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Donald Trump escalated his campaign against Harvard University on Monday, threatening to take away $3bn in grants and lashing out at some of its foreign students as “radicalized lunatics”.
Trump said he would consider removing the money from Harvard and giving it to trade schools in the US. “What a great investment that would be for the USA, and so badly needed!!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
In a separate post he railed against the university’s international students, saying he was waiting on Harvard to supply “foreign student lists” so that the US government could determine “how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country”.
The comments intensify Trump’s attacks on Harvard since his inauguration as US president in January, including a freeze of more than $2.2bn in federal funding for grants at the university.
Trump has also threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status and called for a probe into foreign gifts and donations. In April, his administration called for tight oversight over Harvard’s governance including faculty appointments. The university launched a lawsuit in response.
The Ivy League school has become the centrepiece of Trump’s attacks on US higher education institutions and drawn fears of a crackdown on free speech. The administration has also opened probes into more than 60 universities for alleged failures to tackle antisemitism.
The moves have triggered cost-cutting across the sector, as universities react to the US government’s cancellation of billions of dollars in federal health, energy and science grants. Republicans in Congress have also moved to increase taxes on richer universities’ endowments.
The US president’s attack on Monday came days after a judge in Boston temporarily blocked the Trump administration from trying to bar Harvard from enrolling international students.
Harvard had filed a motion against the US government and posted on X: “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”
Alan Garber, the university’s president, who called the revocation of its right to host international students “unlawful and unwarranted” and “destructive”, stressed that “Harvard did respond to the Department’s requests as required by law”.
The stand-off between the Trump administration and the universities has increased anxiety across US faculties about the durability of support for research activities, as well as their ability to attract international students — an important source of talent and tuition fees.
Several US-based academics have explored emigrating to universities in Canada, Europe and Asia.
The administration has arrested and detained international students and last month revoked thousands of their visas, before temporarily reinstating them.
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