US President Donald Trump slammed Harvard University as an antisemitic and far-left institution in a Thursday statement following the Ivy League school’s launch of a lawsuit against the federal government.
“Harvard is an antisemitic, far-left Institution, as are numerous others, with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our country apart,” Trump said in a Thursday Truth Social post. “The place is a liberal mess, allowing a certain group of crazed lunatics to enter and exit the classroom and spew fake anger and hate.”
Trump said that since the administration’s crackdown on antisemitism and radicalism at Harvard, including the April 11 policy demands rejected by Harvard on April 14, the university had been acting “All ‘American apple pie.'”
“Harvard is a threat to democracy,” Trump added before appearing to launch an attack on attorney William Burck, who has been working with the Trump Organization, and according to Business Insider, had been hired by Harvard in the suit against the administration. Trump called on him to resign or be fired.
“He’s not that good, anyway, and I hope that my very big and beautiful company, now run by my sons, gets rid of him as soon as possible,” said Trump.
Harvard claims the Trump administration was violating its First Amendment rights
Harvard launched its suit on April 21, claiming that the Trump administration was violating its First Amendment rights and exceeding its statutory and constitutional authority by making arbitrary and capricious threats against $9 billion in federal grants and contracts.
The Trump administration had frozen $2.2b. in grants and over $255 million in contracts on April 14, after Harvard President had rejected policy demands by the US Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.
The antisemitism and radicalism reforms demanded a reduction of student and faculty involvement in governance, changing admission and hiring practices to embrace viewpoint diversity and rejecting discrimination based on immutable characteristics, reforming programs and schools, and banning radical student groups. Garber said that the demands would have allowed the government to exert unprecedented control over the university.
The federal government continued to exert pressure, with Trump threatening to revoke the university’s tax-exempt status, and a further cancellation of $2.7m. in grants by the Department of Homeland Security last Thursday. The DHS had also threatened to revoke certification that would allow the university to host international students if it did not provide information on foreign students’ illegal or violent activities.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday that the elite research institution put itself in the position to lose federal funding.
