Trump administration to halt new research grants for Harvard as battle over political ideology and academic freedom flares

By Betsy Klein, Michelle Krupa and Andy Rose, CNN

(CNN) — The Trump administration has unveiled new steps to target federal funding to Harvard University, cutting off all new federal research grants unless the elite school enacts political policy changes amid a broader national clash over academic freedom, federal funding and campus oversight.

Harvard is not eligible for grants from the federal government due to its “consistent violations of its own legal duties,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a letter Monday evening to university President Alan Garber. The White House already last month halted $2.2 billion in federal research grants and contracts to Harvard, which has sued for the money’s release.

Monday’s letter cites ongoing issues between the Ivy League university and the administration, such as affirmative action and protesting on campus, and it criticizes the temporary removal of required standardized testing, like the SAT or ACT, which was reinstated in April 2024; many US colleges dropped testing requirements during the pandemic, and some, including public schools, have maintained the policy.

“In every way, Harvard has failed to abide by its legal obligations, its ethical and fiduciary duties, its transparency responsibilities, and any semblance of academic rigor,” McMahon’s letter says, adding the university “has made a mockery of this country’s higher education system.”

Harvard quickly denounced the White House’s latest strike. The demands “would impose unprecedented and improper control” on the university and “would have chilling implications for higher education,” a Harvard spokesperson said in a statement.

“Harvard will continue to comply with the law, promote and encourage respect for viewpoint diversity, and combat antisemitism in our community,” the statement said. “Harvard will also continue to defend against illegal government overreach aimed at stifling research and innovation that make Americans safer and more secure.”

The Trump administration’s letter said if Harvard doesn’t work to remedy the issues it listed, any public funding related to the university will stop.

“Harvard will cease to be a publicly funded institution, and can instead operate as a privately-funded institution, drawing on its colossal endowment, and raising money from its large base of wealthy alumni,” the letter continues. “You have an approximately $53 Billion head start, much of which was made possible by the fact that you are living within the walls of, and benefiting from, the prosperity secured by the United States of America and its free-market system you teach your students to despise.”

The move will specifically target research grant funding and will not impact federal Pell Grants or student loan funding at this time, a senior administration official said, and is estimated to impact “over $1 billion a year.”

The Trump administration also has promised to revoke the Boston-area university’s tax-exempt status and threatened its ability to host international students if it doesn’t submit to a long list of demands, including eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs, banning masks at campus protests, enacting merit-based hiring and admissions changes, and turning over foreign students’ discipline records.

Math classes and tuition are new fed targets

The Trump administration is willing to negotiate with Harvard to restore the funding, the senior official said, once it “(enters) into a negotiation with the government to satisfy the government that it’s in compliance with all federal laws.”

Pressed by CNN on what specific benchmarks the administration is looking for Harvard to hit, the official indicated there could be a way to fast-track a resolution as the university remains under various federal government investigations. “Those investigations would need to lead to resolution agreements that bring Harvard back into compliance with federal law. They could also open up a broader negotiation if they were interested in accelerating that,” the official said.

“I hope that we can come to the resolution because Harvard has been one fine institution, well-respected around the world,” McMahon told CNBC in a Tuesday interview that aired Wednesday. “But … when you see things like they have to offer remedial math for beginning algebra – what are their acceptance standards? Have they lowered them? Are they not the institution that they once were? And yet, (the) costs to go to Harvard are very, very high.”

Math course offerings and tuition rates had not been discussed in the broader Harvard-Trump administration dispute until McMahon raised them in the same part of her Monday letter in which she asserted the university “has invited foreign students, who engage in violent behavior and show contempt to the United States of America, to its campus” as it has lost “any semblance of academic rigor.”

While she did not offer examples, the White House has ordered some international student visa holders to be effectively designated as criminals without checking if the information was true. The Trump administration backed down after hundreds had their visas revoked.

