This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.
For better or worse, Harvard University epitomizes higher education to many people. The wealthy, well-known institution has extremely selective admissions and an air of prestige that can attract and put off in equal measure.
While most students don't attend highly selective colleges like Harvard, the university's notoriety — and many Republicans' perception of a dearth of conservative voices on campus — has put it squarely in the crosshairs of conservative attacks on higher education.
Leading the charge is President Donald Trump.
Even before Trump won reelection, Republican lawmakers singled out Harvard and other high-profile colleges over allegations of antisemitism and poor leadership.
Now, the Trump administration is seeking to make an example of Harvard by threatening its federal funding unless the Ivy League institution relinquishes to the federal government some authority over hiring, admissions, student affairs, governance and academic decisionmaking.
Below, we've laid out a timeline of the ongoing battle between two titans — the U.S. government under Trump and the country’s wealthiest and oldest college.
-
March 10, 2025The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights warns 60 colleges — including Harvard — that they could face enforcement actions if they don’t protect Jewish students from harassment. The Education Department notes all 60 colleges are under Title VI investigations. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color and national origin at federally funded institutions.
“U.S. colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by U.S. taxpayers. That support is a privilege and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal antidiscrimination laws," U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon says in a statement.
The same day, Harvard institutes a universitywide hiring freeze for the spring semester, citing the "substantial financial uncertainties" caused by the Trump administration's rapid changes to long-standing federal policy. University leaders stress the change is temporary. -
March 31, 2025Trump's federal Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism puts $9 billion of Harvard's federal funding — $8.7 billion in multi-year grant commitments and $255.6 million in contracts — under review, the largest sum targeted to date.
-
April 3, 2025The Trump administration sends Harvard officials a wide-ranging list of demands the university must fulfill for a chance to keep its federal funding.
The requirements include changes to academic programming and employee hiring practices. The list also calls for "meaningful governance reforms” and completely eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. -
April 11, 2025The Trump administration sends a stricter list of demands to Harvard, this time threatening to pull the university's federal funding if it does not allow a third party to audit the viewpoints of students and employees. The letter also demands that Harvard reduce “the power” of certain faculty and administrators involved in activism.
-
April 14, 2025Harvard President Alan Garber publicly rebukes the Trump administration's ultimatums and says the government overstepped its authority.
In a letter to the Trump administration, Harvard’s legal counsel says the university "remains open to dialogue" about what it has done and what it plans to do to "improve the experience of every member of its community.”
“But Harvard is not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration," the letter says.
Hours later, the Trump administration freezes $2.2 billion in multi-year grants to Harvard and $60 million of the university's multi-year contracts.
The federal antisemitism task force calls Harvard's rebuttal emblematic of "the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges — that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws." -
April 15, 2025Trump threatens to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status in a social media post. Legally, such a move is required to fall under the independent authority of the IRS.
"Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity," Trump says in the post. "Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!" -
April 16, 2025Trump continues his social media attacks on the university, arguing that it should lose all access to federal funding.
"Harvard can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning, and should not be considered on any list of the World’s Great Universities or Colleges," the president said in the early morning. "Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds."
The same day, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security threatens to pull Harvard's authorization to enroll foreign students if the university does not hand over “detailed records on Harvard’s foreign student visa holders’ illegal and violent activities” by the end of April. The agency also cancels $2.7 million in grants to the institution. -
April 18, 2025The New York Times reports that the Trump administration’s April 11 letter was sent to Harvard in error, according to three anonymous sources. While its contents were authentic, some government officials said the letter had been sent prematurely, while others said it was intended for internal use by the antisemitism task force, NYT reported.
The Education Department alleges that a review of Harvard's disclosures of its foreign gifts and contracts found “incomplete and inaccurate” paperwork, a revelation McMahon describes as "unacceptable and unlawful."
The department sends Harvard an extensive records request for information about its foreign gifts and contracts and certain international students and employees, such as a list of all expelled foreign students since 2016 and "a list of all visiting or temporary researchers, scholars, students, and faculty at Harvard who are from or affiliated with foreign governments." -
April 21, 2025Harvard sues the Trump administration over the funding freezes, arguing that the federal government is attempting to use the money “as leverage to gain control of academic decisionmaking." The university's lawsuit also asserts that the withheld funding threatens research that has "nothing at all to do with antisemitism and Title VI compliance.”
"Before taking punitive action, the law requires that the federal government engage with us about the ways we are fighting and will continue to fight antisemitism," Garber says in a statement. "Instead, the government’s April 11 demands seek to control whom we hire and what we teach." -
April 24, 2025Five Jewish Democratic senators castigate Trump, alleging he has weaponized antisemitism to target colleges like Harvard.
“By doing so, he not only fails to address the threat of antisemitism but also exploits it to delegitimize higher education, while often ignoring or downplaying the rise of antisemitism within his own party,” they said in an open letter. -
April 25, 2025The head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reportedly begins investigating Harvard, according to The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative outlet. Documents published in mid-May reportedly show the agency is investigating if the university has been discriminating against employees and applicants who are White, Asian, straight or men.
