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The Trump administration froze another $450 million in federal grants and contracts to Harvard on Tuesday, accusing the University of failing to take action on antisemitism and discrimination against white people on campus.
The cut — which covers grants awarded by eight unspecified federal agencies — comes on top of the $2.2 billion funding cut announced last month and an announcement last week that Harvard would be cut off from future federal grants.
In a press release announcing the latest cut, officials from a multi-agency task force cited a 300-page report from an internal Harvard task force on antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias, which was released two weeks ago and detailed complaints from Jewish and Israeli students of exclusion and hostility on campus.
“Harvard’s campus, once a symbol of academic prestige, has become a breeding ground for virtue signaling and discrimination,” the federal task force wrote. “This is not leadership; it is cowardice.”
The group did not mention — and appeared unconcerned by — findings of discrimination and isolation in a parallel Harvard task force report on anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian bias.
A Harvard spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The cut comes just one day after Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 condemned Secretary of Education Linda McMahon’s decision to pause all future grants to Harvard, writing in a three-page letter that the Trump administration had continually “disregarded Harvard’s compliance with the law.”
The task force pointed to the long-awaited final reports of the presidential task force on antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias — which included a flurry of accounts of Harvard affiliates encountering antisemitism on campus — as an example of the “appalling” treatment of Jewish students on campus.
“Jewish students were subjected to pervasive insults, physical assault, and intimidation, with no meaningful response from Harvard’s leadership,” they wrote.
The task force also singled out the Harvard Law Review, an independent student organization which is currently under a Title VI investigation for discriminating based on race and gender in article selection and journal membership. The force condemned the Law Review’s decision to award a $65,000 fellowship to Ibrahim Bharmal, who was ordered to complete 80 hours of community service following a drawn-out court process over a confrontation at a 2023 pro-Palestine demonstration at the Harvard Business School.
Unlike the first funding cut, which focused squarely on Harvard’s response to antisemitism, the Tuesday announcement also expanded its focus to race.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.
—Staff writer Grace E. Yoon can be reached at grace.yoon@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @graceunkyoon.
