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AS The Trump administration cracked for months on what President said that anti -Semitism and left -wing ideology were checked on campuses, even the most sought after and wealthy universities of the country seemed on their back foot.
In March, Columbia agreed to a greasy, unprecedented set of claims: the creation of a new campus policing force to remove student protesters; By placing a foreign department under outside control to win potential access to $ 400 million in essential federal funds, the same month has decreased his second president in the 12 -month period.
At least 60 universities have been warned that they may soon be to lose hundreds of millions or even billions of rands in federal financing if they do not match the president’s vision on campus citizen rights, which have categorized all those involved in campus Pro-Palestinian protesters, including scores of Jewish student leaders.
At the end of March, the administration was still making its bravest pressure and threatened to cut off about $ 9 billion in federal financing at Harvard.
To maintain the funding, the administration warned, the university must agree to demands such as ending diversity programs, to work with federal immigration officials, investigate international students for their views, recognition of pro-Palestine student groups and subject to a wide ‘viewpoint diversity’ audit.
Then, in the last few days, Harvard, the oldest and richest university of the country, began to push back powerfully as any of the other five Ivy League schools facing the threats of funding of administration.
It began on Friday when a group of Harvard faculty sued the administration on the claims, claiming that Trump was “utilizing” at the same time and ignored the provisions such as the Civil Rights Act, which prohibited discrimination at federal funded institutions.
The case claims that the administration did not follow the steps set out in the federal statute that came before a university can be transferred under civil rights legislation.
“Threats like these are an existential ‘gun to the head’ for a university, ‘the complaint says. “They are trying to openly impose on the political views and policy preferences of the Trump administration in Harvard University and the university commits to punishing unfavorable speech.”
Over the weekend, hundreds joined protests near the campus against the Trump claims.
Then, Monday, the university issued its biggest response to Trump, with messages from the University’s attorneys and Harvard President Alan Garber that the school would not agree to the claims.
“No government – regardless of which party is in power – should determine what private universities can learn, who they can acknowledge and rent, and what study areas and investigation they can pursue,” Garber wrote.
University attorneys on Monday, in a letter to Trump administration officials, argued that the White House ignored the university’s work to combat anti -Semitism and that “instead claimed that, contrary to the first amendment, the university freedoms had recognized by the Supreme Court.”
“The university will not surrender its independence or renounce its constitutional rights,” the advocates added.
Hours later, the Trump administration announced that it has billions of rands as dollars federal funding.
The federal joint task force to combat anti-Semitism, which consists of various federal agencies, including the Department of Justice and Education, announced a “freezing at $ 2.2 billion to perennial grants and $ 60 million to perennial contract value at Harvard University.”
The task force did not specify which programs the grants were related to.
The collision is likely to go to the courts now.
Other ivies facing financing cuts have also suggested that they may fight back, such as Princeton, whose federal funded work with the Department of Energy, NASA and the Department of Defense were suspended at the beginning of April.
“The University of Princeton will comply with the law,” Princeton President Chris Eisgruber said in a statement at the time. “We are committed to fighting anti -Semitism and all forms of discrimination, and we will work with the government to combat anti -Semitism. Princeton will also vigorously defend academic freedom and the rights of these university rights.”
But write in The Atlantic Ocean last month, Claimgruber warned that the country “has entered the greatest threat to American universities since the red terror of the 1950s.”
University campuses have emerged as the most important battlefield over the Trump administration’s signature policy priorities.
The attempted deportations of the non-citizen campus-Pro-Palestine activists have spurred lawsuits and protests, and also the efforts of the administration by the Doge Push to reduce federal spending by cutting federal funded academic research by the National Institutes of Health.
Donald Trump allegedly decided at the beginning of this month to make a specific example of Harvard as part of his larger agenda.
“What if we never pay them?” Reportedly, Trump said after a lunch in the White House on April 1, a source familiar with the conversation told The New York Times. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“Not only do we want to submit lawsuits – we want to force a cultural change in how Jewish Americans are being treated on university campuses,” the attorney -General Pam Bondi, a member of the task force of the administration to combat anti -Semitism, told the newspaper.
The members of the task force are largely known to the public, and some of the universities directed for lost financing said they found out about the possible cuts by news reports or do not know exactly why they are being targeted.
With scores more colleges and universities being investigated, the conflict just seems to continue.
Universities are not the only entities in civil society facing Faustian choices of the administration.
President Trump has threatened law firms that represent political opponents with the loss of their safety clearances and access to federal buildings and government contractors as clients.
In response, scores of top enterprises reached agreements with the administration to avoid sanctions, and offered hundreds of millions of dollars of pro bono legal work to support the beneficiary causes of the administration.
Others chose to challenge the administration, including firm Susman Godfrey, who sued Trump on Friday and at least became the fourth firm targeted by the White House to file a lawsuit.
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