Harvard Sues Federal Government After Barrage of Threats

The Trump administration plans to slash another $1 billion in federal grants and contracts for health research to Harvard, on top of an existing $2.2 billion cut, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The new cut comes after Garber decided to publicly reject the revised — and more aggressive — set of demands that the White House issued to Harvard last Friday as part of his message to Harvard affiliates on Monday. Garber’s rejection sparked the federal government’s first funding freeze.

The National Institutes of Health has been instructed not to make grant payments to Harvard and other universities whose funds have been frozen, according to an internal email reported by several news outlets.

The email directs NIH employees not to communicate with universities about whether or why their funds have been frozen. The list of affected schools includes Columbia, Cornell, Brown, and Northwestern.

Updated April 19, 2025, at 9:05 a.m.

The White House had not intended to send its revised — and more aggressive — set of demands to Harvard on April 11, according to a report by the New York Times published Friday evening.

The Department of Education asked Harvard to turn over records on donations from foreign sources on Friday, alleging that the University inaccurately disclosed foreign gifts.

In a nine-page letter addressed to Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76, the Education Department alleged that Harvard’s disclosures of foreign funding were “incomplete and inaccurate.”

Harvard is receiving an average of 88 online donations an hour as alumni rally behind University President Alan M. Garber ’76’s resounding rebuke of the White House’s demands on Monday.

Between Garber’s email and 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Harvard received nearly 4,000 online gifts totalling $1.14 million, according to a giving update produced by Harvard Alumni Affairs and Development and obtained by the Crimson.

After Harvard publicly rejected the Trump administration’s demands, a wave of support — and money — has come rushing in.

In the 24 hours after Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 announced that he would not comply with the White House, the University received more than 3,800 online donations totaling more than $1 million, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The Harvard School of Public Health is laying off employees, shrinking its campus footprint, and making targeted cuts to departmental budgets in response to the Trump administration’s escalating attacks on Harvard — including pulling more than $2 billion in federal funding and threatening the University’s eligibility to enroll international students.

The budget-tightening at HSPH, the Harvard school most reliant on federal funds, comes after the school received three stop-work orders worth more than $60 million in the last two days and as its neighbor, Harvard Medical School, warned employees of impending layoffs on Wednesday.

Former United States President Joe Biden celebrated Harvard’s decision to defy demands from the Trump administration at a private Institute of Politics seminar with senior advisor Mike Donilon on Wednesday afternoon.

The discussion with the Democratic Party’s de facto leader, planned weeks in advance of the University’s funding showdown, comes as Harvard’s confrontation with President Donald Trump escalates. After rebuffing Trump’s demands, Harvard is now facing possible revocation of its tax-exempt status on top of a $2.2 billion funding freeze — with layoffs expected and stop-work orders rolling in.

Harvard’s endowment is not a $53.2 billion pile of cash. But as the University sits on the precipice of historic financial losses, it has increasingly faced calls to draw from endowment funds to make up the difference.

Even as Harvard’s annual financial report emphasizes that the endowment is a long-term investment, not a slush fund, it leaves room for flexibility during crises.

The Phillip Brooks House Association, Harvard’s largest organization dedicated to public service, called for donations to a newly-established an emergency fund in anticipation of shortfalls two days after Trump froze $2.2 billion in funding to the University.

The PBHA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization made up of more than 80 student-led programs. Programs include after-school care, which serves more than 1,000 low-income youth in the Greater Boston area, overnight shelter Y2Y Harvard Square, and many more.

Updated April 17, 2025, at 3:52 p.m.

The Department of Homeland Security sent Harvard a letter on Wednesday threatening to revoke its eligibility to enroll international students unless it submits information on international students’ disciplinary records and protest participation.

The Internal Revenue Service is preparing to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status after the University rejected federal demands on Monday, CNN reported Wednesday afternoon.

The plans have yet to be finalized, according to CNN, but they come just one day after United States President Donald Trump threatened to pull Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

Harvard Medical School leadership told employees at a town hall Wednesday morning that the school was preparing to make staffing reductions and cut programs as a result of the Trump administration’s actions against Harvard — including a $2.2 billion freeze.

“I know this news is sobering. I know that many of you have been expecting this news, and so to actually be clear and transparent about it, it’s difficult for all of us,” said HMS Executive Dean for Administration Lisa M. Muto, according to a recording of the town hall obtained by The Crimson.

United States President Donald Trump argued that Harvard “can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning” in a scathing post on Truth Social just two days after his administration cut off $2.2 billion in federal grants and contracts to the University.

Trump’s Wednesday post marked his fiercest broadside yet against Harvard — and is a sign that the cut in funding may only be the preview of an impending crusade against the University.

Harvard University warned investors that mounting legal challenges with the White House over its $2.2 billion federal funding freeze could materially harm the institution’s financial standing, reputation, and operations, according to a disclosure filed on Tuesday in connection with a successful bond sale.

