Harvard’s federal funding at risk amid alleged violations of students’ civil rights

Donald Trump has been trying to find ways to block Harvard’s federal funding, and he may have just stumbled onto something.

A president cannot do more than freeze funding for about 45 days if it has already been approved and signed off on, but Trump is taking a new angle.

The administration recently ruled that Harvard has violated the civil rights of students, so get ready to head to court again.

Freeze it

So, as we have reported before, any funding that has been approved by Congress and signed off on by a president must be paid out.

A president can freeze money for as many as 45 days, but that is about as long as it can be held unless Congress passes a rescission package to pull back the funding.

The Office for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is now making the case that the school has violated the civil rights of its students regarding the antisemitic behavior on campus.

HHS accused the school of being “in some cases deliberately indifferent, and in others has been a willful participant in anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students, faculty, and staff.”

The agency goes on to say that unless changes are immediately made, all federal funding will cease.

The letter stated, “Harvard’s commitment to racial hierarchies — where individuals are sorted and judged according to their membership in an oppressed group identity and not individual merit — has enabled anti-Semitism to fester on Harvard’s campus and has led a once great institution to humiliation, offering remedial math and forcing Jewish students to hide their identities and ancestral stories.”

The communication then goes on to list all of the alleged violations and lack of discipline against the individuals alleged to have committed the acts at issue.

The letter goes on, “These facts, while tragic for the individuals involved, are important to address for a broader, historical reason as well. As history has proven, the failure to face the reality of anti-Semitism can have catastrophic effects.”

It continues, “The Holocaust engulfed Europe due to the ‘[d]isbelief, incredulity, and denial on the part of both victims and onlookers’ which ‘worked to the advantage of those who wanted to eradicate the Jews.’”

While I know the issue will be litigated, the administration could be on to something in terms of being able to block funding for these violations, as long as it can prove them to be true, and make no mistake about it, it will have to prove them.

So far, all of Trump’s threats to hold back funding have been defeated, but I think he could be on to something here. And if he is, and this holds up, it would be a crushing blow to Harvard.

Having said that, I would love to see how much spending in the big, beautiful bill still goes to these schools with massive endowments. If they continue to fund these schools, I want an explanation of why.