Trump administration pulls $2.2B from Harvard over hiring, admissions policies

The Trump administration has frozen more than $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and contracts for Harvard University after the university rejected demands that it change hiring, admissions, and other policies.

Among the administration’s demands are that the university eliminate DEI programs, screen international students who are “supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism,” and ensure “viewpoint diversity” in its hiring.

In a letter to faculty and students, Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, wrote “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.”

In a social media post Tuesday, Trump suggested Harvard should lose its tax-exempt status over the university’s refusal to comply with his administration’s demands.

The Trump administration has been targeting major universities for alleged violations of civil rights laws in an effort to eliminate DEI programs across the country. The administration has cut $400 million in federal money for Columbia University, frozen about $1 billion for Cornell University and about $790 million for Northwestern University.