The Trump administration asked federal agencies Tuesday to cancel contracts with Harvard University worth about $100 million, intensifying the president’s clash with the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university.
The government already has canceled more than $2.6 billion in federal research grants for the Ivy League school, which has pushed back on the administration’s demands for changes to several of its policies.
A letter sent Tuesday from the General Services Administration, which oversees contracting and real estate for the federal government, directed agencies to review contracts with the university and seek alternate arrangements.
The New York Times first reported on the letter.
President Donald Trump has railed against Harvard, calling it a hotbed of liberalism and antisemitism. The school filed a lawsuit April 21 over the administration’s calls for changes to the university’s leadership, governance and admissions policies. Since then, the administration has slashed the school’s federal funding, moved to cut off enrollment of international students and threatened its tax-exempt status.
Contracts include scientific research, executive training
The administration has identified about 30 contracts across nine agencies to be reviewed for cancellation, according to an administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly and provided details on the condition of anonymity.
The contracts total roughly $100 million, according to a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations. The contracts include executive training for Department of Homeland Security officials, research on health outcomes related to energy drinks and a contract for graduate student research services.
Agencies with contracts that are deemed critical are being directed not to halt them immediately, but to devise a plan to transition to a vendor other than Harvard.
The letter applies only to federal contracts with Harvard and not its remaining research grants.
Trump threatens to give Harvard’s funding to trade schools
Trump laid into Harvard on social media over the weekend, threatening to cut an additional $3 billion in federal grants and give it to trade schools across the United States. He did not explain which grants he was referring to or how they could be reallocated.
The president also accused Harvard of refusing to release the names of its foreign students. In a new line of attack, he argued that students’ home countries pay nothing toward their education and that some of the countries are “not at all friendly to the United States.”
International students are not eligible for federal financial aid, but Harvard offers its own aid to foreign and domestic students alike.
“We are still waiting for the Foreign Student Lists from Harvard so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country,” Trump said on social media.
It was not clear exactly what the president was referring to. The federal government already has access to visa information and other records on foreign students at Harvard and other universities.
The Department of Homeland Security has demanded that Harvard turn over a trove of files related to its foreign students, including disciplinary records and records related to “dangerous or violent activity.”
Harvard says it complied, but the agency said its response fell short and moved to revoke the university’s ability to enroll foreign students. A federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the move after Harvard sued.
Harvard rallies against Trump administration
Trump administration officials have said some of Harvard’s international students are promoting antisemitism on campus. But the ban on international students has “nothing to do with combating antisemitism,” said Jacob Miller, a former president of Harvard Hillel, who is graduating this week with math and economics concentrations.
“Antisemitism is a real problem. It’s a problem at Harvard. It’s a problem in our country,” Miller said Tuesday at a rally outside Harvard Yard. “These policies will do nothing to combat this age-old hatred. Instead, they are designed to divide us. … The Jewish community rejects this administration’s narrative. We will not allow our identities to be invoked to destroy Harvard.”
Harvard President Alan Garber earlier this month said the university has made changes to its governance over the past year and a half, including a broad strategy to combat antisemitism. He said Harvard would not budge on its “its core, legally-protected principles” over fears of retaliation.
Harvard’s international students await further court rulings to find out whether they can enroll in summer or fall classes. Some say they’re discussing backup plans.
The government’s ban would not apply to students graduating this week, such as Jemma Liu, a Chinese student who studied landscape architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
“I hope the situation will resolve,” she said Tuesday. “We’ll have to see what happens next. But I do feel a privilege that I can actually graduate tomorrow.”
“What the international students are caught in right now is just a limbo,” said Leo Gerdén, a graduating senior from Sweden.
Other nations respond
Japan’s government said Tuesday that it’s looking for ways to help Harvard’s foreign students. Education Minister Toshiko Abe told reporters she planned to ask Japanese universities to compile measures to support international students.
The University of Tokyo, Japan’s top school, is considering temporarily accepting some Harvard students hit by the Trump sanctions.
Universities in other countries have made similar moves, including two in Hong Kong that recently extended invitations to Harvard students.
On Harvard’s campus, law student Carson Durdel said he was proud of the university for standing up to Trump. He said intellectual independence has historically made the United States strong.
“It’s the reason we are like a beacon for the rest of the world,” he said. “I think that undermining those things, cutting those things is not only a bad short-term view but a horrendous long-term view.”
