By SUSAN JONES
Much of the news in higher education during the past two weeks has revolved around Harvard University and its response to the Trump administration, which has said it is reviewing $9 billion in federal contracts and grants to the school as part of a crackdown on what the administration says is antisemitism that erupted on college campuses during pro-Palestinian protests.
On April 14, Harvard rejected policy changes requested by the Trump administration. The demands included reducing the power of students and faculty members over the university’s affairs; reporting foreign students who commit conduct violations immediately to federal authorities; and bringing in an outside party to ensure that each academic department is “viewpoint diverse,” among other steps.
Harvard, the national’s wealthiest university, became the first school to directly refuse to comply with the administration’s demands, which is essentially called illegal. “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.
The administration responded the same day by freezing $2.2 billion in multiyear grants and $60 million in multiyear contract value — an announcement that came from the White House’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.
On April 15, President Trump threatened Harvard University’s tax-exempt status after the school rebuffed his administration’s demands for a series of policy changes.
Then on April 16, the Trump administration threatened to block Harvard from enrolling international students unless the school hands over detailed records about the student body, in another escalation of the federal government’s fight against higher education.
A letter from Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, asked for “relevant information” on each student visa holder at Harvard who had been involved in “known illegal” or “dangerous” activity, according to the New York Times. Noem also canceled nearly $3 million in agency grants to Harvard, according to a statement from the federal agency.
In other news
Issues continued to swirl around federal funding and visas for international students.
Late March: The U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce sent Northwestern a letter, chastising the university’s Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic for providing free representation to activists who blocked a Chicago highway in protest of the Israel-Hamas war, according to Inside Higher Education. The committee demanded that Northwestern hand over all written policies related to the legal clinics. After a group of law professors sued over the request, the committee backed off in early April.
Early April: On April 1, the New York Times reported that representatives the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), told National Endowment for the Humanities managers it was looking to cut as much as 70 to 80 percent of the agency’s roughly 180-person staff. The next day, humanities councils in all 50 states received notice that their grants were being terminated. The National Humanities Alliance, which supports humanities and NEH funding on Capitol Hill, said they believe at least 1,200 grants have been terminated.
April 4
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The Association for Education Finance and Policy and the Institute for Higher Education Policy filed a federal lawsuit against Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and the Department of Education, challenging what they describe as the unlawful dismantling of the Institute of Education Sciences, according to Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. The two education policy groups allege that the department has effectively rendered IES non-functional through a massive staff reduction and the cancellation of numerous research contracts. According to the complaint, the department recently implemented a reduction in force affecting 90% of IES staff and terminated dozens of contracts that support congressionally mandated research.
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The Education and Justice Departments announced they are creating a special investigations team to address “a staggering volume of Title IX complaints,” Inside Higher Education reported.
April 8
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The New York Times reported that the Trump administration has frozen more than $1 billion in funding for Cornell and $790 million for Northwestern amid civil rights investigations into both schools related to pro-Palestinian protests, according to two U.S. officials. The funding pause involves mostly grants from and contracts with the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education and Health and Human Services, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the unannounced decision.
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The Trump administration announced it is cutting nearly $4 million in federal funding for climate change research at Princeton University, saying that the work promoted “exaggerated and implausible climate threats” and increased “climate anxiety” among young Americans.
April 9: President Trump signed a directive removing the security clearances of University of Pennsylvania community members. The directive ordered the Department of Justice to investigate Miles Taylor, a former senior Department of Homeland Security official who has criticized the president and who taught an undergraduate course at Penn, the president’s alma mater, in fall 2023. Trump’s memo asks the attorney general, the director of national intelligence and other relevant department and agency heads to suspend the security clearances held by Taylor “and any individuals at entities associated with Taylor, including the University of Pennsylvania.” According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Penn does not conduct classified research and has no security clearance.
April 10: The University of Florida signed an agreement to partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help crack down on undocumented students, according to The Independent Florida Alligator, a student publication. A UF spokesperson told The Florida Phoenix that the university had agreed to deputize campus police as immigration officers but did not provide more details. A UF student from Colombia was stopped by ICE agents in late March for driving with an expired registration. He eventually chose to self-deport.
April 11
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A Louisiana immigration judge said Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil — a legal permanent resident — can be deported after the government argued his presence posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences.” The decision came after the federal government submitted evidence to the court, including a memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, alleging Khalil, an Algerian citizen who was involved in pro-Palestinian protests last year, is deportable because of his “beliefs, statements or associations” that would compromise U.S. foreign policy interests. Khalil’s attorneys said they would appeal.
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A group of higher education associations and research universities sued the U.S. Department of Energy over its newly announced policy to limit grant funding for indirect costs to 15% (down from an average 30%), arguing the move would “devastate scientific research,” according to Higher Ed Dive. The plaintiffs include the American Council on Education, Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, among others. They assert that the Energy Department’s 15% cap is a “virtual carbon copy” of a similar policy adopted by the National Institutes of Health in February and permanently blocked by a federal judge earlier this month. On April 16, a federal judge in Massachusetts temporarily blocked the DOE from implementing its plan.
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Columbia University, which has faced criticism for not striking a more defiant stand against efforts by the Trump administration to set its agenda, showed signs of adopting a tougher tone. In a note sent to the campus, the acting president pledged that the school would not allow the federal government to “require us to relinquish our independence and autonomy.”
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A Palestinian man who led protests against the war in Gaza as a student at Columbia University was arrested at a Vermont immigration office where he expected to be interviewed about finalizing his U.S. citizenship, his attorneys said. Mohsen Mahdawi is a legal permanent resident who has held a green card since 2015.
April 16: The Washington Post reported that 38 of 43 experts cut last month from the boards that review the science and research that happens in laboratories at the National Institutes of Health are female, Black or Hispanic, according to an analysis by the chairs of a dozen of the boards. About a fifth of the roughly 200 board members — who provide an independent, expert layer of review for the vast research enterprise within the NIH — were fired.
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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