Washington — President Trump said Friday that his administration will be rescinding Harvard University’s tax-exempt status, further escalating the ongoing feud with the Ivy League school.
“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” the president said in a post to Truth Social.
Mr. Trump did not provide further details about the effort to strip Harvard of its designation as a 501(c)(3) organization, but he has floated taking such a step as recently as last month.
Roughly 2 million organizations have received tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service, including charities like churches, environmental groups and universities. The designation means the groups are exempt from paying federal income taxes and the IRS considers donations to 501(c)(3) organizations to be tax-deductible.
Harvard president Alan Garber expressed doubt about the legality of revoking the status.
“If the government goes through with a plan to revoke our tax exempt status, it would…be highly illegal, unless there is some reasoning that we have not been exposed to that would justify this dramatic move,” Garber told the Wall Street Journal. Tax-exempt status, he said, enables universities to carry out their missions of education and research.
“Obviously that would be severely impaired if we were to lose our tax exempt status,” he said.
The tax code prohibits executive branch officials from asking an IRS employee to conduct or terminate an audit or investigation into a specific taxpayer.
“The government has long exempted universities from taxes in order to support their educational mission. The tax exemption means that more of every dollar can go toward scholarships for students, lifesaving and life-enhancing medical research, and technological advancements that drive economic growth. There is no legal basis to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status,” a Harvard spokesperson said in response to Mr. Trump.
The spokesperson continued: “Such an unprecedented action would endanger our ability to carry out our educational mission. It would result in diminished financial aid for students, abandonment of critical medical research programs, and lost opportunities for innovation. The unlawful use of this instrument more broadly would have grave consequences for the future of higher education in America.”
Mr. Trump’s decision is the latest in a series of moves targeting the university. His administration announced last month that it would be freezing $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard after the university rejected a series of demands made by the administration. Among the conditions were for Harvard to discontinue its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, positions and initiatives, change its hiring practices and change its leadership.
After the Trump administration announced it would be freezing the funding to Harvard, the university sued and alleged the move was unlawful. It’s likely a withdrawal of Harvard’s tax-exempt status will prompt further legal action.
The Department of Homeland Security also demanded Harvard turn over information on certain foreign student visa holders or risk losing its certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. There were more than 6,700 international students enrolled at the school as of October, according to data from the university.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused Harvard in a letter to the school of creating a “hostile learning environment for Jewish students due to Harvard’s failure to condemn antisemitism.”
CBS News reported last month that the IRS was considering stripping Harvard of its tax-exempt status, and Mr. Trump told reporters that he believed the school was abusing the designation.
White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said last month that any “forthcoming actions by the IRS will be conducted independently of the president” and said “investigations into any institution’s violations of its tax status were initiated prior to the president’s TRUTH,” a reference to an earlier suggestion by Mr. Trump that Harvard lose its tax-exempt status.
Harvard has an endowment of $52.3 billion, the largest of all U.S. universities. The school provided more than $749 million in financial aid and scholarships in fiscal year 2024, and nearly one-third of funding that backs research at Harvard comes from the school.
