President Trump on Monday escalated his attacks on Harvard University, saying he’s considering giving $3 billion the Ivy League institution receives in grant money to trade schools across the U.S.
“I am considering taking Three Billion Dollars of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard, and giving it to TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land. What a great investment that would be for the USA, and so badly needed!!!” Mr. Trump said in a post on Truth Social. Trade schools focus on teaching practical skills for specific trades or professions.
It wasn’t immediately clear how Mr. Trump would shift the money, and if the grants come from the Harvard funding that his administration has already frozen.
Mr. Trump issued the fresh threat after he moved last week to block Harvard from enrolling international students and has taken other steps to freeze billions of dollars in Harvard’s federal funding, as he claims the institution has not done enough to address anti-semitism on campus.
Harvard didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The university filed a lawsuit last month in response to Mr. Trump’s earlier move to strip it of $2.2 billion in federal funding, alleging that his action was unlawful.
Last week, Harvard filed a second lawsuit over the Trump administration’s attempt to bar it from enrolling foreign students. Harvard President Alan Garber had called it a “revocation” that “continues a series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government’s illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty, and our student body.”
A federal judge later temporarily blocked the Trump administration from preventing Harvard from enrolling foreign students. The ruling was criticized by the White House.
“The American people elected President Trump – not random local judges with their own liberal agenda – to run the country,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said last week. “These unelected judges have no right to stop the Trump Administration from exercising their rightful control over immigration policy and national security policy.”
Mr. Trump has also said he wants to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status as he attempts to exert control over the university’s policies, including halting Harvard’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs and changing its hiring practices. The Trump administration also wants to audit the student body and faculty for “viewpoint diversity.”
The White House has also taken aim at other high-profile universities, withdrawing federal funding from Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University, in what is being seen an effort to coerce them into complying with the Trump administration’s agenda.
