The administration of President Donald Trump has taken a hard line against top US universities over their responses to pro-Palestine protests, as well as their diversity initiatives and curricula.
The move on Thursday to block Harvard University from enrolling foreign students represents the latest escalation in a months-long standoff, which critics say has been rooted in unfounded claims of rampant anti-Semitism.
In a statement, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the administration was “holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus”.
Harvard has called the latest move “unlawful” and a “retaliatory action”.
Here’s how we got here:
December 2023: The standoff stretches back to the months following the October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, and the resulting Israeli offensive on Gaza, in which at least 53,655 Palestinians have since been killed.
Then-Harvard President Claudine Gay’s testimony before Congress on the administration’s response to pro-Palestine protests sparks outrage, as elected officials, particularly Republicans, call for greater crackdowns.
Gay subsequently resigns from her post and is replaced by Alan Garber in August 2024.
January 2025: Trump takes office in January 2025, following a campaign where he vowed to crack down on pro-Palestine protests, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, and “woke ideology” on college campuses.
Trump also signs a series of executive orders calling for government agencies to take actions against DEI programmes at private institutions, including universities, and to increase government actions to combat anti-Semitism, particularly on campuses.
February 2025: The US Department of Justice (DOJ) launches a task force to “root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses”.
The task force later announces it will visit 10 schools, saying it was “aware of allegations that the schools may have failed to protect Jewish students and faculty members from unlawful discrimination, in potential violation of federal law”.
The schools include Harvard, as well as Columbia University, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Northwestern University, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Southern California.
March 7, 2025: The Trump administration takes its first action against a US university, slashing $400m in federal funding to Columbia University and accusing the school of “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students”.
A subsequent letter from the Department of Education warns Harvard and dozens of other universities of “potential enforcement actions”.
March 21, 2025: Columbia yields to Trump’s demands, which include banning face masks, empowering campus police with arresting authority, and installing a new administrator to oversee the department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies and the Center for Palestine Studies.
March 31, 2025: The US Departments of Education (ED), Health and Human Services (HHS), and the US General Services Administration (GSA) announce an official review of $255.6m in Harvard contracts and $8.7bn in multi-year grants.
The review is part of the “ongoing efforts of the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism”, the statement said.
April 11, 2025: Harvard is sent a letter saying the university has “failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment” and listing several Trump administration demands.
The demands include a governance overhaul that lessens the power of students and some staff, reforming hiring and admissions practices, refusing to admit students deemed “hostile to the American values and institutions”, doing away with diversity programmes, and auditing several academic programmes and centres, including several related to the Middle East.
April 14, 2025: Harvard President Garber issues a forceful rejection of the demands, writing: “The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights”.
The US administration announces an immediate freeze on funding, including $2.2bn in multi-year grants and $60m in multi-year contracts.
April 15, 2025: In a Truth Social post, Trump floats that Harvard could lose “Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity”. He accuses Harvard of “pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness’”.
April 16, 2025: The Department of Homeland Security calls on Harvard to turn over records on any foreign students’ “illegal and violent activities”, while threatening to revoke the university’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program approval. The certification is required for it to enrol foreign students. Noem gives an April 30 deadline for this.
April 21, 2025: Harvard files a lawsuit against the Trump administration, accusing it of violating the First Amendment of the US Constitution with “arbitrary and capricious” funding cuts.
April 30, 2025: Harvard says it shared information requested by Noem regarding foreign students, but does not release the nature of the information provided.
May 2, 2025: Trump again says the administration will take away Harvard’s tax-exempt status. No action is immediately taken.
May 5, 2025: The Trump administration says it is cutting all new federal grants to Harvard.
May 13, 2025: The US Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announces another $450m in federal funding from eight federal agencies.
May 19, 2025: The DOJ announces it will use the False Claims Act, typically used to punish federal funding recipients accused of corruption, to crack down on universities like Harvard over DEI policies. The Department of Health and Human Services also says it is terminating $60m in federal grants to Harvard.
May 22, 2025: Noem announces revocation of Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program, blocking it from enrolling new foreign students and saying current students will need to transfer to continue their studies.
Harvard responds: “We are fully committed to maintaining Harvard’s ability to host our international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the university – and this nation – immeasurably.”
