WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump called Harvard a “joke” on Wednesday and said it should lose its government research contracts after the top US university refused to accept demands to come under outside political supervision. “Harvard can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning, and should not be considered on any list of the World’s Great Universities or Colleges,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds.”

Trump is furious at the storied university — which has produced 162 Nobel prize winners — for rejecting his demand to submit to government supervision on admissions, hiring and political slant. Other institutions, including Columbia University, have bowed to less far-ranging demands from the Trump administration, which claims that the educational elite is too left-wing.

Harvard flatly rejected the pressure, with its president, Alan Garber, saying this week that the university refuses to “negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights.” Trump this week ordered the freezing of $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard, a global research powerhouse. He also threatened to strip the university of its tax-exempt status as a nonprofit educational institution.

His war against the intellectual elite is echoed in similar, unprecedented pressure campaigns against top law firms and big media groups, including the Associated Press.

White House says campaign against varsities is a move to reverse diversity programmes

Demonstrating the broadening resonance of the row, Golden State Warriors basketball coach Steve Kerr spoke out in support of Harvard after his team defeated the Memphis Grizzlies. Kerr, sporting a Harvard T-shirt, called the demands on the university the “dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” “I believe in academic freedom and I think it’s crucial for all of our institutions to be able to handle their own business the way they want to, and they should not be shaken down and told what to teach and what to say by our government,” Kerr said.

Government seeks control

The payments frozen to Harvard are for government contracts with its leading research programmes, mostly in the medical fields where the school’s laboratories are critical players in the development of new medicines and treatments.

Trump and his White House team have publicly justified their campaign against universities as a reaction to what they say is uncontrolled anti-Semitism and a need to reverse diversity programmes aimed at encouraging minorities.

The anti-Semitism allegations are based on controversy over protests against Israel’s conflict in Gaza that swept across US college campuses last year. Columbia University in New York — an epicentre of the protests — stood down last month and agreed to oversight of its Middle Eastern studies department after being threatened with a loss of $400 million in federal funds.

Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2025