Harvard is the next university in President Donald Trump’s crosshairs. American Association of University Professors sued the administration to prevent $9 billion in federal funding from being cut. At the same time, in a memo, 800 students urged the board to resist.
Programs for diversity, equity, and inclusion top the list of waivers advanced by the Trump Administration, which, in early April, sent a letter to Harvard notifying it that it had finished a review on the university’s funding to “save” $9 billion. Also in the queue would be a series of demands, including, for example, banning the use of face masks during campus protests and “full cooperation” with the Department of Homeland Security to ensure “full compliance.”
“This case involves an unprecedented threat from the Trump administration to withhold nearly nine billion dollars in federal funding to one of our nation’s leading universities unless it accedes to changes that fundamentally compromise the university’s independence and the free speech rights of its faculty and students,” reads the professors’ complaint filed in a Boston federal court.
The government would also reportedly ask for changes in “the curriculum and research programs to shift toward the government’s preferred viewpoint and ideology.” The professors reported that these changes have “already caused severe and irreparable harm by halting academic research and inquiry at Harvard, including areas that have no relation whatsoever to charges of antisemitism or other civil rights violations.”
The Trump Administration for the past few months has been launching a sweeping review of federal funding for U.S. universities to identify where to make cuts and, most importantly, restore order after the pro-Palestinian protests that roiled campuses last year. The first to be hit was Columbia University, which was denied $400 million in funding despite making a number of changes to university policy.
The government is also moving on another front: there would have been more than 800 visas revoked from international students at American universities, according to a document from the nonprofit NAFSA: Association of International Educators dating back to April 10. The reasons are not always clear, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio a few weeks ago announced that there would be deportations if the students violated their status, so if they took part in pro-Palestinian protests.
