Harvard rejects the Trump administration demands to change

The Trump administration said it freezes more than $ 2 billion in Harvard’s federal funds, just hours after the elite college rejected a sweeping list of requirements from the White House.

“The Harvard statement today enhances the disturbing Mental mentality that is a settlement in the most famous universities and colleges in our nation,” the Ministry of Education said in a statement.

The Trump administration sent a message to Harvard on Friday, adding to a list of requirements that it said was designed to fight anti -Semitism on the campus, including changes in government, employment practices and admission procedures.

Harvard strongly rejected the demands in Monday.

“The university will not surrender its independence or give up its constitutional rights,” said Alan Garper, President of Harvard University.

He added that the university did not “gently” its commitment to combating anti -Semitism, but said that the government was exaggerated.

“The administration recipe exceeds the authority of the federal government,” he wrote.

Garper said that the government’s request “violating the rights of Harvard’s first amendment”, “exceeds” its authority and “threatens our values ​​as a private institution.”

Soon after this letter was announced, the Ministry of Education said it freezes $ 2.2 billion of grants and $ 60 million in Harvard University contracts.

A working group in the department in combating anti -Semitism said that federal financing comes “with the responsibility of supporting civil rights laws.”

The White House said in its own message on Friday that Harvard “has failed in recent years to raise the level of intellectual and civil conditions that justify federal investment.”

The letter included 10 categories of the proposed changes that the White House said is necessary so that Harvard University has to maintain its “financial relationship with the federal government.”

Some changes include: Reducing the energy that students and unbelievable faculty members keep; Inform the students of the federal government who “hostile” to American values, and the employment of an external party accredited by the government for audit programs and departments “that feed most anti -Semitic harassment.”

Since the White House, President Donald Trump has pressed universities to reduce anti -Semitism and end diversity practices.

He has accused the leading universities of failing to protect Jewish students, as well as a left -wing institutional bias.

In March, the administration said it was declining approximately $ 256 million (194 million pounds) in federal contracts and scholarships at Harvard University, and an additional $ 8.7 billion in multi -year grant obligations.

Harvard’s professors filed a lawsuit in response to this, they increased that the government is attacking illegal freedom of expression and academic freedom.

The White House had previously withdrawn $ 400 million from federal funding from Columbia University and accused him of not fighting anti -Semitism and protecting Jewish students on its university campus.

When the amount of $ 400 million has been withdrawn, the Minister of Education, Linda McMahon, said: “Universities must comply with all federal anti -discrimination laws if they will receive federal financing.”

Soon after, Colombia has approved many of the administration’s demandsDraw criticism from some students and faculty members.