by WorldTribune Staff, April 24, 2025 Real World News
A week after freezing $2.2 billion in funding to Harvard University, President Donald Trump reportedly plans to pull another billion in funding after the Ivy League institution refused to make changes to curb alleged antisemitism on campus and overhaul its admissions policies.
The Trump Administration also threatened Harvard’s tax-exempt status and ability to enroll international students, which could drain billions of dollars more from the university in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The latest funding freeze came as a result of Harvard releasing a list of demands from the Trump Administration that White House officials had thought would remain private, the Wall Street Journal cited sources as saying.
Trump officials had hoped Harvard would concede similarly to Columbia University, which quickly met the administration’s demands in an effort to recover $400 million in federal funding.
According to the report, Trump officials were open to treating Harvard more leniently than Columbia, but changed course after Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, publicized the list of demands, which includes requirements that Harvard allow federal government oversight of admissions, hiring, and the ideology of students and staff.
Garber addressed the letter from Trump’s new Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, noting the requests made clear that “the intention is not to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner.”
“We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement,” Garber said.
The April 11 letter was perceived to be the final offer from Trump’s team, sources told the Journal. Harvard officials state that the letter wasn’t marked private, but task force members claimed they had made it clear they wanted the discussions to remain out of the public eye.
“Instead of grandstanding, Harvard should focus on rebuilding confidence among all students, particularly Jewish students,” a White House spokesman said. “The White House remains open to dialogue, but serious changes are needed at Harvard.”
Garber, the Harvard president, said in his message that even though some of Trump’s demands addressed antisemitism, most would represent “direct governmental regulation.”
Meanwhile, Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order which aims to use the college accrediting system to combat what the president views as discriminatory practices and “ideological overreach” on college campuses, the White House said.
The order intends to put a greater focus on intellectual diversity among faculty and student success.
It also would make it easier for schools to switch accreditors and for new accreditors to gain federal approval.
Few schools ever lose their accreditation, even ones with low graduation and job-placement rates.
“Revoking accreditation is an existential threat for these universities,” said Andrew Gillen, a research fellow at the Cato Institute. “If you lose Pell grants and lose student loans, for most colleges that means you’re done.”
Trump and other Republicans have long criticized the accreditation process, calling it a cartel that stifles competition and doesn’t help police colleges and universities with poor student outcomes.
Trump has called the executive order signed Wednesday his “secret weapon” in his bid to remake higher education.
“Instead of pushing schools to adopt a divisive DEI ideology, accreditors should be focused on helping schools improve graduation rates and graduates’ performance in the labor market,” said Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
The Wall Street Journal noted: “Accreditors play a role largely unseen to the public but crucial for universities, setting standards that must be met to access federal financial aid. The federal government gave $120.8 billion in loans, grants and work-study funds to more than 9.9 million students in the year ended last September. To earn an accreditor’s seal of approval, higher-education institutions must prove they meet wide-ranging standards covering everything from their mission and admissions policies to the quality of their faculty and programming.”
Trump signed a number of other education-related executive orders Wednesday, including ones looking at artificial intelligence and discipline policies in K-12 schools, one supporting historically black colleges and universities, one on increasing apprenticeships and creating job pipelines, and another reinforcing rules universities must follow when reporting foreign funds.
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American culture war heats up: Neither Harvard nor Trump are backing down added by Editor Two on April 24, 2025
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