Elite US university Harvard risked billions of dollars in federal funding on Monday as it rejected a list of sweeping demands that the Trump administration said are intended to crack down on campus antisemitism.
The call for changes to its governance, hiring practices and admissions procedures expands on a list Harvard received on April 3 which ordered officials to close diversity offices and cooperate with immigration authorities for screenings of international students.
Harvard president Alan Garber vowed in a letter to students and staff to defy the government, insisting that the university would not “negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights”.
Universities across the country were rocked last year by student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, with some resulting in violent clashes involving police and pro-Israel counterprotesters.
“Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard,” Garber wrote.
The Department of Education announced in March that it had opened an investigation into 60 colleges and universities for alleged “antisemitic harassment and discrimination”.