The Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced it is freezing over $2 billion in multi-year grants and contracts to Harvard University in Massachusetts, after the school’s president released a statement saying the school would not comply with the administration’s demands regarding antisemitism.
“Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges – that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws,” the task force said. “The disruption of learning that has plagued campuses in recent years is unacceptable. The harassment of Jewish students is intolerable.
“It is time for elite universities to take the problem seriously and commit to meaningful change if they wish to continue receiving taxpayer support,” the statement continued. “The Joint Task Force to combat anti-Semitism is announcing a freeze on $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60M in multi-year contract value to Harvard University.”
The decision comes after Harvard University President Alan M. Garber said the school would not comply with the Trump administration’s demands, despite the possibility of the Ivy League school losing federal funding.
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In his letter, Garber said the federal government has threatened its partnerships with several universities, including Harvard, over accusations of antisemitism on their campuses.
He also noted that the Trump administration issued an updated and expanded list of demands, saying if the school plans to maintain a financial relationship with the federal government, it must comply.
“It makes clear that the intention is not to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner,” Garber wrote. “We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement.”
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Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who graduated from Harvard in 2006, ripped the Ivy League school’s response, saying in part, “…Harvard University has rightfully earned its place as the epitome of the moral and academic rot in higher education.”
“Fueled by the radical groupthink Far Left faculty, inept University leadership, donations by foreign adversaries, and pro Hamas terrorists, Harvard has fully embraced and tolerated the raging antisemitism threatening the lives and physical safety of Jewish students on campus,” Stefanik said. “It is time to totally cut off U.S. taxpayer funding to this institution that has failed to live up to its founding motto Veritas. Defund Harvard.”
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey praised Harvard’s decision to not fold to the Trump administration.
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Specifically, she thanked Harvard and Garber for their leadership in standing up for education and freedom by standing against, what she called, the administration’s “brazen attempt to bully schools.”
“We all agree that antisemitism has no place in America and that it should be fought in the workplace, classrooms and everywhere,” Healey said. “Complying with the Trump Administration’s dangerous demands would have made us all less safe.”
President Donald Trump has suspended federal funding to every Ivy League, besides Penn and Dartmouth, over investigations into anti-Israel protests that have taken place on their campuses since October 2023. Funding for dozens of other universities has also been impacted by investigations for the same reason.
Earlier this month, a federal antisemitism task force announced a review of Harvard’s federal grants and contracts, worth nearly $9 billion, as the university faces an investigation into campus antisemitism.
The Trump administration has promised to be more aggressive in ending campus antisemitism after saying President Joe Biden did not hold universities accountable for their violent protests.
The administration has also made moves to detain and deport foreign students who participated in or orchestrated anti-Israel protests at American universities.
Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Pritchett and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
