Trump freezes $2bn in Harvard funds after it rejects demands happymamay

The Trump administration said it freezes more than $ 2 billion in Harvard’s federal funds, hours after the elite college publicly rejected a list of demands from the White House.

“The Harvard statement today enhances the disturbing Mental mentality that is a settlement in the most famous universities and colleges in our nation,” the Ministry of Education said in a statement.

The White House sent a list of demands at Harvard University last week, which she said was designed to fight anti -Semitism on the campus, including changes in government, employment practices and admission procedures.

Harvard University strongly rejected the demands on Monday and said the White House was trying to “control” its community.

It is the first major American university to challenge pressure from the Trump administration to change its policies.

In a message to the Harvard community on Monday, its president, Alan Garper, said that the White House had sent a “updated and expanded list of demands” on Friday, as well as a warning that the university “must comply” in order to maintain its “financial relationship” with the government.

“We have informed the administration through our legal advisor that we will not accept their proposed agreement,” he wrote. “The university will not give in its independence or abandon its constitutional rights.”

Mr. Garbar added that the university did not “commit to its commitment to combat anti -Semitism, but he said that the government was exaggerated.

“Although some of the demands set by the government aim to combat anti -Semitism, the majority represents the direct government organization of” intellectual conditions “at Harvard University.

Soon after sending his message, the Ministry of Education said it freezes $ 2.2 billion of grants and $ 60 million in Harvard University contracts immediately.

“The disruption of the learning that universities has been afflicted in recent years is unacceptable,” he said.

The statement added, “The harassment of Jewish students is unbearable. It is time for elite universities to take the problem seriously and commit to a meaningful change if they want to continue to receive taxpayers’ support,” the statement added.

The White House said in its own message on Friday that Harvard “has failed in recent years to raise the level of intellectual and civil conditions that justify federal investment.”

The letter included 10 categories of the proposed changes that the White House said is necessary so that Harvard University has to maintain its “financial relationship with the federal government.”

Some changes included: Reducing the energy that students and unbelieving faculty members keep; Inform the students of the federal government who “hostile” to American values, and the employment of an external party accredited by the government for audit programs and departments “that feed most anti -Semitic harassment.”

Since the White House, President Donald Trump has pressured universities to address anti -Semitism and face a diversity.

He has accused the leading universities of failing to protect Jewish students, as well as a left -wing institutional bias.

In March, the administration said it was declining approximately $ 256 million (194 million pounds) in federal contracts and scholarships at Harvard University, and an additional $ 8.7 billion in multi -year grant obligations.

Harvard’s professors filed a lawsuit in response to this, they increased that the government is attacking illegal freedom of expression and academic freedom.

The White House had previously withdrawn $ 400 million from federal funding from Columbia University and accused him of not fighting anti -Semitism and protecting Jewish students on its university campus.

When the amount of $ 400 million has been withdrawn, the Minister of Education, Linda McMahon, said: “Universities must comply with all federal anti -discrimination laws if they will receive federal financing.”

Soon after, Colombia has approved many of the administration’s demandsDraw criticism from some students and faculty members.