When contacted by Higher Ed Dive, an EEOC spokesperson says the agency cannot comment on investigations or confirm the existence of charges, citing federal law. -
April 27, 2025The university's undergraduate admissions office allows prospective international students to accept admission to both Harvard and a second, non-American institution, The Harvard Crimson reports. In an email to incoming foreign students, the office acknowledges that they may want a “backup plan” amid DHS' threat to strip Harvard's ability to enroll them.
Harvard continues to prohibit international students from holding another spot at a U.S. college, however, both for legal reasons and “because the situation at Harvard might be replicated at other American universities," according to a copy of the email obtained by the Crimson. -
April 28, 2025Harvard changes the name of its Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging to Community and Campus Life. The university also says it will no longer fund or support end-of-year affinity celebrations — a practice specifically targeted by the Education Department.
The announcement does not mention either Trump or the department's efforts to ban DEI. Instead, it cites Garber's April 14 statement in which he described the 2023 Supreme Court ruling against race-conscious admissions as making it “unlawful for universities to make decisions 'on the basis of race.'"
The high court's ruling only applied to admissions decisions.
The same day, the Education Department and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services open a Title VI investigation into Harvard and the Harvard Law Review, citing allegations of "race-based discrimination permeating the operations” of the student-run journal.
The joint announcement cites reports that one review editor expressed concern that White men would be overrepresented in responses to a piece about police reform and that another sought an expedited review of a submitted piece because the author was a member of a minority group. -
April 29, 2025Harvard releases two long-awaited reports on the campus climate — one focused on antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias and another on anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian bias.
The reports find that Jewish, Israeli, Zionist, Muslim, Arab and Palestinian students and employees at Harvard frequently felt uncomfortable and at times felt shunned or harassed while at the university during the 2023-24 academic year.
"Harvard cannot — and will not — abide bigotry," Garber says in a statement. "We will redouble our efforts to ensure that the University is a place where ideas are welcomed, entertained, and contested in the spirit of seeking truth; where argument proceeds without sacrificing dignity; and where mutual respect is the norm." -
April 30, 2025Trump indicates that his administration is moving to cut off federal grants to Harvard, per Reuters.
"It looks like we are not going to be giving them any more grants, right Linda?" Trump says, referring to McMahon. "A grant is at our discretion and they are really not behaving well. So it's too bad." -
May 1, 2025Dozens of senior faculty pledge 10% of their salaries to support Harvard's legal battle against the Trump administration. The open letter signed by participating faculty describes the university as facing “severe financial damage for its defense of academic freedom.”
-
May 5, 2025McMahon announces that, moving forward, the Trump administration will cut Harvard off from all federal research funding. McMahon alleges that Harvard has “engaged in a systematic pattern of violating federal law” and criticizes multiple university employees and academic decisions, including the hiring of some former Democratic mayors as fellows.
-
May 12, 2025In a letter to McMahon, Garber says Harvard's efforts to combat antisemitism and bigotry and promote free expression are being "undermined and threatened by the federal government’s overreach into the constitutional freedoms of private universities and its continuing disregard of Harvard’s compliance with the law."
-
May 13, 2025Eight federal agencies cut another $450 million in grants from Harvard. The federal antisemitism task force reiterates its claims that the university has become “a breeding ground for virtue signaling and discrimination.”
-
May 14, 2025Harvard dedicates $250 million of its own funds to research affected by federal cuts. That includes “a large number of grant terminations from the federal government" the university received in the past week, Garber and Provost John Manning say in a community message.
A university spokesperson also confirms that Garber will take a voluntary 25% pay cut beginning in July. -
May 19, 2025HHS cancels roughly $60 million in multi-year grants to Harvard. In a social media post, the department cites the university's alleged "continued failure to address anti-Semitic harassment and race discrimination."
-
May 22, 2025DHS revokes Harvard's ability to enroll international students — who make up just over a quarter of its student body — over allegations the university fostered a "toxic campus climate" by accommodating "anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators."
“It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments,” U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says in a statement. “Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country." -
May 23, 2025Harvard sues the federal government again, this time over the loss of its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, which allows it to enroll international students. The abrupt revocation came without "rational explanation" and departs from "decades of settled practice," the university says in court filings.
"It is the latest act by the government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the 'ideology' of its faculty and students," the lawsuit says.
Later that day, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs temporarily blocks DHS' decision, saying that Harvard would experience "immediate and irreparable injury" if the international students ban were allowed to proceed before she could hear from both parties. -
May 25, 2025Following the judge's order, Trump calls for Harvard to turn over the names and home countries of its international students — information the government already has access to through SEVP — and accuses the university of failing to be forthcoming with information in a social media post.
-
May 26, 2025Trump again takes to social media to threaten Harvard, calling for $3 billion in federal grant funding to the university to be reallocated to "TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land." The president does not specify from which agencies that money would be originating.
-
May 27, 2025A top official at the U.S. General Services Administration advises all federal departments to review their contracts with Harvard and cancel those that fail to meet agency standards.
