Trump admin threatens Harvard’s accreditation, demands foreign student records
The US Education Department is accusing the school of violating antidiscrimination law by failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students
US President Donald Trump’s administration escalated its feud with Harvard University on Wednesday, declaring that the Ivy League school may no longer meet the standards for accreditation and that it would subpoena it for records about its international students.
The move is the latest in a series of actions the administration has taken against Harvard, which sued the federal government after officials terminated billions of dollars in grants awarded to the school and moved to bar it from admitting international students.
The administration has said it is trying to force change at Harvard and other top-level universities across the US, contending they have become bastions of leftist “woke” thought and antisemitism.
Trump on June 20 said that talks with Harvard were under way that could soon produce a settlement. But as of Wednesday, when the latest actions by the administration were announced, talks had stalled, and the parties were “far from an agreement”, a person familiar with the matter said.
“Harvard remains unwavering in its efforts to protect its community and its core principles against unfounded retribution by the federal government,” Harvard said in a statement.
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Citing China ‘activity’, Trump administration bars Harvard from enrolling foreign students
The US Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services said on Wednesday that they formally notified Harvard’s accreditor, the New England Commission of Higher Education, that Harvard had violated a federal antidiscrimination law by failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students on campus.