The White House has made known that Harvard has been far too permissive towards antisemitism on campus and is prepared to take unprecedented action against the hallowed institution to ensure the safety of its students. In a letter penned by Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon, the administration admonished the University with a list of grievances, beginning with the vitriol towards Jewish students and including improper vetting of a dean and offering remedial math classes. She wrote, “You have an approximately $53 billion head start, much of which was made possible by the fact that you are living within the walls of, and benefiting from, the prosperity secured by the United States of America and its free-market system you teach your students to despise.”
While rampant antisemitism in the wake of the October 2024 Hamas attack on Israel triggered the sanction, the letter detailed a long history of additional questionable behavior on behalf of the University and offers an arduous path back toward good graces.
The letter arrives after Harvard filed suit against the federal government in April following Trump’s requests for better behavior, which included protection for Jewish students, eliminating racial preferences, and general changes to admissions policy. The University declined to take action.
President Trump has also suggested that the school may lose its tax-exempt status, an action that could potentially impact the institution more broadly than a simple loss of funds. Contributions to the school would no longer be tax deductible, significantly lessening the impetus to donate altogether. Furthermore, the shift would make Harvard liable for property taxes on the nearly half a billion dollars of prime Boston and Cambridge real estate it owns- currently not on city and state rolls. This portion of the punishment may garner bipartisan support, as even ultra-progressive lawmakers oppose the massive discount extended to the wealthy institution while the University buys up already scarce urban housing. It is estimated that in fiscal year 2023, Harvard saved at least $158 million in property taxes, not even considering other types of circumvented levies.
Until the first Trump administration, all private universities were entirely exempt from federal income tax, a massive savings for such entities. In 2017, under the Tax Cuts and Job Acts, a 1.4% burden was implemented. During Biden’s brief tenure, a pre-VP Vance introduced a bill seeking to increase such contributions to 35% at institutions whose endowments totaled over $10 billion, which failed to gain sufficient support. If Vance’s vision had materialized, Harvard would have owed $1.79 billion to the federal government in 2024.
While there has been long-established tension between the President and hyper-liberal academia, it was the mistreatment of Jewish students following the brutal invasion of Israel last October that catalyzed drastic response. Harassment of students on campus, defacement of posters depicting Israeli hostages, and antisemitic online messaging became overwhelming, leading a group of Jewish students to file suit against the University in 2024. That brave group, with the help of the Trump administration, is finally shedding light on the hurtful discrimination unfolding on college campuses toward Jewish students, causing some to hide their identity entirely.
In early 2024, Harvard University President Claudine Gay stepped down from her position in part due to disturbing congressional testimony during which she would not directly confirm that calling for a genocide of Jews on campus would constitute a violation of school policy. She had been hired just months prior.
Similar investigations were launched into 60 institutions of higher education by the Trump administration in March, and consequences are beginning to be levied. Columbia University in New York City lost $400 million in funding over its handling- or lack thereof- of anti-Israel protests last year. In response, they have terminated 180 employees.
The day the funding cuts were announced, anti-Israel protesters stormed and overtook the Columbia University library, tragically injuring two security guards. Many of them covered their faces and heads, and approximately 80 were arrested by the NYPD. How the University responds to this disruption- during final exam times when Jewish students were simply trying to access a library they are very much entitled to use- could be telling in how it intends to cooperate with the Trump administration.
As an additional issue, the University also ranks as the single largest private landowner in New York City, the most expensive real estate in the nation, with 350,000 locals remaining homeless. With an almost $4 billion real estate portfolio, the school owns a staggering 320 individual properties in the city. Its tax-exempt status allows the University to retain nearly $200 million annually, a figure that quadrupled over the past fifteen years due to massive real estate investment. If they were to lose tax-exempt status, the entire nature of the University would immediately change.
While schools that receive federal funding and tax breaks need to be allowed an extent of academic and cultural freedom, such sovereignty cannot be maintained once students are afraid to be on campus. The Jewish students of American Universities, like each of their peers, are entitled to their own protected expression, including that of religion or national origin.
Furthermore, general federal funding and tax exemption of private colleges that own billions in real estate and exponentially more in general endowment is morally questionable against a backdrop of homelessness and food insecurity, often in the very cities they occupy. Columbia is removing buildings from the housing stock and tax dollars from the city and state budget, all the while accepting fewer local students year after year and offering no protection to others. The Trump administration’s review of American colleges and universities is well overdue, and ideally, an era of accountability for academia is on the horizon.
Do you agree that Harvard University should lose its tax-exempt status? Is it federal overreach into education?
Hilary Gunn is a Connecticut native with a degree in Criminal Justice from the George Washington University. She works for a nonprofit and has previously collaborated with the CT GOP as an activist, political campaign manager and field director, and social media organizer. She is currently serving in her fourth term of municipal office and has previously acted as a delegate on the Republican Town Committee.