Trump has been waging war against the nation’s top universities, demanding that they accept his orders to stamp out DEI or lose their federal grants. Trump uses the phony claim that he is combatting anti-Semitism, but the reality is that he is silencing academic freedom and free speech. For the record, Trump has accepted the support of American Nazis, so his concern for Jews cannot be taken seriously.

The first campus to receive Trump’s demands was Columbia University. Trump threatened to withhold $400 million if Columbia did not put several departments (Middle Eastern Studies, African American Studies, and South Asian Studies) into receivership. Sadly, Columbia complied.

Harvard was threatened with the loss of $9 billion in research grants. Harvard said NO. Harvard will not bend the knee to Trump as he seeks to trample academic freedom of faculty and students.

Mike Damiano of The Boston Globe reported:

Lawyers for Harvard University said Monday the school will not comply with a new list of demands sent by the Trump administration on Friday, as part of the government’s purported crackdown on antisemitism and alleged civil rights violations at elite universities.

The new demands expand on a previous list sent to Harvard’s leaders on April 3, which ordered Harvard to close diversity offices and cooperate with federal immigration authorities, among other directives.

In a message to the campus community Monday, Harvard president Alan Garber vowed that the university will not yield to the government’s pressure campaign. “The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” Garber said.

Harvard’s stance is the most forceful pushback yet against the Trump administration’s crackdown on elite universities. It is a sharp contrast to the approach taken by Columbia University’s leaders who acquiesced to a list of demands from the Trump administration last month. Columbia promised to change student disciplinary procedures and place a Middle East studies department under new oversight, among other measures.

The Harvard demands went further. Two weeks ago, the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force placed $9 billion in federal funding under review and followed up with its first list of demands.

Then, last Friday, the government sent Harvard a much more detailed explanation of its demands, which Harvard released Monday afternoon. Harvard’s lawyers said the university “is not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.”