Trump’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announces $2bn funding freeze for Harvard
The Trump administration is freezing $2bn in federal grant money to Harvard University, according to a statement issued by the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism.
This comes after university president Alan Garber announced that “the university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” in response to a Friday letter from the Department of Education calling for the dismantlement of pro-Palestine student groups, an overhaul of diversity practices and increased restrictions on protest.
In a social media post following the president’s announcement, the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidary Committee (HUPSC), one of the pro-Palestine groups named in the Department of Education’s letter, denounced the university for “repressing and prosecuting its own students” for 17 months.
The post stated that Garber’s announcement “rightfully rejects Trump’s heightened demands” but “makes no tangible commitments” towards the protection of at-risk international students and organisers. On 3 April, HUPSC was banned from hosting events on Harvard’s campus until July.
Garber’s announcement comes amid an unprecedented crackdown by the university on a number of academic departments. This included the removal of the leadership of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the suspension of the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative at the Divinity School, and the suspension of a research partnership between the School of Public Health and Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank.