US President Donald Trump on Wednesday called Harvard a “joke” and said it should lose its government research contracts after the university refused to accept outside political supervision.
Trump’s administration also threatened to ban the institute from accepting foreign students unless it bowed to the requirements.
US media reported that officials were considering revoking the university’s tax-exempt status.
Photo: Reuters
“Harvard can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning, and should not be considered on any list of the World’s Great Universities or Colleges,” Trump said on Truth Social. “Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds.”
The administration has asked the university to submit to government supervision on admissions, hiring and political slant.
Other institutions, including Columbia University, have bowed to less far-ranging demands from the Trump administration, which says that the educational elite is too left-wing.
Harvard president Alan Garber said that the university refuses to “negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights.”
Trump this week ordered the freezing of US$2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard, a global research powerhouse.
He also said on Tuesday that Harvard “should lose its Tax Exempt Status” as a nonprofit educational institution if it did not back down.
CNN and the Washington Post on Wednesday reported that the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was now making plans to do so following a request from Trump.
White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields told reporters by e-mail that “any forthcoming actions by the IRS will be conducted independently of the president.”
Meanwhile, the US Department of Homeland Security said that “if Harvard cannot verify it is in full compliance with its reporting requirements, the university will lose the privilege of enrolling foreign students.”
International students made up 27.2 percent of Harvard’s enrollment this academic year, the institution’s Web site said.
The payments frozen to Harvard are for government contracts with its leading research programs, mostly in the medical fields where the school’s laboratories develop new medicines and treatments.
The White House has said that the action against universities was in response to uncontrolled anti-Semitism and a need to reverse diversity programs aimed at encouraging minorities.
In the case of Harvard, the White House is seeking government control over the inner workings of the university.
In a letter sent to Harvard, the administration’s demands included: ending admissions that take into account the student’s race or national origins; preventing admission of foreign students “hostile to the American values and institutions”; and ending staff hiring based on race, religion, sex or national origin.
Others were: reducing the power of students in campus governance; auditing students and staff for “viewpoint diversity”; reforming entire programs for “egregious records of anti-Semitism or other bias”; and cracking down on campus protests.
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