The Trump administration is freezing 2.2 billion dollars from Harvard University scholarships on campus activity

The federal government says it freezes more than $ 2.2 billion of grants and $ 60 million in Harvard University contracts, because the Foundation said on Monday that it will not correspond to the Trump administration demands to restrict Activity in campus.

In a message to Harvard on Friday, the administration called for government reforms and widespread leadership, which is a condition that Harvard is subjected to what you call acceptance and employment “on merit” in addition to conducting a review of the study body, faculty and leadership members on their views on diversity.

The demands, which are an update from a previous message, require a ban on face masks-which seemed to target pro-Palestinian demonstrators. They also press the university to stop recognizing or financing “any student group or club that supports or enhances criminal activity, illegal violence or illegal harassment.”

The President of Harvard University, Alan Garper, said in a letter to the Harvard community on Monday, that the demands violated the rights of the university’s first amendment and “transcend the legal limits of the government authority under Chapter Six”, which prohibits discrimination against students based on their race, color, or national origin.

“No government – regardless of the party in power – should not be dictated by the private universities, which they can recognize and employ, and any areas of study and investigation that they can follow up,” Garbar wrote, adding that the university has seized extensive reforms to address anti -Semitism.

“These ends will not be achieved through the assurances of power, inherited from the law, to control teaching and learning at Harvard University and dictate how we work,” he wrote. “The work of our shortcomings, the fulfillment of our obligations, and the embodiment of our values ​​is our definition and the pledge as a society.”

Harvard’s demands are part of a wider batch to use taxpayer dollars to pressure the main academic institutions to comply with the president Donald Trump Political agenda and influence the campus policy. The administration also argued that universities allowed what they consider anti -Semitism without deterrence in the campus protests last year against the Israel war in Gaza; Schools deny this.

Harvard University is one of several Ivy Legue schools targeted in a pressure campaign by the administration, which also stopped federal funding for Pennsylvania Universityand brownAnd Princeon To assume compliance with her business schedule. Harvard’s request letter is similar to those that The changes were paid At the University of Colombia, at the threat of billions of dollars.

Trump administration’s demands have prompted a group of graduates to write to university leaders who are calling them to “competition law and refuse to comply with illegal demands that threaten academic freedom and university self -government.”

“Harvard stood today for the integrity, values ​​and freedoms that work as a basis for higher education,” said Anorima Bahrgava, one of the graduates behind the message. “Harvard reminded the world that learning, innovation and transformational growth will not result in bullying and authoritarian importance.”

It also caused a protest at the weekend of the Harvard community members and residents of Cambridge and a lawsuit from the American University Professors Association on Friday challenge the cuts.

In a lawsuit, prosecutors argue that the Trump administration has failed to follow the required steps under Chapter VI before they start cutting money, and notifying discounts to both university and Congress.

The prosecutors wrote: “These unpopular demands that are not determined are not treatments that target the causes of any decision to not comply with federal law. Instead, they publicly seek to impose political opinions at Harvard University and the preferences of the policy that was submitted by the Trump administration and the university committed to punish the unhelpful discourse.”