Cambridge, Massachusetts - Republicans in announced an investigation into Harvard University on Thursday, accusing it of flouting civil rights law in an escalation of President 's attacks on elite institutions over solidarity protests.
Republicans in Congress have announced an investigation into Harvard University in an escalation of President Donald Trump's attacks on elite institutions. © Joseph Prezioso / AFP
The lawmakers wrote to the world-renowned education and research establishment demanding documents on its hiring practices, diversity programs, and last year's campus protests.
The letter – signed by House Oversight Committee chair James Comer and House leadership chair Elise Stefanik – came with Trump seeking unprecedented levels of control over the country's oldest and wealthiest university.
Comer and Stefanik castigated Harvard President Alan Garber for rejecting demands for supervision by the White House, which has and threatened further reprisals.
"Harvard is apparently so unable or unwilling to prevent unlawful discrimination that the institution, at your direction, is refusing to enter into a reasonable settlement agreement proposed by federal officials intended to put Harvard back in compliance with the law," they told Garber.
"No matter how entitled your behavior, no institution is entitled to violate the law."
The investigation was announced after Trump – for rejecting oversight of its admissions, hiring practices, and political slant – on Wednesday called the storied seat of learning a "joke."
Harvard is just the latest in a series of top universities and other institutions in the administration's crosshairs.
But while New York's to less far-ranging demands, Harvard flatly rejected the pressure, saying it would not "negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights."
Donald Trump has said Harvard should lose its government research contracts and tax-exempt status. © Brendan Smialowski / AFP
Trump said Harvard should lose its government research contracts and , while administration officials threatened to ban the school from admitting foreigners, who make up more than a quarter of the student roll.
Trump has also targeted Brown, Cornell, Northwestern, Pennsylvania, and Princeton, threatening each with freezes of between $175 million and $1 billion, according to US media.
Republicans have said their campaign against universities is a response to what they call antisemitism, following student protests against Israel's war on Gaza that swept campuses last year.
Columbia – an – agreed last month to oversight of its Middle Eastern studies department after being threatened with a loss of $400 million in federal funds.
Harvard staff and students rallied against the Trump administration in a campus protest Thursday aimed at encouraging university leadership to hold the line, research fellow Avi Steinberg told AFP.
"They actually want Harvard to make good on its promises to its students and its faculty to protect every single student on campus, to protect the faculty and especially faculty free speech," he said.
