CAMBRIDGE, MASS. (WHDH) - Harvard University has announced they are suing the Trump administration, trying to stop the White House from freezing billions of dollars in federal funds.
The dispute centers around a letter sent earlier this month by a federal task force, accusing Harvard of failing to protect Jewish students from harassment and discrimination.
It claimed the university violated civil rights laws. President Donald Trump doubled down on that last week.
“I think Harvard’s a disgrace,” said Trump. “I think what they did was a disgrace. They’re obviously antiemetic.”
The letter from the task force included demands such as having to scale back diversity initiatives, adopt merit-based hiring and admissions practices, ban masks at campus protests, and fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
The task force warned Harvard would lose federal support if it didn’t comply. Harvard formally rejected those terms last Monday and said they were unconstitutional.
In response, the Trump administration also cut off more than $2B in research funding, also saying the school’s tax-exempt status is in jeopardy.
The school released a statement, writing in part, “…we filed a lawsuit to halt the funding freeze because it is unlawful and beyond the government’s authority…. The consequences of the government’s overreach will be severe and long-lasting. Research that the government has put in jeopardy includes efforts to improve the prospects of children who survive cancer, to understand at the molecular level how cancer spreads throughout the body, to predict the spread of infectious disease outbreaks, and to ease the pain of soldiers wounded on the battlefield.”
In light of the demands from Trump’s administration, protestors gathered at Harvard on Thursday after the Department of Homeland Security demanded “detailed records” on what it calls student visa holders’ “illegal and violent activities.”
On campus, many professors applaud Harvard for taking legal action.
“We would see thousands of layoffs quite possibly, we would see a huge just break put on what has been an engine on innovation and accomplishment,” said Maya Jasanoff, Harvard History Professor. “I just wanna highlight the complete sort of sense of self-destructiveness that this feels like, for those of us who are here, doing the work of scholarship and teaching and research.”
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