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After instructing federal agencies to cut off all contracts with Harvard University, the Trump administration is warning the nation’s universities that their federal funding and research grants will only remain safe if the school is compliant with the political goals of the Trump administration.
“Universities should continue to be able to do research as long as they’re abiding by the laws and are in sync with the administration and what the administration is trying to accomplish, but primarily abiding by the laws,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon told CNBC on Wednesday, continuing to claim that Harvard has not been doing enough to combat antisemitism.
McMahon claimed that Harvard had violated Title VI in allowing pro-Palestinian protests on its campus. Under the guise of combating antisemitism amid the ongoing war in Gaza, the Trump administration has attempted to force Harvard — and other prominent American universities — to surrender their academic independence and accept government oversight in respect to their curriculums, staffing decisions, and student body.
Earlier this month, after Harvard refused such an incursion, the Trump administration attempted to revoke the school’s ability to accept and enroll foreign students on educational visas. The school sued, and a judge blocked the attempt.
Harvard, long the symbol of the United States’ elite educational institutions, has become a central target of retribution by the president and his government. The university has already lost hundreds of millions in cuts to research, been subjected to a series of politically motivated investigations, and been threatened with the revocation of their tax exempt status if they refuse to comply with the president’s demands.
On Wednesday, McMahon told CNBC that as a potential next step Trump is looking to tax the endowments of private universities. “I think what the president has suggested is perhaps taxing these endowments at the top corporate tax rate of 21 percent,” she said.
The secretary also added that she believed there are some foreign students who come to the United States with the intent to create unrest. “They’re activists who come in. I think there are professors that are hired and brought in who are teaching ideology more than the subject matter that perhaps parents who are sending their students to these universities expect,” McMahon said.
On Wednesday, the president himself accused Harvard of being “totally antisemitic,” and that “many” of Harvard’s students were foreign radicals who he didn’t want “making trouble in our country.”
“Harvard has got to behave themselves,” Trump told reporters. “Harvard has to understand, the last thing I want to do is hurt them. They are hurting themselves […] but Harvard wants to fight. They want to show how smart they are and they are getting their ass kicked.”
The president might believe he’s winning, but when McMahon asked CNBC for her response to the instances in which judges have blocked the administration’s attempts to exert control over the university, the secretary could only respond with a deflective claim that the judge had been “a liberal.”
