After Harvard's president vowed to dig in for freedom of speech against President Donald Trump's efforts to root out on-campus antisemitism, Trump excoriated the university as a "liberal mess" taken hostage by "crazed lunatics."
"Harvard is an antisemitic, far-left Institution, as are numerous others, with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our country apart," Trump wrote Thursday morning in a scathing rebuke on Truth Social. "The place is a liberal mess, allowing a certain group of crazed lunatics to enter and exit the classroom and spew fake anger and hate."
"It is truly horrific!" said Trump.
Harvard President Alan Garber claimed he "had no choice" but to oppose the administration's efforts to freeze more than $2.2 billion in federal government grants for the private university despite that Garber admitted there is a "real problem" on campus with antisemitism since Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
"We are defending what I believe is one of the most important linchpins of the American economy and way of life — our universities," Garber told NBC's Lester Holt.
The lack of institutional control over antisemitic hate speech makes Harvard "a threat to democracy," Trump said, using former President Joe Biden's oft-repeated campaign mantra against Trump in the past presidential election.
"Now, since our filings began, they act like they are all 'American Apple Pie,'" Trump added in his post. "Harvard is a threat to democracy, with a lawyer who represents me, who should therefore be forced to resign, immediately, or be fired."
Harvard's legal team, led by Robert Hur and William Burck, sued the Trump administration, according to The Harvard Crimson student newspaper.
Hur was appointed to the Department of Justice in Trump's first team, and, even more directly, Burck has served as counsel for The Trump Organization.
"He's not that good, anyway, and I hope that my very big and beautiful company, now run by my sons, gets rid of him ASAP!" Trump's post concluded.
In an April 11 letter to Harvard, the Trump administration had called for broad government and leadership reforms at the university and changes to its admissions policies. It also demanded the university audit views of diversity on campus and stop recognizing some student clubs.
"The government has not — and cannot — identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives, foster American success, preserve American security and maintain America's position as a global leader in innovation," Harvard's lawsuit seeking a halt to the $2.2 billion frozen by the Trump administration read Monday.
"Nor has the government acknowledged the significant consequences that the indefinite freeze of billions of dollars in federal research funding will have on Harvard's research programs, the beneficiaries of that research, and the national interest in furthering American innovation and progress."
While Harvard's lawsuit called the funding freeze "arbitrary and capricious," the White House fired back Monday night.
"The gravy train of federal assistance to institutions like Harvard, which enrich their grossly overpaid bureaucrats with tax dollars from struggling American families, is coming to an end," White House spokesman Harrison Fields wrote in an email. "Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege."
Harvard Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax last week that the law and the Supreme Court will ultimately be on Trump's side in the standoff.
"Harvard's going to lose," Dershowitz said on Monday's "The Record With Greta Van Susteren." "It has no obligation legally, the government, to fund a $53 billion university. I don't understand the basis of the lawsuit."
"They're claiming First Amendment. But, you know, Harvard has the First Amendment right to speak and to teach and academic freedom, but it doesn't have the right to get funding."
Dershowitz added, "I think the lawsuit is designed to send a message to the administration: Come sit down and negotiate. Their two lawyers who they hired initially are negotiators; they're close to the Trump family and Trump business. And I think this is simply a ploy to try to get a resolution."