Harvard

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon sent a scathing letter to Harvard University President Alan Garber on Monday, not only blasting the Massachusetts Ivy League school’s handling of antisemitism on campus but also advising school officials to refrain from applying for future federal grants because they will not "be provided."

United States President Donald Trump’s administration has announced that Harvard University will no longer receive public funding for research in a sharp escalation of its dispute with the elite institution.

In a letter to Harvard on Monday, US Education Department Secretary Linda McMahon said the elite university had made a “mockery” of higher education and should no longer seek federal grants, “since no will be provided”.

President Donald Trump on Friday said his administration would revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status, escalating his fight with the nation’s oldest institution of higher education.

“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “It’s what they deserve!”

A Harvard task force released a scathing account of the university on Tuesday, finding that antisemitism had infiltrated coursework, social life, the hiring of some faculty members and the worldview of certain academic programs.

A separate report on anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bias on campus, also released on Tuesday, found widespread discomfort and alienation among those students as well, with 92 percent of Muslim survey respondents saying they believed they would face an academic or professional penalty for expressing their political opinions.

Harvard University President Alan Garber has apologised following the release of internal reports into antisemitic and anti-Muslim prejudice at America's oldest university.

The reports included testimony from students who described feeling alienated and pressured to conceal their identity from their peers and educators.

Harvard president Alan Garber apologized for the university’s failure to address both antisemitic and anti-Muslim/Arab tensions on campus in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack.

On Tuesday, Harvard University released reports from its presidential task forces on antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias, as well as anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias. In a letter to the university, Garber expressed his gratitude for the teams’ work and lamented the rise of bigotry and "sometimes violent clashes" occurring on campus.

It’s a rare moment in American politics when ultra-conservative personality Candace Owens and Democrats are on the opposing side of Donald Trump. The political firebrand publicly condemned the president’s crusade against Harvard University and other college campuses; Trump has threatened to rescind billions in federal grants if the institution did not agree to a list of demands that Harvard described as going “beyond the power of the federal government.”

An immigration judge has found the U.S. government’s initial deportation case against Kseniia Petrova, a Russian-born Harvard scientist held in ICE detention, to be legally deficient, her attorney said, raising questions about whether the case can move forward.

The preliminary immigration hearing, held in Jena, Louisiana, included three trial attorneys and a deputy chief counsel from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Petrova’s attorney Greg Romanovsky described their presence as unusual for an early-stage proceeding.

A day after Harvard sued the Trump administration over its decision to freeze billions in federal funds to the school, more than 180 higher education leaders from around the country released a joint statement on Tuesday condemning the administration’s efforts to control universities.

The government’s “political interference” and “overreach” is “now endangering higher education in America,” they wrote.