Harvard: Trump administration freezes $2.2 billion in grants

US President Donald Trump's administration said on Monday, it would freeze more than $2.2 billion (€1.94 billion) in grants and $60 million in contracts with Harvard.

It comes only hours after Harvard became the first university to refuse to comply with numerous Trump administration demands.

How did Harvard react to the demands from the Trump administration?

"The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights," the university's president, Alan Garber, said in a letter to the Harvard community ahead of the government's decision.

"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."

In a letter on Friday, the US Department of Education said that Harvard had "failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment."

The department called on Harvard to reduce the influence of faculty, staff and students who are "more committed to activism than scholarship."

Harvard alumni protest Trump threats

The pressure from the Trump administration prompted a group of alumni to write to university leaders, calling on them to "legally contest and refuse to comply with unlawful demands that threaten academic freedom and university self-governance."

"Harvard stood up today for the integrity, values, and freedoms that serve as the foundation of higher education," Anurima Bhargava, one of the alumni behind the letter, said. "Harvard reminded the world that learning, innovation and transformative growth will not yield to bullying and authoritarian whims."

It also sparked a protest over the weekend from members of the Harvard community and from residents of Cambridge, as well as a lawsuit from the American Association of University Professors on Friday.

In their lawsuit, plaintiffs argue that the Trump administration has acted too hastily, failing to follow steps required under Title VI before it starts slashing grants, and giving notice of the reduction to both the university and Congress.

"These sweeping yet indeterminate demands are not remedies targeting the causes of any determination of noncompliance with federal law," plaintiffs wrote. "Instead, they overtly seek to impose on Harvard University political views and policy preferences advanced by the Trump administration and commit the University to punishing disfavored speech."

Trump's White House targets universities

Several students and faculty members at colleges across the United States have been targeted and detained by federal agents in recent weeks amid the Trump administration's crackdown on activism at college campuses, which has taken aim at pro-Palestinian student activists and critics of the Israeli government.

The Trump administration said the activism of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student at Columbia University, could harm US foreign policy despite being "lawful."

A US immigration judge ruled on Friday that Khalil can be deported because his beliefs threaten national security.

Khalil, a permanent US resident and vocal pro-Palestinian activist, was arrested on March 8, becoming the first student detained under Trump's crackdown on Gaza war protesters.

"The Trump administration's actions against universities, their researchers and their students have no recent precedent in US history," according to Columbia University law professor David Pozen.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration has revoked the visas of "maybe more than 300" people allegedly tied to pro-Palestinian university protests.

Edited by: Alex Berry