Harvard defies Trump demands for antisemitism policy changes, risking funding

By AFP and ToI Staff 14 April 2025, 10:56 pm

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Illustrative: Students protesting against the war in Gaza, and passersby walking through Harvard Yard, are seen next to the statue of John Harvard, the first major benefactor of Harvard College, draped in the Palestinian flag, at an encampment at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Elite US university Harvard is risking billions of dollars in federal funding as it rejects a list of sweeping demands that the Trump administration said are intended to crack down on campus antisemitism.

The call for changes to its governance, hiring practices, and admissions procedures expands on a list Harvard received on April 3, which ordered officials to shut diversity offices and cooperate with immigration authorities for screenings of international students.

Harvard president Alan Garber vows in a letter to students and faculty to defy the government, insisting that the school will not “negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights.”

Campuses across the country were rocked last year by student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, with some resulting in violent clashes involving police and pro-Israel counter-protesters.

Trump and other Republicans have broadly accused the activists of supporting Hamas.

“Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard,” Garber, who is Jewish, writes in the letter.

Garber’s letter comes after the administration placed $9 billion in federal funding to Harvard and its affiliates under review.