Harvard at risk of losing $9 billion in federal funds as US launches review

By Brad Brooks and Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) -The Trump administration said on Monday it was reviewing $9 billion in federal contracts and grants awarded to Harvard University, part of a crackdown on what it says is antisemitism on college campuses.

The Departments of Education, Health and Human Services and the U.S. General Services Administration said in a written statement that $255.6 million in contracts between Harvard, its affiliates and the federal government were being reviewed, along with $8.7 billion in multi-year grant commitments.

The investigation is the latest move by the Trump administration to pressure American universities to change their policies on a number of issues at the heart of culture wars that have beset the U.S. in recent years.

Supporters of Trump's efforts say it is a long-needed check on far-left extremism at U.S. colleges. Critics say the crackdown is a draconian over-reaction that stomps on academic freedom and the right to free speech.

"If this funding is stopped, it will halt life-saving research and imperil important scientific research and innovation," Alan Garber, the president of Harvard, said in a written statement.

Garber said that antisemitism "is present on our campus" and that he had experienced it himself, even as the university president.

He said Harvard had been enacting reforms to combat antisemitism during the past 15 months, though he acknowledged that "we still have much work to do", and the university will work with the federal government's antisemitism task force on the matter.

The focus on Harvard comes after the Trump administration this month canceled $400 million in federal funding for fellow Ivy League school Columbia University. It was the epicenter of anti-Israel protests that broke out on college campuses following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack inside Israel, and Israel's subsequent incursion in Gaza, the Palestinian enclave controlled by Hamas.

Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the administration conflates their criticism of U.S. ally Israel's assault on Gaza with antisemitism and their support for Palestinian rights as sympathy for Hamas.

Columbia earlier this month announced it had made some changes demanded by the Trump administration to start negotiations to win back its federal funding.

The university's interim president announced over the weekend that she was stepping down after an outcry by some students and faculty over what they characterized as the school's acquiescence to the federal demands.

In addition to targeting funds, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have detained some foreign student protesters in recent weeks and are working to deport them.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration suspended $175 million in funding to the University of Pennsylvania, another Ivy League school, over its transgender sports policies.

The Department of Education this month sent a letter to 60 universities - including Harvard - warning that it could bring enforcement actions against them under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act if they failed to protect Jewish students on their campuses. It said antisemitic "eruptions" have disrupted life at elite schools around the country for a year.

"Harvard's failure to protect students on campus from antisemitic discrimination - all while promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry - has put its reputation in serious jeopardy," said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. "Harvard can right these wrongs and restore itself to a campus dedicated to academic excellence and truth-seeking, where all students feel safe on its campus."

Harvard and other elite universities came into the crosshairs of conservatives in late 2023, when the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology appeared before a congressional committee looking into a rise in antisemitism on campuses.

Former Harvard President Claudine Gay, along with the other school leaders, declined to give a definitive "yes" or "no" answer when asked if calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their schools' codes of conduct regarding bullying and harassment, saying they had to balance it against free-speech protections.

Rights advocates have also raised concerns about Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias since the start of Israel's war in Gaza. The Trump administration has not yet announced any specific steps to tackle bias against Muslims and Arabs.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Frank McGurty, Stephen Coates and Lincoln Feast.)