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President Donald Trump called Harvard “an Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institution” in a diatribe on his Truth Social account Thursday morning — three days after the University sued to block his administration’s $2.2 billion funding freeze.
In the post, Trump urged his sons to force out William A. Burck, one of the lawyers representing the University in their suit against the federal government, who served as outside counsel for the Trump Organization.
Eric Trump — one of Donald Trump’s sons and a leader of the Trump Organization — confirmed in a statement to several media outlets on Thursday that the group would cut ties with Burck.
Burck was just one prominent member of the legal team Harvard has assembled to stack against Trump. The University will also be represented by an array of other lawyers with strong Republican ties — including Robert K. Hur ’95, whom Trump appointed to the United States Department of Justice during his first presidential term.
Burck and Hur sent a scathing letter to three federal agencies last week, saying Harvard could not capitulate to their demands, which included overhauling Harvard’s governance structure, changing hiring practices to enforce ideological diversity, and screening international students for their beliefs.
In Thursday’s post, Trump criticized Harvard’s international students, claiming that Harvard admits students from “all over the World that want to rip our Country apart.” He accused Harvard of admitting “crazed lunatics” who “spew fake ANGER AND HATE.”
Trump also attacked Harvard as “a liberal mess” and “a threat to Democracy” in the Thursday post.
University spokespeople did not respond to a request to comment on Trump’s post. Neither did Burck nor the Trump Organization.
The post is the latest in a series of online attacks against Harvard that the president has posted to Truth Social. In a post on the platform earlier this month, Trump claimed the University has “lost its way.”
In the April 16 post, he attacked Harvard’s hiring practices and took aim at former University President Claudine Gay.
“Harvard has been hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains’ who are only capable of teaching FAILURE to students and so-called ‘future leaders,’” he wrote.
On April 15, Trump threatened Harvard’s tax-exempt status in a post to Truth Social. CNN later reported that the IRS was planning to execute the threat.
–Staff writer Abigail S. Gerstein can be reached at abigail.gerstein@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @abbysgerstein.
—Staff writer Caroline G. Hennigan can be reached at caroline.hennigan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @cghennigan.