Harvard in fall 2024 began offering an expanded, five-day course called Math MA5 intended to support students’ algebra and learning skills amid far-reaching learning gaps linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, Harvard’s Director of Introductory Math Brendan A. Kelly told the student-run Harvard Crimson last year.

Finance CEO Ackman: Pritzker should leave

McMahon’s account posted the letter Monday to X after hedge fund CEO Bill Ackman, a Trump supporter and Harvard alumnus, said the school should have actively negotiated with the White House over the terms of continued federal funding rather than rejecting them outright, then suing. Penny Pritzker, leader of the Harvard Corporation that controls the university’s operations, should step down, Ackman also said on CNBC.

“If this were any other kind of corporation, the notion that she’s still chairman of Harvard, leading the charge here, in terms of how Harvard managed everything from Covid … to endowment management to waste to free speech to who they hired as president of the university, it’s time for a change in leadership of the board,” Ackman said Monday.

In response, Harvard leadership said it is standing by Pritzker. “We applaud her dedicated stewardship and her leadership at a time when Harvard is committed both to strengthening our campus culture and protecting the academic freedom, research and innovation that benefits millions of Americans,” Garber and the Harvard Corporation said to the Wall Street Journal in a statement. When asked for comment, a spokesperson for Pritzker referred CNN to the statement in the Journal.

Pritzker last month said there was too wide a gulf between the latest Trump administration demands and Harvard to make a deal.

“The demands placed on the university were just really so unprecedented and so beyond what anyone could have expected. And I think in general, the reaction has been quite, quite positive,” Pritzker said April 24 at Semafor’s 2025 World Economy Summit. “But I think in general, across the country, people don’t want our federal government running our universities and our colleges.”

Pritzker, who served as Commerce secretary in the Obama administration, has been in the leadership of Harvard Corporation since 2018 and was elected its senior fellow in 2022, the first woman to hold that position. Part of the family that controls the Hyatt Hotels Corporation, she has a net worth of $4 billion, according to Forbes, slightly more than her brother JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois.

Ackman has been highly critical of his alma mater for what he said was an outbreak of antisemitism on campus in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, which retaliated with an ongoing, punishing siege of Gaza. Harvard said it responded to the campus fallout by making discipline of students who violate rules over protest and dissent more consistent, and it released last week a task force report calling for more acceptance of differing viewpoints on campus and stronger faculty control of academic programs to avoid political bias.

Ackman, along with Meta’s billionaire CEO Mark Zuckerberg, lobbied last year for a new slate of candidates to Harvard’s Board of Overseers, an advisory group the university says “exerts broad influence over the University’s strategic directions.” All four people on Ackman’s slate failed to get enough signatures to make it onto the ballot.

Other US universities face cuts and pressure

The nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, Harvard, has sued for the release of federal research funding. Harvard “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” its president has said. “Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.”

Other US institutions of higher learning also are facing intense pressure from the White House. Columbia, Princeton, Cornell and Northwestern universities all have had funds suspended, and the Department of Education has advised 60 colleges and universities they are under investigation for “antisemitic harassment and discrimination.”

Columbia is cutting nearly 180 jobs tied to its impacted federal grants, or about 20% of all those roles, it said Tuesday in a statement.

“(W)e will be running lighter footprints of research infrastructure in some areas and, in others, maintaining a level of research continuity as we pursue alternate funding sources,” the Ivy League school said. “In some cases, schools and departments are winding down activity but remain prepared to reestablish capabilities if support is restored.”

Columbia’s announcement came after news that the Trump administration proposed a consent decree that would install federal oversight and give a judge responsibility for enforcing changes to the university’s practices, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

A Columbia spokesperson disputed the Wall Street Journal report and pointed to a statement from its acting university president in mid-April.

“Where the government – or any stakeholder – has legitimate interest in critical issues for our healthy functioning, we will listen and respond,” said the statement by the New York school. “But we would reject heavy-handed orchestration from the government that could potentially damage our institution and undermine useful reforms that serve the best interests of our students and community. We would reject any agreement in which the government dictates what we teach, research, or who we hire.”

CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.