President Donald Trump on Monday said that he might consider diverting billions in grant dollars away from Harvard University and giving those funds to trade schools across the United States.
Escalating his clash with the elite institution, Trump said in a social media post, “I am considering taking Three Billion Dollars of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard, and giving it to TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land.”
“What a great investment that would be for the USA, and so badly needed!!!”
The Trump administration has already moved to freeze grant funding and block Harvard’s ability to enrol international students in an intensifying battle over what the president has cast as a failure by the Ivy League university and others to crack down on antisemitism.
The Trump administration has been using that rationale to pressure schools such as Harvard to institute wide policy changes that university officials say infringe on free speech and their academic missions. Harvard has been front and centre in Trump’s campaign, with the administration already suspending more than $2.6 billion in federal research grants.
Trump plans to restrict foreign student enrollment at Harvard
The Trump government has attempted to prohibit Harvard from admitting international students; however, the university secured a temporary court injunction preventing the enforcement of the ban. Meanwhile, administration officials have called for increased scrutiny of international students, requesting detailed information, including the names of those enrolled at Harvard. However, Harvard still has not turned over foreign student lists.
Responding to it, Trump said that the university was “very slow in the presentation of these documents.” The information is needed, Trump said in a second post on Monday, the Memorial Day holiday, to determine “how many radicalised lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country.”
Trump has claimed that nearly 31% of Harvard students are foreign, questioning why the US should effectively contribute to their education when their home countries do not. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also has said the school refuses to turn over documentation about students at the government’s request.
(With inputs from Bloomberg)
