Quick Hit:

President Donald Trump’s administration has escalated its clampdown on elite institutions, axing another $450 million in federal funding to Harvard University. The move comes after what officials describe as the Ivy League school’s “repeated failure” to address antisemitism and racial discrimination on campus. This latest round of cuts follows a sweeping $2.2 billion funding termination announced just last week.

Key Details:

• $450 million in additional federal grants canceled by eight agencies, following earlier $2.2 billion cut.

• Trump’s task force warns Harvard faces a “steep, uphill battle” to reclaim credibility.

• Harvard pushes back in court, arguing the administration is politicizing academic funding.

Diving Deeper:

The Trump administration intensified its campaign against Harvard University on Tuesday, eliminating an additional $450 million in grants after accusing the school of tolerating antisemitism and racial discrimination. The latest move, spearheaded by President Trump’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, continues the administration’s efforts to restore accountability in higher education.

In a blunt statement, the task force declared that “there is a dark problem on Harvard’s campus,” adding that “institutional leaders have forfeited the school’s claim to taxpayer support” by choosing appeasement over enforcement. The task force pointed to recent violent incidents, biased practices in academic journals, and internal reports as indicators of a campus environment hostile to Jewish students and others.

The funding cuts are being implemented across at least eight federal agencies, including the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Defense, and Energy. Much of the prior $2.2 billion pulled last week originated from research grants, most notably from the National Institutes of Health. The NIH made clear that there would be no opportunity for corrective action, and further grant applications would not be entertained.

Harvard, for its part, responded with a new legal challenge, updating its lawsuit to accuse the federal government of using funding as a political weapon. The school’s legal team insisted it opposes antisemitism and is working to implement “structural reforms,” but claimed the Trump administration ignored these efforts.

The amended complaint also noted that Harvard was not alone. Several other left-leaning universities—Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Northwestern—have reportedly seen similar cuts, suggesting a broader realignment in the federal government's funding priorities for academia.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon offered no apology for the decision, warning Harvard in writing not to apply for future federal grants. “Harvard has made a mockery of this country’s higher education system,” she wrote, blasting the university for hosting foreign students “who engage in violent behavior and show contempt for the United States.”