United States President Donald Trump’s campaign to pressure universities into dropping diversity, equity and inclusion measures and punishing student protesters has faced its strongest pushback yet when Harvard University rejected a series of demands from his administration.

Monday’s decision quickly prompted the US Department of Education to freeze nearly $2.3bn in federal funding for the Ivy League institution ranked among the best universities in the US.

So what happened between Harvard and Trump, and why did the institution risk billions of dollars to go against the administration’s demands?

What did the Trump administration ask Harvard to do?

The heads of the US Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and the General Services Administration co-signed a letter to Harvard on Friday. In this letter, they claimed “Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment.”

This was followed by a list of demands for the university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to fulfil. Key among them were:

• Promoting faculty committed to the Trump administration’s demands of Harvard, as articulated in the letter, and “reducing the power” of faculty and administrators “more committed to activism than scholarship”.
• Ending all affirmative action in faculty hiring and student admissions by August. At the same time, the letter demanded that the university ensure “viewpoint diversity” by abolishing criteria during admissions and hiring processes “that function as ideological litmus tests”.
• Changing the admissions process “to prevent admitting international students hostile to the American values”, including “students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism”. The letter did not define what it meant by “American values”. For the 2024-2025 academic year, there were 6,793 international students at Harvard, making up 27.2 percent of its total enrolment – up from less than 20 percent in 2006-2007.
• Changing disciplinary policies and forbidding the recognition and funding of student groups or clubs that promote “criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harassment”.
• Implementing a comprehensive mask ban with immediate, serious penalties for violation “not less than suspension” after some students have protested while wearing masks. The letter did not list any exceptions to this rule, such as health reasons.
• Closing all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programmes and offices and carrying out organisational reform to ensure transparency with federal regulators.

Harvard was given a deadline of August to implement these changes. This is the second letter issued by the Trump administration to Harvard. The first one was issued on April 3 and called on Harvard to ban face masks and reform academic departments that it alleged were guilty of anti-Semitic bias. Charges of anti-Semitism have been levelled against numerous US universities and colleges since widespread campus protests were held against the war in Gaza.

How did Harvard respond to the demands?

Harvard’s lawyers responded to the Trump administration by saying the university rejected the demands, arguing they violated its First Amendment rights and freedoms recognised by the US Supreme Court. The US Constitution’s First Amendment upholds the rights to free speech, expression and assembly.

The university said Harvard strongly opposes anti-Semitism and continues to make structural changes to ensure that the institution is a welcoming and supportive learning environment for all students.

The university also published a separate letter online signed by President Alan Garber on Monday. In the letter, Garber said federal grants have led to research and innovation in fields pertaining to science and medicine. “These innovations have made countless people in our country and throughout the world healthier and safer,” he wrote.

The letter then referred to how the government had threatened to pull federal funding from several universities, including Harvard, over allegations of anti-Semitism on campus. The letter said the government retreating from its funding agreements with higher education institutions “risks not only the health and well-being of millions of individuals but also the economic security and vitality of our nation”.

The Harvard letter said that while some of the government’s demands are aimed at combating anti-Semitism, “the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard.”

“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” Garber added.

The Harvard chapter of the American Association of University Professors filed a lawsuit on Friday in a federal court in Boston, accusing the Trump administration of “unlawful and unprecedented misuse of federal funding and civil rights enforcement authority to undermine academic freedom and free speech on a university campus”.

What is the backdrop to this standoff?

In January 2024, Garber had set up presidential task forces on campus to combat anti-Semitism and fight bias against Muslims and Arabs as Israel’s war on Gaza raged, igniting tensions on campuses around the world, including in the US.

In April 2024, pro-Palestine protesters set up an encampment on the Harvard campus, called Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP). The protesters demanded that Harvard divest from weapons companies and companies associated with Israel.

At that time, Garber said HOOP had disrupted educational activities on campus. In May, the university and protesters said they had reached an agreement to end the encampment, but the two parties gave different accounts about the terms of this agreement.

