Trump freezes $2.2 billion in funding to Harvard

Elite US university Harvard was hit with a USD 2.2 billion freeze in federal funding Monday after rejecting a list of sweeping demands that the White House said was intended to crack down on campus anti-Semitism.

The university had made public a letter to students and staff defying a call for changes to its governance, hiring practices and admissions policy from the administration of President Donald Trump.

"Harvard's statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation's most prestigious universities and colleges –- that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws," Trump's Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism said in a statement.

Some of the demands by the Trump administration included banning face masks, stopping the funding of “any student group of club that endorses or promotes criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harassment”, halting DEI programs, and to reform “programs with egregious records of antisemitism or other bias.”

The demands violate the university’s First Amendment rights, said Harvard President Alan Garber.

“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Garber wrote in a letter.