Trump looking to cancel all government funding for Harvard University
The Trump administration is poised to cut all remaining federal contracts with Harvard University, said to be worth an estimated $100m, according to a report by The New York Times on Tuesday.
A letter from the head of procurement for government services, a draft of which was obtained by the paper, recommends that government agencies “terminate” contracts and “transition to a new vendor”. It also suggests that each agency “seek alternative vendors for future services”.
The letter, which is supposed to be sent to federal agencies on Tuesday, asks them to respond by 6 June with a list of contract cancellations.
Contracts that could be impacted include a $49,858 contract with the National Institutes of Health to investigate the impact of drinking coffee and a $25,800 contract for senior executive training at the Department of Homeland Security. The newspaper believes some of the Harvard contracts under review may already have been subject to a “stop work” order.
The letter, signed by federal acquisition services commissioner Josh Gruenbaum, says the government has a duty to ensure that it procures from vendors who “champion principles of nondiscrimination and the national interest”.
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Gruenblaum accuses Harvard of engaging in “race discrimination, including in its admissions process and in other areas of student life”.
Gruenblaum then cited the 2023 Supreme Court decision that banned the use of race as a deciding factor in admissions and claimed that Harvard was in violation.
The letter also accused the university of having a “disturbing lack of concern for the safety and wellbeing of Jewish students”. Evidence it cited included Harvard Divinity School electing a protestor accused of assaulting a Jewish student to be class marshal for commencement, and another protestor also accused of assaulting the same student being awarded a $65,000 fellowship by the Harvard Law Review.
Harvard and the Trump administration have been in a legal war for months now after the university refused to capitulate to the Trump administration's demands. It was hit with a freeze of $2.3bn in federal funding in April, which represents 35.9 percent of Harvard's $6.4bn operating expenses. In response, the university sued the administration.
Then, the US Department of Health and Human Services said that it was terminating $60m in federal grants to the university for failing to address antisemitic harassment and ethnic discrimination on campus.
Last week, after the Department of Homeland Security barred Harvard from enrolling international students, the university filed another lawsuit. On Friday, a judge issued a temporary restraining order, with the next hearing scheduled for Thursday.
Harvard president speaks out
In an interview with NPR on Tuesday, Harvard's president, Alan Garber, said he did not fully understand the administration’s motives for going after the university but he did believe they wanted to reshape elite higher education over issues such as diversity, equity and inclusion.
While the Department of Homeland Security says it has banned international students because Harvard refused to give information about them, Garber insists that Harvard provided information, and the agency lashed out anyway.
Garber believes that the ban and cuts to funding are attempts to gain power over private schools, saying, “It hurts the country. The research funding is not a gift. The research funding is given to universities and other research institutions to carry out work that the federal government designates as high priority. Shutting off that work does not help the country even as it punishes the university.”
He also added that it was hard to see the link between federal funding and antisemitism.
Garber, who is Jewish, accepted criticisms about antisemitism and said some students felt shunned on campus if they didn’t take on what is seen as a “proper view” of Israel. But he said he wanted to “increase” freer debate on campus.
“Everyone in our community needs to hear other views. That’s why it’s so important to us to have international students on our campus. There is so much they contribute to our environment, and they enable everyone to open their mind.”
Eliminating international students would eliminate a quarter of Harvard's student body, which is around 7,000 people from more than 140 countries. If scholars and researchers are included, the international population at Harvard exceeds 10,000.
“What we stand for - I believe - is education and pursuit of the truth. When we fail in that, then we can expect to be attacked,” Garber added.
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