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The administration of the American President Donald Trump has reduced grants from Harvard University in the middle of a persistent feud to anti-Semitism, presidential control and the limits of academic freedom.
On Tuesday, a joint task force under Trump Harvard, the oldest university in the country, accused a “longstanding policy and practice of discrimination based on the breed”.
“Harvard’s campus, once a symbol of academic prestige, has become a breeding area for virtue signaling and discrimination. This is not a leadership; it is cowardice. And it is not an academic freedom; it is institutional,” said the task force in an explanation.
“By prioritizing the appeasement before accounting obligation, the institutional leaders forfeited the school’s claim to taxpayers’ support.”
The Task Force added that further grants of 450 million US dollars were added to the more than $ 2.2 billion in federal funds last week.
The feud between the President and Harvard-a prestigious campus of the Ivy League in Cambridge, Massachusetts-began in March, when Trump wanted to impose new rules and regulations on the top schools, which took place last year.
Trump described such protests as “illegal” and accused participants of anti -Semitism. But student protesters described their actions as a peaceful reaction to Israel’s war in Gaza, which triggered concerns about human rights violations, including genocide.
Columbia University was initially a core of the efforts of the Trump government. In the New York City School, the first major solidarity camp in Palestine had increased on her lawn, which served as a blueprint for similar protests around the world. A number of mass arrests were also seen as a result.
In March one of the protest leaders in Colombia, Mahmoud Khalil, was the first foreign student to be arrested and had his legal immigration status revoked as part of Trump’s campaign to punish the demonstrators. And when Trump threatened to achieve grants and research contracts of $ 400 million, the school agreed to submit a list of claims to restore the financing.
The requirements included the assumption of a formal definition of anti-Semitism, the improvement of campus security and the cessation of one of its academic departments in the Middle East, African and South Asian studies concentrated-under the supervision of an external authority.
Proponents of freedom of speech described Columbia’s concessions as a surrender of Trump, of whom they say he eroded the academic freedom and undermine the points of view with which he does not agree.
On April 11th, his administration published another list of Harvard claims that went on. In the context of his conditions, Harvard would have revised his disciplinary system, eliminated his diversity initiatives and have to agree to an external examination of programs that are considered anti-Semitic.
Harvard also had to agree to “structural and personnel changes” that would promote the “visibility of diversity” – a term that was ambiguous. However, critics argued that it was a means for Trump to impose his values ​​and priorities of the school by designing his attitude and approval practices.
Harvard has been the center of controversy in the past. In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that Harvard’s consideration of the breed in student reports by a process called affirmative action violated the same protective clause of the US constitution.
The letter from Tuesday referred to the fact that the court decision in the argumented argumented that “Harvard University repeatedly did not confront the ubiquitous discrimination based on the breed and the anti -Semitic harassment that plagues his campus”.
A few reports in April created by the Harvard University’s own task forces also showed that there were cases of anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish violence against Israel in Gaza on the campus.
Ultimately, on April 14, the President of Harvard, Alan Garber, rejected the Trump government’s demands and argued that they were proof of the government’s presentation.
“No government – regardless of which party is in power – should determine what private universities can teach who can admit and hire and which study and examination areas they can pursue,” wrote Garber in his answer.
But Trump continued to press the campus, including the threat of revoking his tax -exempt status. Democrats and other critics have warned that it would be illegal for the President to influence the decisions of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in relation to individual taxpayers such as the university.
Under Trump, the Department of Homeland Security also threatened to conclude foreign students at the university if Harvard did not hand over any documents about the propalestine protests.
On Monday Garber, Harvards President, A Answer He defended the commitment of his campus for freedom of speech to Trump’s Minister of Education Linda McMahon and at the same time addressed the ghost of anti -Semitism.
“We share common properties in a number of critical topics, including the importance of the termination of anti -Semitism and other bigotry on campus. As you think that Harvard has to promote an academic environment that promotes the freedom of denk and the expression and that we should take on a variety of points of view,” says his letter.
However, he added that Harvard’s efforts to create a fairer learning environment were “undermined and threatened” by the “handing over” of the Trump government.
“For fear of an unfounded retaliation measure by the federal government, Harvard will not give up his legally protected principles,” said Garber.
“I have to refute her claim that Harvard is a partisan institution. It is neither republican nor democratic. It is neither an arm of another political party nor a movement.