Harvard Defies Trump as Billions in Federal Funds Hang in the Balance

Harvard University is playing with fire and President Donald Trump just might burn down their taxpayer-funded gravy train.

On Monday, Harvard defiantly rejected a series of demands from the Trump administration that included dismantling its radical diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and cracking down on anti-Israel extremism festering on campus. In response, the White House is now weighing whether to revoke up to $9 billion in federal funding currently funneled to the university.

Trump’s message was clear: if Harvard wants to keep federal dollars, it needs to act like a serious academic institution, not a taxpayer-subsidized activist training camp.

The administration’s demands were straightforward:

• Eliminate or overhaul DEI programs that have encouraged ideological conformity and racial discrimination.

• Ban masks at protests to ensure accountability.

• Expel students involved in violent or disruptive anti-Israel demonstrations.

• Abolish anti-Israel groups that have glorified terrorism and created hostile environments for Jewish students.

Harvard’s President Alan M. Garber responded by whining about “intellectual conditions” and academic freedom, claiming that no government should “dictate” what private universities can teach or whom they can hire. What Garber conveniently ignores is that Harvard has no problem taking $9 billion from that same government all while pushing radical ideologies that would be unrecognizable to America’s founders.

And let’s be honest: this isn’t just about academic freedom. This is about Harvard using public money to shelter antisemitism, glorify terrorism, and push a racialized, Marxist worldview.

Consider the facts:

• After the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack, anti-Israel protests erupted across Harvard’s campus.

• In 2023, former President Claudine Gay infamously refused to say whether calling for genocide against Jews violated university policy.

• Just last year, Harvard settled two lawsuits for mishandling antisemitic incidents.

• And in May 2024, the university finally took minimal action punishing some protestors by denying them graduation privileges.

Now, they want to posture as defenders of liberty and education?

The Trump administration is having none of it. Last month, Trump revoked $400 million in funding from Columbia University, forcing their leadership to fall in line. And Harvard could be next. Funding has already been frozen for other elite institutions, including Cornell, UPenn, Brown, and Princeton.

The contrast is sharp:

• Columbia is complying and reforming.

• Harvard is doubling down and daring the federal government to act.

Trump’s bold approach is winning. Americans are fed up with elite universities hijacked by radical ideologies all while middle-class taxpayers foot the bill. These institutions have been protected for far too long by the Democratic Party, which treats them as cultural battering rams rather than centers of learning.

President Trump is drawing a line: if universities want public money, they must uphold public values not fund the destruction of the country that made their privilege possible.

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