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Donald Trump’s administration has ruled that Harvard University is in “violent violation” of civil rights law and must “immediately” reform or lose all federal funding.
In a letter sent to the Ivy League university on Monday and seen by the Financial Times, the administration said Harvard’s failure to forestall the harassment of Jewish students had breached the Civil Rights Act’s prohibition of discrimination based on race, color and national origin.
The ruling marks a fresh escalation between the elite university and the Trump administration, despite comments by the president himself earlier this month that suggested a settlement could possibly be close.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in a while Monday declined to comment on timing when asked concerning the status of negotiations.
“The administration has found [Harvard] in violation of title six and has threatened to withhold their federal funding because in the event you break the federal law it’s best to not be receiving federal tax dollars.”
Harvard, nevertheless, countered that it had already shared its report on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias on campus, in addition to the way it has since strengthened its policies to forestall and discipline such behaviour.
“Harvard is much from indifferent on this issue and strongly disagrees with the federal government’s findings,” it said in a press release.
The university has launched lawsuits difficult the White House’s moves against it, which include efforts to halt federal funding and forestall the university from enrolling international students.
The letter, which was signed by agencies including the health department, comes because the administration piles pressure on the US’s higher-education institutions, including the University of Virginia, whose president James Ryan resigned last week after coming under attack by the administration.
The administration claimed that Harvard had been “in some cases deliberately indifferent, and in others has been a wilful participant in antisemitic harassment of Jewish students, faculty, and staff”.
It added: “Harvard’s commitment to racial hierarchies — where individuals are sorted and judged in line with their membership in an oppressed group identity and never individual merit — has enabled antisemitism to fester on Harvard’s campus and has led a once great institution to humiliation, offering remedial math and forcing Jewish students to cover their identities and ancestral stories.”
Many academics and civil rights groups, including some Jewish organisations, have criticised the Trump administration’s attacks on US universities as a threat to freedom of speech and academic freedom.
US university leaders recently signed a press release saying they “must oppose undue government intrusion into the lives of those that learn, live, and work on our campuses”.
Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, in April made public reports it had commissioned on antisemitic and anti-Muslim bias, which highlighted concerns and made recommendations for reform.
He said on the time that the university was redoubling its efforts and that “Harvard cannot — and won’t — abide bigotry. We’ll proceed to offer for the protection and security of all members of our community and safeguard their freedom from harassment.”