Donald Trump now threatens to tax Harvard as ’Political Entity’ after $2.2 billion funding freeze

President Donald Trump has doubled down on Harvard University, threatening its tax-exempt status, as tensions escalated after the elite US university refused to accept far-reaching policy changes ordered by the White House.

Donald Trump said Harvard University "should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity" if it does not submit to his demands for the college to change the way it runs itself, including selection of students and authority for professors.

Tax-exempt status is "totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST," Trump added in the post on his Truth Social network.

Earlier, Donald Trump had moved to freeze $2.2 billion of federal funds in retaliation for the top university's defiance of the administration's push to bring campuses to heel.

Trump accused Harvard of pushing “political, ideological, and terrorist-inspired” notions rather than acting in the public interest.

Charges of anti-Semitism have been levelled against numerous US universities and colleges since widespread campus protests were held against the war in Gaza.

Trump's Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism responded Monday with a statement announcing the $2.2 billion hold in multi-year grants, plus a freeze on $60 million in government contracts.

What is Donald Trump Demanding From Harvard?

The heads of the US Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and the General Services Administration co-signed a letter to Harvard on Friday. In this letter, they claimed that “Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment”.

This was followed by a list of demands for the university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to fulfil.

Key among them were:

• Promoting faculty committed to the Trump administration’s demands of Harvard, as articulated in the letter, and “reducing the power” of faculty and administrators “more committed to activism than scholarship”.
• Ending all affirmative action in faculty hiring and student admissions by August. At the same time, the letter demanded that the university ensure “viewpoint diversity” by abolishing criteria during admissions and hiring processes “that function as ideological litmus tests”.
• Changing the admissions process “to prevent admitting international students hostile to the American values”, including “students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism”. The letter did not define what it meant by “American values”. For the 2024-2025 academic year, there were 6,793 international students at Harvard, making up 27.2 percent of its total enrolment – up from less than 20 percent in 2006-2007.
• Changing disciplinary policies and forbidding the recognition and funding of student groups or clubs in Harvard that promote “criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harassment”.
• Implementing a comprehensive mask ban with immediate, serious penalties for violation “not less than suspension” after some students have protested while wearing masks. The letter did not list any exceptions to this rule, such as health reasons.
• Closing all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programmes and offices and carrying out organisational reform.

Harvard Defiant Against Trump

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

Former President Barack Obama also praised Harvard University for standing firm against the Trump administration’s demands to curb campus activism and alter its policies, calling the university a model for other institutions.

Obama condemned the administration’s move to freeze over $2.2 billion in federal funding as a “ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom” and urged other universities to follow Harvard’s example in defending intellectual inquiry and mutual respect.