President Donald Trump has pulled the plug on all remaining federal contracts with Harvard University—worth around $100 million—marking his most aggressive move yet against the Ivy League school.
A letter sent Tuesday from the General Services Administration tells government agencies to cut ties with Harvard immediately. “We recommend that your agency terminate for convenience each contract that it determines has failed to meet its standards,” wrote Josh Gruenbaum, the GSA official who also demanded changes to Harvard’s governance and curriculum back in April.
This is just the latest blow. In the past few months, the Trump administration has already frozen or cut over $2.65 billion in federal funding tied to Harvard. The total amount under review: $9 billion.
So why the crackdown?
The administration accuses Harvard of everything from racial bias in admissions—an issue already ruled on by the Supreme Court—to ignoring Jewish students’ safety. The Tuesday letter slams Harvard for showing “a disturbing lack of concern for the safety and wellbeing of Jewish students” and continuing “to engage in race discrimination.”
The university, however, isn’t backing down.
It has refused to hand over full conduct records of foreign students and has pushed back on demands to prove it supports “viewpoint diversity” in its classrooms. Still, Harvard says it’s following the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action and has taken steps to deal with antisemitism on campus.
Harvard President Alan Garber isn’t surprised by the political heat.
“I don’t know fully what the motivations are, but I do know that there are people who are fighting a cultural battle,” he told NPR. “They don’t like what’s happened to campuses, and sometimes they don’t like what we represent.”
The Trump administration has warned all U.S. colleges: protect Jewish students or lose funding. And stop using race in student life decisions—or risk more cuts.
Last month, it sued the Trump administration over a $2.2 billion freeze in federal funds. Then came another $450 million hold. And just last week, the government tried to strip Harvard of its ability to enroll foreign students—only for a federal judge to temporarily block that move.
Harvard claims it’s all retaliation for refusing to follow Trump’s ideological agenda.
But Trump isn’t done. He’s now threatening to cut off another $3 billion and revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status.
Read the letter below:
