Trump’s administration wants broad government and leadership reforms at the university, besides sweeping changes to its admissions policies. It also demanded the university for audit views of diversity on campus and stop recognizing some student clubs

Boston: Elite US university Harvard is risking $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts in federal funding as it rejects a list of sweeping demands

that the Trump administration said are intended to crack down on campus antisemitism.

The hold on Harvard’s funding marks the seventh time President Donald Trump’s administration has taken the step at one of the nation’s most elite colleges, to force compliance with Trump’s political agenda. Six of the seven schools are in the Ivy League.

In a letter to Harvard on Friday last, Trump’s administration had called for broad government and leadership reforms at the university, as well as changes to its admissions policies. It also demanded the university audit views of diversity on campus and stop recognizing some student clubs.

The federal government said almost $9 billion in grants and contracts in total were at risk if Harvard did not comply. On Monday, Harvard President Alan Garber said the university would not bend to the government’s demands. “The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” Garber said in a letter to the Harvard community. “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.” Hours later, the government froze billions in Harvard’s federal funding.

The first university targeted by the Trump administration was Columbia, which acquiesced to the government’s demands under the threat of billions of dollars in cuts. The administration also has paused federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, Princeton, Cornell and Northwestern.

Trump’s administration has normalized the extraordinary step of withholding federal money to pressure major academic institutions to comply with the president’s political agenda and to influence campus policy. The administration has argued universities allowed antisemitism to go unchecked at campus protests last year against Israel’s war in Gaza. Harvard, Garber said, already has made extensive reforms to address antisemitism. He said many of the government’s demands don’t relate to antisemitism but instead are an attempt to regulate the “intellectual conditions” at Harvard.

Withholding federal funding from Harvard, one of the nation’s top research universities in science and medicine, “risks not only the health and well-being of millions of individuals but also the economic security and vitality of our nation.” It also violates the university’s First Amendment rights and exceeds the government’s authority under Title VI, which prohibits discrimination against students based on their race, color or national origin, Garber said.