“Further developments in these and other matters are likely, which may include but are not limited to legal actions such as audits, investigations, lawsuits, charges, or other proceedings,” the disclosure reads, in reference to the Trump administration’s Monday freeze and review of nearly $9 billion in federal funding.

In the days leading up to Harvard’s dramatic refusal of the Trump administration’s demands, more than 140 Harvard Graduate School of Education students, faculty, and staff signed onto a letter urging Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 and HGSE Dean Nonie K. Lesaux not to capitulate to the government.

The letter mirrored similar efforts at the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard School of Public Health, each of which laid out point-by-point requests that ran directly counter to the federal government’s nine initial demands.

Harvard’s decision to defy the Trump administration’s orders on Monday was quickly echoed by statements from peer schools, setting up the possibility that it will be the opening shot in a reinvigorated clash between elite universities and the White House.

On Tuesday, Columbia University — which had conceded to demands from the White House last month when hit with a $400 million funding cut — argued that just like Harvard, Columbia would not allow the Trump administration “to require us to relinquish our independence and autonomy.”

Hospitals affiliated with Harvard will not be affected by the Trump administration’s $2.2 billion pause in federal grants and contracts, according to a Department of Education spokesperson.

When the White House announced a $9 billion review of federal funding two weeks ago, it threatened to slash funding from Harvard’s hospital affiliates — but Education Department spokesperson Madison Biedermann confirmed Monday's cut was limited to the University itself.

Harvard-affiliated researchers have begun receiving stop-work orders on contracts worth tens of millions of dollars less than one day after the Trump administration announced a $2.2 billion pause of federally-funded research Monday evening.

David R. Walt, a professor at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Womens’ Hospital — who has been displayed as the face of the University’s research accomplishments on its public homepage, harvard.edu, since Monday — received an immediate stop work order from a Health and Human Services grant supporting ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease.

United States President Donald Trump threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status less than one day after Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 rebuffed the White House’s demands, marking yet another escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign against the University.

“Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting “Sickness?,” he wrote in a Tuesday post on Truth Social.

Former United States President Barack Obama took to social media to praise Harvard’s decision to rebuff the Trump administration’s demands.

“Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions – rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect,” Obama wrote in a Monday night post on X.

Harvard students breathed “a sigh of relief” Monday afternoon after University President Alan M. Garber ’76 announced Harvard would not comply with a lengthy list of White House demands — a move students said left them “pleasantly surprised.”

The Crimson spoke with more than two dozen undergraduates who applauded Harvard’s leadership for standing their ground against a “blatant attack on academic freedom.”

David R. Walt, a professor at Harvard Medical School and Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, lost hundreds of thousands in research funding from the Trump administration last week — just two months after receiving the nation’s highest honor for technological achievement.

By Monday afternoon, Walt and his lab at the Wyss Institute were front and center on Harvard’s home page as the face of the University’s campaign to present itself as a defender of science against funding threats from the White House.

Updated April 15, 2025, at 3:51 a.m.

Mass General Brigham CEO Anne Klibanski responded to funding threats against its hospitals in an email to employees on Monday night, writing that the impact of the federal funding freeze on MGB and Harvard Medical School’s other teaching hospitals “remains unknown.”

Updated April 14, 2025, at 8:35 p.m.

The Trump administration paused $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contracts to Harvard over its decision earlier today to reject the White House’s demands — a dramatic escalation in its crusade against the University.

Massachusetts Governor Maura T. Healey ’92 praised Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76’s refusal to comply with the Trump administration’s demands on Monday.

“I join others around the country in extending congratulations and gratitude to Harvard University, President Garber and the Corporation for their leadership in standing up for education and freedom by standing against the Trump Administration's brazen attempt to bully schools and weaponize the U.S. Department of Justice under the false pretext of civil rights,” Healey wrote in a statement to The Crimson.

The American Association of University Professors’ national office — and Harvard’s chapter — cheered Harvard’s decision to refuse the Trump administration’s demands after University President Alan M. Garber ’76 announced the move Monday afternoon.

The AAUP’s national president, Rutgers University professor Todd Wolfson, praised the decision in a brief post on X.

Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) — one of Harvard’s fiercest critics since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel — blasted Harvard for rebuffing the Trump administration’s demands.

“Harvard University has rightfully earned its place as the epitome of the moral and academic rot in higher education,” she wrote in a scathing post on X.

Some of Harvard’s most prominent faculty applauded University President Alan M. Garber ’76 for his refusal on Monday to comply with the Trump administration’s demands to keep its federal funding.

“A powerful and entirely justified statement by @Harvard president Alan Garber in response to massive overreach by the federal government,” former Harvard Medical School dean Jeffrey S. Flier wrote in a post to X on Monday afternoon.

Harvard will not comply with the Trump administration’s demands to dismantle its diversity programming, limit student protests, and submit to far-reaching federal audits in exchange for its federal funding, University President Alan M. Garber ’76 announced in a message to affiliates Monday afternoon.

“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” he wrote.