President Donald Trump blasted Harvard University on Thursday, calling the Ivy League school “Anti-Semitic,” “Far-Left,” and “a threat to Democracy.”
The president is in the midst of a legal battle with Harvard after the Trump administration revoked billions of dollars in federal funding. The Trump administration froze more than $2 billion in financing for Harvard after it rejected demands to dismantle its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and do more to curb student anti-Israel protests.
“Harvard is an Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institution, as are numerous others, with students being accepted from all over the World that want to rip our Country apart. The place is a Liberal mess, allowing a certain group of crazed lunatics to enter and exit the classroom and spew fake ANGER AND HATE. It is truly horrific! ” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“Now, since our filings began, they act like they are all ‘American Apple Pie,'” the president added. “Harvard is a threat to Democracy, with a lawyer, who represents me, who should therefore be forced to resign, immediately, or be fired. He’s not that good, anyway, and I hope that my very big and beautiful company, now run by my sons, gets rid of him ASAP!”
Harvard was at the center of anti-Israel protests that emerged across the country in the fall of 2023 and the spring of 2024. The university was accused of ignoring antisemitism on campus, and in 2023, then-Harvard President Claudine Gay refused to say before Congress that calling for genocide against Jews violated Harvard’s rules. Gay later apologized for her testimony and shortly after, resigned from her position in the wake of a plagiarism scandal.
Last week, Harvard President Alan M. Garber rejected Trump’s demands for more government oversight of the university, writing, “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
Lawyers representing the university pushed back on the Trump administration’s demands, arguing that they “circumvent Harvard’s statutory rights by requiring unsupported and disruptive remedies for alleged harms that the government has not proven through mandatory processes established by Congress and required by law.” Harvard filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Monday, arguing that the federal government is executing “a pressure campaign” that “violates Harvard’s constitutional rights.”
The Trump administration is also reportedly urging the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status, and the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services have told the university that it “must adopt and implement merit-based hiring policies, and cease all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” by August of this year.
