Washington: US President Donald Trump threatened to strip Harvard University of its tax-exempt status Tuesday after the Ivy League school bucked his demands to enact sweeping overhauls of its operations and policies. “Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?'” Trump posted on his proprietary social media website. “Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!”
According to Philippines News Agency, the threat came after Harvard said Monday it would fight reforms demanded by the Trump administration after it threatened to withhold billions of dollars in federal funding to pressure the nation’s wealthiest university to limit student protests and eliminate diversity programs. University President Alan Garber said in a letter to the school’s community that while some of the Trump administration’s demands “are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard.”
The proposal includes a demand to “audit” the views of the student body, faculty, and staff and “reduc(e) the power” of certain individuals because of their ideological views. Garber stated that the university has informed the administration through its attorneys that Harvard will not accept the proposed agreement and “will not negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights.”
The Trump administration’s proposal, he emphasized, “threatens our values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge.” Garber further declared, “No government-regardless of which party is in power-should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
Harvard’s defiance arises as the Trump administration seeks to compel schools to eliminate diversity programs and restrict student-led pro-Palestinian protests. An April 11 letter from senior Trump administration officials to Harvard outlined a proposal for the school to adopt to “maintain Harvard’s financial relationship with the federal government.”
The demands included investigations into student-led protests against Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, suspensions for students who occupied school buildings “as warranted by the facts of individual cases,” and a crackdown on student groups participating in pro-Palestine demonstrations. Additionally, the proposal called for the implementation of a masking ban on campus, with “immediate penalties” including suspension from school as a minimum consequence.
