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Harvard University slapped a lawsuit against the Trump administration Monday in a bid to unfreeze over $2.2 billion in grants and other funding imposed against the wealthy Ivy League school for refusing to make reforms to combat antisemitism on campus and address other concerns.
Alan Garber, 69, Harvard’s president, accused President Trump’s team of seeking “unprecedented and improper control” over campus affairs to keep the federal funds flowing.
“These actions have stark real-life consequences for patients, students, faculty, staff, researchers, and the standing of American higher education in the world,” Garber warned in a blistering statement.
“The consequences of the government’s overreach will be severe and long-lasting.”
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s White House task force on antisemitism sent an April 11 email to Harvard University outlining a slew of demands that the prestigious school clamp down on antisemitism and end certain diversity and gender programs in favor of merit.
Those demands included steps such as establishing more merit-based hiring; ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs; reforming “programs with egregious records of antisemitism and other bias;” and stepping up admissions screening of international applicants to “prevent admitting students hostile to the American values,” including those “supportive of terrorism or antisemitism.”
Later, it emerged that a Trump administration official called Harvard University and claimed that the missive was not “authorized,” the New York Times reported.
Harvard University publicly rejected the demands, nonetheless, drawing ire from Trump. The administration quickly announced a freeze on $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contracts in response. Trump, 78, has also publicly mused about yanking the elite school’s tax-exempt status.
There are also rumors that the administration could soon pull another $1 billion in funding for medical research.
To justify the move, the Trump administration has cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits federal funding from going to entities that discriminate. Trump administration officials have highlighted episodes of antisemitism at Harvard in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack against Israel as evidence of Title VI infractions.
“The government has cited the University’s response to antisemitism as a justification for its unlawful action,” Garber acknowledged. “As a Jew and as an American, I know very well that there are valid concerns about rising antisemitism.”
“Harvard takes that work seriously,” he added. “It is our moral imperative. Before taking punitive action, the law requires that the federal government engage with us about the ways we are fighting and will continue to fight antisemitism.”
Garber, who has led Harvard since January of last year, explained that the Ivy League institution will “soon” release findings from its “Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias” as well as from its “Task Force on Combating Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Palestinian Bias.”
Harvard is the wealthiest school in the world with an endowment of $53.2 billion. Trump has been targeting colleges and universities across the country, hoping to extract concessions from them on antisemitism and other issues.
Last month, for example, Columbia University caved to Trump’s demands for reforms in a bid to end the funding freeze.
Harvard’s lawsuit, which was filed in a federal court located in Massachusetts, accused the administration of acting “with little warning and even less explanation” to slash funding in an effort “to gain control of academic decision-making at Harvard.”
The school stressed in its lawsuit that it is “committed to ‘combating antisemitism, one of the most insidious forms of bigotry.’”
“Make no mistake: Harvard rejects antisemitism and discrimination in all of its forms and is actively making structural reforms to eradicate antisemitism on campus,” Harvard’s lawyers claimed in the suit. “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 antisemitism and Title VI compliance.”
Harvard names Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Attorney General Pam Bondi, acting administrator of the General Services Administration Stephen Ehikian and several others in the lawsuit.
The Post contacted the White House for comment.