While the student protesters said Harvard had agreed to their demands, the university said it had only opened itself to dialogue on the demands. For example, pertaining to the students’ demand for the university to divest from companies with ties to Israel, Harvard said it had agreed to be more transparent with its students about how its endowment works.

How much federal funding could Harvard lose?

On Monday, hours after Harvard’s response, a task force created by the US Department of Education to tackle anti-Semitism released a statement announcing that  $2.3bn in federal funding to the university had been frozen.

“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,” the statement said. The frozen federal funds to Harvard include $2.2bn in grants and $60m in contracts, the statement added.

However, more money is at stake – about $9bn. On March 31, the Education Department, Department of Health and Human Services and the General Services Administration released a statement warning they would review $255.6m in contracts between the federal government and Harvard and its affiliates. The statement added that they would also review more than $8.7bn in multiyear grant commitments to Harvard and its affiliates.

Harvard’s endowment amounted to $53.2bn in the 2024 fiscal year — the largest of any university. However, donors decide which programmes, departments and purposes 70 percent of the annual endowment distribution is spent on. Endowment donations also dropped by $151m in 2024 as several billionaire donors stopped funding the institution over its response to concerns over anti-Semitism on campus, the university’s student-run newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, reported in October.

How have things unfolded at other US universities?

While Harvard is the first university to reject the Trump administration’s demands, it is not the first Ivy League school to be targeted.

Last year, Columbia University in New York emerged as the epicentre of pro-Palestine campus protests. Protesters occupied a campus building, Hamilton Hall, on April 30. The university called in the New York Police Department to crack down on student protesters.

In February, the Trump administration pulled back Columbia’s federal funding, worth $400m, citing the institution’s “failure to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment”. In March, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia graduate and protest leader who had negotiated with the university during the campus demonstrations. Days earlier, the US Department of State revoked the visa of Ranjani Srinivasan, who was an urban planning doctoral candidate at Columbia. Soon after, Columbia unenrolled Srinivasan, who flew to Canada before she could be deported.

On March 13, the government’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism issued a letter to Columbia with nine demands for negotiations to restore the funding that was pulled. On March 18, Columbia accepted the government’s demands, listed in a new memo. The memo said protesting students will have to present university identification if prompted. It added that face masks would be banned if they are being used to conceal a person’s identity. However, face coverings are still allowed for religious or medical reasons. The memo also added that Columbia had hired 36 security officers who have special powers to arrest students, and the university continues to rely on New York police for additional security assistance.

Over the past few weeks, the Trump administration has suspended or frozen funding for Princeton, Cornell and Northwestern universities. The universities have responded by expressing frustration and highlighting how federal funding is important for critical research.

On April 11, the US Department of Energy, which funds research at many universities, announced a universal cap on the indirect costs it would finance for projects it supports. The agency said this would save the government $405m a year.

Nine universities and three bodies representing higher education institutions have since filed a lawsuit challenging that cap. The plaintiffs in the case include the Association of American Universities, American Council on Education, Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, Brown University, California Institute of Technology, Cornell University, Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the regents of the University of Michigan, Board of Trustees of Michigan State University, the trustees of Princeton University and the University of Rochester.

What are the reactions to Harvard’s dispute with Trump?

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders congratulated Harvard on X on Monday “for refusing to relinquish its constitutional rights to Trump’s authoritarianism”.

Congratulations to Harvard for refusing to relinquish its constitutional rights to Trump’s authoritarianism.

Other universities should follow their lead.

And instead of doing pro bono work for Trump, cowardly law firms should be defending those who believe in the rule of law.

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— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 14, 2025

Former US President Barack Obama posted on Tuesday: “Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions – rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom.”

Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions – rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and… https://t.co/gAu9UUqgjF

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) April 15, 2025

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey posted a statement on X congratulating Harvard for “standing against the Trump Administration’s brazen attempt to bully schools and weaponize the US Department of Justice under the false pretext of civil rights”.

My statement on @Harvard’s response to demands from the Trump Administration. pic.twitter.com/IYa7LSG7iX

— Maura Healey (@MassGovernor) April 14, 2025

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