Trump administration takes purpose at Harvard’s worldwide college students and tax-exempt standing

The Division of Homeland Safety ordered Harvard late Tuesday to show over “detailed information” of its overseas scholar visa holders’ “unlawful and violent actions” by April 30. Worldwide college students make up 27% of the campus.

The division additionally mentioned it was canceling two grants to the college totaling $2.7 million.

The strikes deepen the crackdown on Harvard, which on Monday turned the primary college to brazenly defy the administration’s calls for associated to activism on campus, antisemitism and variety. The federal authorities has already frozen greater than $2 billion in grants and contracts to the Ivy League establishment.

Trump recommended Tuesday on social media that Harvard ought to lose its tax-exempt standing “if it retains pushing political, ideological, and terrorist impressed/supporting ‘Illness?’”

The maintain on federal cash for analysis at Harvard marked the seventh time the administration has taken such a step at one of many nation’s most elite faculties. The federal government is trying to power compliance with Trump’s political agenda at colleges he accuses of pushing “woke” insurance policies and permitting antisemitism to fester.

In a letter to Harvard on Friday, Trump’s administration referred to as for broad authorities and management reforms on the college, plus modifications to its admissions insurance policies. It additionally demanded that the college audit views of range on campus and cease recognizing some scholar golf equipment.

Harvard President Alan Garber mentioned Monday that the college wouldn’t bend to the federal government’s calls for. Later that day, the White Home introduced the freeze of greater than $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in contracts.

Conservative strategist Christopher Rufo mentioned the federal government ought to reply to Harvard’s defiance by chopping all federal cash and stripping nonprofit standing at Harvard and different Ivies that defy federal orders. Rufo urged the federal government to make use of the identical instruments it used in the course of the Civil Rights Motion to power desegregation.

“Trump must comply with by way of on his risk to defund one of many Ivy League universities,” Rufo mentioned on social media Tuesday. “Lower the funding and watch the college implode.”

Rufo mentioned Harvard has discriminated towards white and Asian American college students, citing occasions corresponding to commencement celebrations particular to sure ethnic teams, together with a 2021 theater efficiency completely “for Black-identifying viewers members.”

For the Trump administration, Harvard presents the primary main hurdle in its try to power change at universities that Republicans say have change into hotbeds of liberalism and antisemitism.

Trump’s marketing campaign began at Columbia College, which initially agreed to a number of calls for from the Trump administration however took a extra emboldened tone after Harvard’s defiance. Columbia’s performing president, Claire Shipman, mentioned in a campus message Monday that among the calls for “aren’t topic to negotiation” and that she learn of Harvard’s rejection with “nice curiosity.”

Trump has focused colleges accused of tolerating antisemitism amid a wave of pro-Palestinian protests on U.S. campuses. Among the authorities’s calls for contact straight on that activism, calling on Harvard to impose more durable self-discipline on protesters and to display worldwide college students for individuals who are “hostile to the American values.”