Harvard University filed a lawsuit against the US President Donald Trump’s $ 2.3 billion -worth freezing fundal fund freezing after rejecting these demands, stating that the demands of the White House will damage the independence.
In the petition submitted to the Federal Court in Boston, Trump stated that he aims to purify universities from anti -Semitism and ideological prejudices.
Harvard said that the steps of the Trump administration were arbitrary and illegal, and also violated the freedom of expression within the scope of the first constitutional amendment.
White House spokesman Harrison Fields said in a statement, “Federal aid provided to institutions such as Harvard ends. Taxpayer funds are privileges and Harvard does not fulfill the necessary conditions to obtain this privilege,” he said.
Trump, who has been pressing the leading universities of the United States since January when he started to serve as president, accused these universities of last year’s pro -Palestinian demonstrations of poor managing pro -Palestinian demonstrations and tolerate the spread of antisemitism on campuses. However, demonstrators and some Jewish groups stated that it was wrong to confuse Israel’s criticism of military activities in Gaza with anti -Semitism.
Harvard was the first university to sue against Trump’s pressures.
In March, the Trump administration began to examine Harvard’s $ 9 billion federal fund and then presented a wide list of demands to the university. These demands include the prohibition of masks and the termination of all diversity, equality and inclusion programs.
The Trump administration later froze the $ 2.3 billion fund for Harvard and threatened to cancel the tax exemption of the university and stop the acceptance of foreign students. He also requested information about the university’s foreign connections, financing, students and faculty members.
The Trump administration also stopped some financing against these universities due to campus protests in universities such as Columbia, Princeton, Cornell, Northwestern and Brown.
