Harvard Has $2.2B in Funds Frozen After Refusing to Comply

UPDATE Apr 15, 2025 12:30 AM CDT

Within hours of Harvard's announcement that it would not comply with the Trump administration's policy demands, federal officials said $2.2 billion in multiyear grants to the university would be frozen, along with a $60 million contract, the New York Times reports. "Harvard's statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation's most prestigious universities and colleges—that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws," said the US General Services Administration and Department of Education in announcing the freeze. CNBC reports that Harvard is more equipped than most universities to fight the administration; its endowment is $53 billion, $10 billion more than the second-largest endowment, which is held by Yale.

Apr 14, 2025 4:13 PM CDT

Harvard on Monday became the first US university to flatly refuse to comply with the Trump administration's demands to make policy changes—including eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs—or risk losing almost $9 billion in federal funding. President Alan Garber said the university's counsel has informed the administration it is refusing the proposal made last week, CNN reports. "The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights," Garber wrote, per the New York Times. "Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government."

The nation's wealthiest university immediately faced pressure to stand up to the demands that other schools have bowed to. More than 800 Harvard faculty members signed a letter calling on the university to "mount a coordinated opposition to these anti-democratic attacks," and a demonstration last week that included students, faculty, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, townspeople urged resistance. The Trump administration says its goals are to eliminate antisemitism on campus, as well as diversity efforts. Garber said that though that appears to be the goal of some of demands, per CNBC, "the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the 'intellectual conditions' at Harvard."

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The Trump administration also wants:

• Plagiarism checks conducted on all current and prospective faculty members.
• Hiring data to be provided to the government and hiring audits to be conducted.
• All admissions data to be provided to the federal government, including information on both rejected and admitted applicants. The applicants are to be sorted by race, national origin, grade-point average, and performance on standardized tests.
• Academic programs that the Trump administration says have "egregious records on antisemitism" to be reworked. This would include allowing an external audit of some departments, including the Divinity School, the Graduate School of Education, the School of Public Health, and the Medical School.

(More Harvard University stories.)