The Trump administration is determined to punish Harvard University for defiance of its efforts to take control of Harvard’s curriculum, admissions, and faculty hiring policies. Having already suspended $2.2 billion in research grants, the Trump administration expanded its attack on Harvard.

This level of petty vengefulness is unprecedented. Trump is turning his wrath upon Harvard and weaponizing the entire federal government to force the nation’s most prestigious institution of higher education to surrender.

The headline of the story: “A Bloodbath.”

Chris Serres at the Boston Globe reported this story:

In yet another escalation of its fight against higher education, the Trump administration has moved to terminate scores of research grants at Harvard University and its medical school, imperiling scores of research projects and potentially upending the futures of dozens of young scientists.

Harvard researchers who rely on federal grants to study cancer, infectious diseases and a range of other topics began receiving termination notices en masse on Thursday from a number of federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the US Department of Defense and the US Department of Energy, according to emails shared with the Globe.

The termination notices threaten tens of millions of dollars in research funding for Harvard and affect a broad swath of the university’s scientific community, including graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who are dependent on federal funding for income.

While not unexpected, the wave of termination letters has roiled the Harvard campus in Cambridge and has left many young scientists anxious about their futures, while others are scrambling to find ways to replace the anticipated loss of federal funding.