White House officials from nearly a dozen agencies — including the State, Treasury, Health and Human Services, and Justice departments — met Wednesday to discuss additional punitive measures against Harvard University that could happen as early as next month.
The administration would not comment on what it is considering, but some options include having the Department of Justice expand its investigation into the university's admissions policies or cutting money to medical institutions affiliated with Harvard, Politico reported Thursday, citing an administration official and a second person familiar with the meeting, who were granted anonymity to share details.
The White House and Harvard have been butting heads since the Trump administration pulled billions of dollars in federal funding to address what it considers the Ivy League institution's rampant on-campus antisemitism and what it believes is a discriminatory admissions process.
On Thursday, a federal judge in Boston appointed by former President Barack Obama blocked the State Department from pausing student visas under a new policy intended to vet international students for Harvard's alleged bias against conservatives and for purportedly fostering antisemitism on its campus.
"The latest moves against Harvard are truly just scratching the surface," White House spokesperson Harrison Fields told Politico, without specifying what else the administration has planned for Harvard. "Harvard decided to litigate this on MSNBC, the now-defunded NPR, and the ratings-disaster CNN instead of acting like adults like many of their competitors have done and engaging in fruitful conversations and actions that would have saved them from their self-inflicted demise."
Harvard declined to comment.
The focus on Harvard has some inside the administration worrying that the longer the fight, the greater the risk that the White House overplays its hand.
"We're fighting a losing battle," one of the administration officials told Politico, acknowledging that the university has the narrative upper hand in the fight to revoke Harvard's student visas. "We've taken one of the most evil institutions and made them the victim."
The conflict between the Trump administration and Harvard escalated after an April 11 letter with demands was mistakenly sent to Harvard at a time when a deal to avoid confrontation was possible, Politico reported. Until that letter was sent, it seemed possible a deal could be reached. But once it was sent, communication broke down.
In the six weeks since the letter was mistakenly sent, the administration froze $2.2 billion in multiyear research grants; cut an additional $60 million in contracts; cut 500 grants from the National Institutes of Health for Harvard-affiliated institutions; barred the university from any future grants; and launched multiple investigations into Harvard's practices by the departments of Justice, Health, Education, and Homeland Security and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
One of the people familiar with the talks told Politico that although the April 11 letter inflamed tensions, Harvard could have found a way to move on. Instead, it refused to have any dialogue with the administration and stopped trying to appease the administration as it tried to win in the court of public opinion.
"They think their audience is the alumni, the funders, and the students and the faculty," the person said. "But there's another audience that they're totally not working with. I just don't think that's smart long-term."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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