Harvard says NO to Trump Conditions….

The nation’s TOP Prestige University has turned down the Trump Government arm twisting using Federal taxpayers funds to have the school adhere to Trump’s conditions…

And we’re talking about BILLIONS of Dollars.…

The Trump administration acted quickly on Monday to punish Harvard University after it refused to comply with a list of demands from the federal government that the school said were too onerous.

On Monday afternoon, Harvard became the first university to refuse to comply with the administration’s requirements, setting up a showdown between the federal government and the nation’s wealthiest university. By the evening, federal officials said they would freeze $2.2 billion in multiyear grants to Harvard, along with a $60 million contract.

Other universities have pushed back against the administration’s interference in higher education. But Harvard’s response, which called the Trump administration’s demands illegal, marked a major shift in tone for the nation’s most influential school, which has been criticized in recent weeks for capitulating to Trump administration pressure.

A letter the Trump administration sent to Harvard on Friday demanded that the university reduce the power of students and faculty members over the university’s affairs; report foreign students who commit conduct violations immediately to federal authorities; and bring in an outside party to ensure that each academic department is “viewpoint diverse,” among other steps. The administration did not define what it meant by viewpoint diversity, but it has generally referred to seeking a range of political views, including conservative perspectives.

“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,” said Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, in a statement to the university on Monday.

Since taking office in January, the Trump administration has aggressively targeted universities, saying it is investigating dozens of schools as it moves to eradicate diversity efforts and what it says is rampant antisemitism on campus. Officials have suspended hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds for research at universities across the country.

The administration has taken a particular interest in a short list of the nation’s most prominent schools…

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The changes would have violated principles that are held dear on colleges campuses, including academic freedom.

Some of the actions that the Trump administration demanded of Harvard were:

• Conducting plagiarism checks on all current and prospective faculty members.

• Sharing all its hiring data with the Trump administration, and subjecting itself to audits of its hiring while “reforms are being implemented,” at least through 2028.

• Providing all admissions data to the federal government, including information on both rejected and admitted applicants, sorted by race, national origin, grade-point average and performance on standardized tests.

• Immediately shutting down any programming related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

• Overhauling academic programs that the Trump administration says have “egregious records on antisemitism,” including placing certain departments and programs under an external audit. The list includes the Divinity School, the Graduate School of Education, the School of Public Health and the Medical School, among many others….

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The forceful posture taken by Harvard on Monday was applauded across higher education, after universities had drawn widespread criticism for failing to resist Mr. Trump’s attacks more aggressively.

Harvard itself had been under fire for a series of moves in recent months that faculty members said were taken to placate Mr. Trump, including hiring a lobbying firm with close ties to the president and pushing out the faculty leaders of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies….

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In a related development, nine major research universities and three university associations sued the Trump administration on Monday to restore $400 million in funding that the Energy Department said it was slashing last week….

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