Trump’s freeze on $2.2 billion to Harvard provided no proof of wrongdoing

Harvard University stands to lose billions in federal funding, but the government’s actions against one of the world’s top research institutions were applied with vague accusations and no proof of specific legal violations, documents show.

The Trump administration’s decision Monday to freeze $2.2 billion to Harvard after the school announced it would not yield to demands to change admissions, hiring and governance practices did not follow procedures set out in civil rights law, a Post review found.

Trump administration officials have publicly said that Harvard has violated students’ civil rights and mentioned Title VI, which is the federal law that says any school found to violate civil rights is not eligible for federal funding. Harvard, according to the letter the administration sent the school on April 11, was not keeping Jewish and pro-Israel students safe and allowed antisemitism on campus. The letter also said the university had diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs that could not stand.

But the government’s notice did not list or explain the specific violations that occurred at Harvard.

The administration’s action skipped over requirements that say the government must identify and list violations, offer a hearing, notify Congress and then wait 30 days before applying penalties.

The actions against Harvard and several other elite colleges reflect the manner in which the administration is handing out other harsh penalties across the government, such as the growing number of undetailed student visa revocations, as well as how President Donald Trump is applying the Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants.

The Trump administration’s alleged disregard for federal procedure is part of the basis for separate lawsuits filed by the faculty unions at Harvard and Columbia University.

“These procedures exist because Congress recognized that allowing federal agencies to hold funding hostage, or to cancel it cavalierly, would give them dangerously broad power in a system in which institutions depend so heavily upon federal funding,” attorneys for the American Association of University Professors wrote in the Harvard faculty union lawsuit.

Harvard, the White House and the three government agencies with representatives who signed the demand letter to Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday about the punitive measures.

The funding freeze at Harvard was the biggest salvo in the Trump administration’s actions against elite universities that it sees as bastions of “woke” ideology and anti-Israel sentiment. Trump signed an executive order to combat antisemitism in the wake of pro-Palestinian protests that roiled campuses last year and left some Jewish students complaining of antisemitism.

Trump has shown his willingness to punish, without detailed explanation, institutions for their embrace of social policies with which he disagrees. In March, he announced on social media that he was freezing $175 million meant for the University of Pennsylvania because the institution allowed a transgender athlete to compete on a women’s swim team. The athlete graduated in 2022.

Universities use federal funds to, among other things, produce cutting-edge medical research and technological advancements that make the United States a leader in many lucrative fields.

The five-page letter to Harvard did not specify which DEI initiatives the administration wanted eliminated, only that it must shutter all such programs and “demonstrate that it has done so to the satisfaction of the federal government.”

The demands, written by officials at the Education Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the General Services Administration, were relatively vague. The administration wants the school to hire an external auditor to evaluate the “viewpoint diversity” of the university’s students and faculty, make “meaningful governance reform and restructuring,” and allow for “reducing the power held by students and untenured faculty,” the letter said.

The letter also demanded admission changes to “prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism.”

Then, on Monday, the multiagency Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism housed under the Justice Department froze $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million worth of multiyear contracts to Harvard and its affiliates after the school refused to comply.

Trump in recent weeks has shocked powerful universities by freezing billions of dollars — leaving them to find out through social media or simple emails. Some still have no idea why.

A Harvard spokesperson on Tuesday said the university has only received three letters from the antisemitism task force — on March 31, April 3 and April 11 — none of which listed specific violations. A separate letter on March 10 from the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights warned Harvard, and 59 other schools, of potential enforcement actions if they failed to comply with Title VI.

Harvard President Alan Garber wrote Monday in a letter to the campus community that the April 11 demands violate the university’s First Amendment rights and overstep the statutory limits of the government’s authority under federal civil rights law. “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” he wrote.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon shot back, saying the funding freeze was a reflection of taxpayers not wanting their dollars to support campuses she says allow antisemitism on their grounds.

“Let me be clear,” McMahon said Tuesday on Newsmax. “We’re not talking about First Amendment rights at all. I think that on college campuses, there should be open debate, there should be room for disagreement and all of that. What I’m talking about are civil rights violations and safety for these students who are on campus.”

Harvard says it has taken several steps to try to ensure the safety of Jewish and pro-Israel students: Harvard clarified campus policies regarding discrimination to include Jewish and Israeli identities, strengthened discipline for infractions and expanded kosher dining options on campus.

Andrea Baccarelli, dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in March announced he had “appointed a faculty working group to review processes and criteria for appointing and renewing instructors.” He also said he ended the school’s formal collaboration with Birzeit University, located in the West Bank.

But it was not enough.

“Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment,” according to the Trump administration’s April 11 letter. “But we appreciate your expression of commitment to repairing those failures and welcome your collaboration in restoring the University to its promise.”

— — -

• Susan Svrluga contributed.