Trump Vs. Harvard

President Donald Trump has frozen the funding for Harvard University in response to their resistance in complying with demands from the Trump Administration. 

            The Trump Administration issued a list of demands for Harvard to comply with on April 4, 2025. These demands included reducing the power of students and temporary teachers while increasing the power for tenured faculty, the termination of preferences for faculty and students based on race, religion, ethnicity, and gender, and plagiarism checks on professors. 

            One of the main reasons for the government's actions is due to Harvard's failure to limit Antisemitism protests on campus, and ultimately protect their own Jewish students. 

            Harvard was asked to reform their schools policies and practices by August of 2025, and when they rejected these requests, the Trump Administration responded by freezing $2.2 billion in funding for the school. 

            This funding is said to be a necessity in the Ivy League’s most important programs like their science and engineering teams led by Dr. Donald Ingber. 

            Ingber and his students have been using devices that mimic the reactions of organs like the lungs, lymph nodes, intestines, and bone marrow to radiation. These experiments also help them test different medications that can limit these reactions. 

            But these experiments, among many others, are all supported by federal funding. Ingber said that he received a stop work order for three different federally funded programs, adding up to almost $20 million dollars. 

            "You're never going to get to Mars … unless you figure out how to protect astronauts against radiation toxicity," Ingber said in an interview with NPR News. "But it also would be there to protect against nuclear reactor disasters… We're at a time where the government wants to build nuclear plants all over the country."

            Ingber and his team work in The Wyss Institute, which though it is a part of Harvard, it is its own separate nonprofit organization.  According to Ingber, all of The Wyss Institute’s costs are for research and technology development only. 

            Many professors and Harvard supporters claim that this decrease in funding is going to hinder America’s educational system, limiting their ability to have widespread programs.

            "Harvard will continue to comply with the law, promote and encourage respect for viewpoint diversity, and combat antisemitism in our community. Harvard will also continue to defend against illegal government overreach aimed at stifling research and innovation that make Americans safer and more secure," a Harvard spokesperson said in a statement.  

            But the United States Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, believes otherwise, writing a letter that stated, “In every way, Harvard has failed to abide by its legal obligations, its ethical and fiduciary duties, its transparency responsibilities, and any semblance of academic rigor,” McMahon said in a letter, adding that it “has made a mockery of this country’s higher education system.”

            Professors like Ingber, in and outside of Harvard who head programs involved in subjects such as mathematics and science find it difficult to understand why programs unrelated to this political disagreement. 

"I honestly don't understand why they targeted us," said Ingber. "This work is totally unrelated to anything that you can imagine related to wokeness or antisemitism."

            Many of the other programs at Harvard that have been temporarily shut down due to the frozen funding are in the University’s science and technology field, including cancer research and American security. 

            Now Trump has stated that Harvard’s tax-exempt status will be revoked, in addition to the previous freezing of the government funding for the school. 

            "The gravy train of federal assistance to institutions like Harvard, which enrich their grossly overpaid bureaucrats with tax dollars from struggling American families is coming to an end," Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement. "Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege."

            The common question being tossed around in press conferences is whether or not it is legal for the government to freeze these funds and revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status because of these said reasons. 

The American Association of Colleges and Universities organized and released a joint statement made up of almost 200 education leaders across the U.S., standing up "against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education." 

            Another argument used by Harvard supporters is the possible violation of the first amendment by the Trump Administration, because the first and main reason for the freezing of the $2.2 billion dollars was the protests taking place on the Harvard campus. 

The U.S. Department of Justice issued a statement officiating the formation of the Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, whose first and main priority was to rid campuses and schools of any anti-semetic harassment. 

            Harvard supporters claim that this action made by the Trump Administration was an impeachment of the first amendment, protecting U.S. citizen’s right to freedom of speech. 

            As of now, Harvard has not been removed from their tax exempt-status, and the decision in court can easily swing either way. 

            The response by Newtown High School students and faculty was mixed, with many uncomfortable with commenting on the record.