel over allegations that they fostered campus anti-Semitism, threatening their budgets, tax-exempt status, and foreign student enrolment, but Harvard has refused to comply.
“This case involves the government’s efforts to use the withholding of federal funding as leverage to gain control of academic decision-making at Harvard,” the Ivy League university said in a lawsuit filed in a Massachusetts federal court that named several other institutions targeted by Trump.
“The government’s actions flout not just the First Amendment but also federal laws and regulations,” said the complaint, which called Trump’s actions “arbitrary and capricious”.
Trump is unhappy with Harvard for rejecting government oversight of its admissions, hiring procedures, and political stance and last week ordered the freezing of $2.2 billion in federal money for the famous college.
The complaint seeks to have the funds frozen and the conditions imposed on federal grants deemed illegal, as well as for the Trump administration to pay Harvard’s costs.
Trump and his White House team have publicly justified their anti-university campaign as a response to what they call unchecked “anti-Semitism” and the necessity to reverse diversity initiatives aimed at healing minorities’ past mistreatment.
The government maintains that the protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that spread across US college campuses last year were anti-Semitic.
Many US institutions, including Harvard, cracked down on protests over the allegations at the time, with the Cambridge-based institution putting 23 students on probation and refusing degrees to 12 others, protest organisers said.
“Harvard can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning, and should not be considered on any list of the World’s Great Universities or Colleges,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform last week.
“Harvard is a joke, teaches hate and stupidity, and should no longer receive federal funds.”
Harvard President Alan Garber has stated that the Trump administration has launched “numerous investigations” into the university’s operations.
Garber has refused to negotiate the university’s independence or constitutional rights.
Other top institutions, such as Columbia University, have bowed to less sweeping demands from the Trump administration, which claims the educational elite is too left-wing.
Harvard has been threatened by the Department of Homeland Security to turn over records on visa-holders’ “illegal and violent activities”.
This academic year, international students accounted for 27.2 per cent of Harvard’s enrolment, according to its website.
“Make no mistake: Harvard rejects anti-Semitism and discrimination in all of their forms and is actively making structural reforms to eradicate anti-Semitism on campus,” said Monday’s lawsuit.
“But rather than engage with Harvard regarding those ongoing efforts, the government announced a sweeping freeze of funding for medical, scientific, technological, and other research that has nothing at all to do with anti-Semitism.”
Trump’s remarks about diversity echo long-standing conservative accusations that US university campuses are overly liberal, silencing right-wing voices and favouring 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, as well as one of the world’s most prestigious educational and research institutions.
