The administration of US President Donald Trump plans to deprive Harvard University of an additional one billion dollars in funding, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources.
This is about the funds allocated for research in the field of health care.
According to the newspaper’s interlocutors, the Trump team is outraged by Harvard’s decision to publish a letter from the White House demanding reforms at the university. The president’s administration had planned to treat Harvard “more leniently,” but officials want to put” even more pressure” on the university after the letter is published.
WSJ sources noted that Harvard reached out to the Trump administration back in late March to try to avoid confrontation. The university had already resorted to actions to quell anti-Semitic protests on campus for months. But the demands made in the 11 April letter were far more serious, and Harvard took it as a last-ditch offer. At the same time, the letter was not marked as confidential, according to the newspaper’s interlocutors.
On 11 April, US authorities sent a letter to Harvard, in which they said they would retain federal funding if the university carried out broad reforms (we are talking about a total amount of almost nine billion dollars). Among the demands made by the university are reforms in governance, including reducing the influence of faculty members who are “more committed to activism than scholarship,” refusing to admit students “hostile to American values and institutions” and reporting green card holders who violate rules of conduct to the police, ending all diversity, equity and inclusion programmes, and the like.
Harvard President Alan Garber said on 14 April that the university would not comply with the government’s demands.