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The Trump administration plans to pull another $1 billion in federal grants and contracts for health research from Harvard University amid an escalating, high-stakes battle between the government and the university over institutional oversight and independence, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Last Monday, the Trump administration announced it would freeze $2.2 billion in multiyear grants and $60 million in multiyear contract value after Harvard said it would not follow policy demands from the administration.
People familiar with the matter said officials were surprised when the university made public a letter from the Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, the Journal reported Sunday.
CNN has reached out to Harvard and the White House for comment.
“Before Monday, the administration was planning to treat Harvard more leniently than Columbia University, but now officials want to apply even more pressure to the nation’s most prominent university, according to the people,” the Journal reports. “People familiar with Harvard’s response say there was no agreement to keep the letter private, and that its contents – including requirements that Harvard allow federal-government oversight of admissions, hiring and the ideology of students and staff – were a nonstarter.”
Last month, apparently conceding to administration demands, Columbia University made policy changes in a dispute over federal funding, including restrictions on demonstrations, new disciplinary procedures and immediately reviewing its Middle East curriculum, on the heels President Donald Trump’s revocation of $400 million in federal funding over campus protests.
The Journal reported Sunday that according to people close to the matter, the task force thought Harvard would also concede to its demands.
The threat to pull additional funding is the latest in an escalating battle between the university and the government.
Harvard, which has emerged as a symbol of Trump defiance, strongly rejected the demands in a April 11 letter, with President Alan M. Garber saying in a statement that the “University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”
Among the demands in the letter were the banning of masks at campus protests, reforming merit-based hiring and admissions, and reducing the power held by faculty and administrators “more committed to activism than scholarship.”
The university president has said the demands go beyond the power of the federal government, and the majority “represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard” rather than combating antisemitism.
In an article published in the Times of Israel on Friday, Anti-Defamation League CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt also expressed concern the Trump administration may be overreaching in the Harvard case, looking to punish the university outside of the antisemitism debate.
“The issue of combating antisemitism on campus should be addressed on its own process and merits. Other debates on higher education may be important, but they can and should be resolved separate from fighting antisemitism on campus,” Greenblatt wrote.
Wednesday, CNN reported the Internal Revenue Service is making plans to rescind the tax-exempt status of the university, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The administration that same day also threatened Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students.
The New York Times reported Friday the letter sent to the university April 11 was sent in error. The letter should not have been sent and was “unauthorized,” the Times reported, citing two unnamed people familiar with the matter.
A White House official did not comment to CNN on whether the letter was sent in error but confirmed its authenticity Saturday, telling CNN the White House “stands by the letter.”
Meanwhile, Harvard told CNN it didn’t question the letter’s authenticity and noted the Trump administration has already frozen billions in federal funding to the prestigious university, among other actions.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a graduate of Harvard, spoke to CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday about Trump’s pressure campaigns against her alma mater and other universities.
Trump’s push to revoke Harvard University’s not-for-profit status is “outrageous,” she said. “It’s part of this continued playbook that Donald Trump has been using, which is to silence critics.”
“First he went after the law firms, then he went after companies, then he went after everyday Americans. Now he’s going after colleges and universities, using any and all tactics to try to shut them down, to silence them,” Healey said.
CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, Betsy Klein, Liz Enochs and Brad Lendon contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with additional information.