WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he is considering redirecting $3 billion in previously awarded grant money for scientific and engineering research from Harvard University to trade schools.
His remarks on his social media platform, Truth Social, come less than a week after his administration attempted to prevent the Ivy League school from enrolling foreign students as part of Trump’s extraordinary effort to seize some government control over American academia.
Trump, a Republican, has frozen approximately $3 billion in federal grants to Harvard in recent weeks, claiming that the university has hired Democrats, “Radical Left idiots, and ‘bird brains'” as professors.
Harvard, a private university, has sued to recoup the funding, claiming that the cuts are an unconstitutional attack on its free speech rights and illegal.
The majority of that grant money is appropriated by Congress for the National Institutes of Health to disburse to fund biomedical research following a lengthy application process by individual scientists, which is not usually done at trade schools.
It was unclear whether Trump was referring to the Harvard grants that his administration had already frozen. Harvard has stated that it was informed earlier in May that nearly all of its federal grant awards had been revoked in a series of letters from the NIH, the US Forest Service, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and other agencies.
The letters stated that the grants were being suspended because they “no longer effectuate agency priorities.”
Harvard did not respond to a request for comment on Monday. The White House declined to answer questions about the specific funds Trump wishes to repurpose or how they could be reallocated to trade schools under the law.
On Friday, a US judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from revoking Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students, which the university claimed was part of Trump’s larger effort to retaliate against it for refusing to “surrender its academic independence.”
The order provides temporary relief to thousands of international students who were facing the prospect of having to transfer due to a policy that the university in Cambridge, Massachusetts described as a “blatant violation” of the United States Constitution and other federal laws.
It claimed that the move would have a “immediate and devastating effect” on the university and over 7,000 visa holders.
Harvard enrolled nearly 6,800 international students this school year, accounting for 27% of total enrollment and a significant portion of tuition revenue.
The move was the latest escalation in a larger battle between Harvard and the White House, as Trump seeks to compel universities, law firms, the news media, courts, and other institutions to support his agenda. Trump and other Republicans have long accused elite universities of left-wing bias.
In recent weeks, the administration has proposed ending Harvard’s tax-exempt status and raising taxes on its endowment, as well as opening an investigation into whether the university violated civil rights laws by discriminating against “white, Asian, male, or straight employees” or job or training program applicants.
Harvard has stated that its hiring and admissions practices comply with the law.