Harvard faces the possibility of losing its tax-exempt status if it doesn’t comply with Donald Trump’s demands over academic authority and student selection. As Trump declares a freeze on $2.2 billion in funding, the president of Harvard responds by promising to preserve the university’s autonomy.
As tensions increased after the prestigious US university rejected significant policy changes imposed by the White House, President Donald Trump has doubled down on Harvard University and threatened its tax-exempt status.
According to Donald Trump, Harvard University “should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity” if it does not comply with his demands that the university alter its operations, including how it chooses its faculty and students.
“Totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST,” Trump wrote in the post on his Truth Social network, is tax-exempt status.
In response to the top university’s refusal to comply with the administration’s efforts to bring campuses under control, Donald Trump had earlier threatened to suspend $2.2 billion in federal grants.
Instead of operating in the public interest, Trump charged Harvard with promoting “political, ideological, and terrorist-inspired” ideas.
Since large-scale student demonstrations against the war in Gaza, many US schools and institutions have been accused of anti-Semitism.
In response, Trump’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism released a statement on Monday announcing the freeze on $60 million in government contracts and the $2.2 billion hold in multi-year funding.
What is Donald Trump Demanding From Harvard?
On Friday, the leaders of the General Services Administration, the US Department of Education, and the Department of Health and Human Services co-signed a letter to Harvard. “Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment,” they wrote in the letter.
promoting academics who share the letter’s expectations for Harvard from the Trump administration and “reducing the power” of academics and administrators who are “more committed to activism than scholarship.”
By August, all forms of affirmative action in student admissions and faculty employment must be discontinued. The letter also called on the university to eliminate employment and admissions criteria “that function as ideological litmus tests” in order to guarantee “viewpoint diversity.”
altering the admissions procedure “to avoid admitting foreign students who are hostile to American values,” such as “students who support terrorism or anti-Semitism.” The term “American values” was not defined in the letter. 6,793 international students attended Harvard for the 2024–2025 academic year, accounting for 27.2% of the university’s overall enrollment, up from less than 20% in 2006–2007.
modifying disciplinary procedures and prohibiting Harvard student organizations or clubs that support “criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harassment” from receiving financing or recognition.
Following several student protests while wearing masks, a complete mask ban was put into effect, with immediate, severe consequences for violations “not less than suspension.” No exceptions to this restriction, such as those for medical reasons, were mentioned in the letter.
completing organizational change and closing all diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) offices and programs.
Harvard Defiant Against Trump
Harvard president Alan Garber promised to oppose the Trump administration in a letter to students and faculty, stating that the university will not “negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights.”
In addition, former President Barack Obama hailed Harvard University as an example for other universities for resisting the Trump administration’s calls to change its rules and stop campus activism.
Obama urged other universities to follow Harvard’s lead in promoting intellectual curiosity and respect for one another, denouncing the administration’s decision to block more than $2.2 billion in government funds as a “ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom.”
