WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is demanding a $1 billion payment from Harvard University to end his protracted standoff with the academic institution, doubling the amount he had previously requested as the sides appear to be moving away from a deal.
The president raised the amount in a social media message Monday night, saying Harvard has been “behaving very badly.” He stated that the university must pay the government directly as part of any agreement, something that Harvard has opposed, and that his administration wants “nothing more to do” with that university in the future.
Trump’s comments on Truth Social were in response to a New York Times report that the president withdrew his demand for a financial payment. Trump denied he was backing down.
Harvard officials have not commented.
Trump’s outburst appears to leave both sides firmly entrenched in a conflict that Trump had previously said was coming to an end.
Last June, Trump declared that a deal was just days away from being finalized and that Harvard had acted “very appropriately” during negotiations. He later said a deal was being finalized that would require Harvard to commit $500 million to creating a “series of trade schools” instead of a payment to the government.
That deal appears to have completely fallen apart. In his social media post, Trump declared that the trade school proposal had been rejected because it was “complicated” and “totally inadequate.”
Harvard has long been Trump’s top target in his campaign to force universities to do his bidding. The government has stripped Harvard of billions of dollars in research funding and attempted to block its enrollment of foreign students after the campus rejected a series of government demands last April.
The White House maintains it is punishing Harvard for tolerating anti-Jewish bias on campus.
In a pair of lawsuits, Harvard charged that it is being unfairly penalized for refusing to adopt the administration’s views. A federal judge agreed with that in December, reversing the funding cuts and calling the anti-Semitism argument a “smokescreen.”
Trump’s latest escalation comes as his other attempts to control higher education are faltering.
Last fall, the White House invited nine universities to join a “compact” that offered funding priority in exchange for adopting Trump’s agenda. None of the schools accepted. In January, the administration dropped its defense of a Department of Education document that threatened to cut funding to schools over diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
When he took office for his second term, Trump promised to lash out at elite universities that he said had been overrun by liberal thinking and anti-Jewish bias. Its officials have frozen huge sums of research funds, which universities have come to rely on for scientific and medical research.
Several universities have reached agreements with the White House to restore funding. Some deals have included direct payments to the government, including $200 million from Columbia University. Brown University agreed to pay $50 million to state workforce development groups.
___________________________________
The Associated Press’ education coverage is supported by several private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for the content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropic organizations, a list of foundations and the areas of coverage they fund at AP.org.
___________________________________
This story was translated from English by an AP editor using a generative artificial intelligence tool.
