The US President Donald Trump attacked again at university Harvard And he threatened to remove his tax advantages.
“Perhaps Harvard University may have to lose the tax exemption status and be taxed as a political entity if it continues to defend its political, ideological and terrorist inspiration” madness “,” US President Donald Trump wrote in Truth.
It is recalled that the US Department of Education It has been frozen since yesterday (14/04/202) Federal grants of $ 2.2 billion to the Foundation.
Harvard University is located near Boston and has a fortune of over $ 50 billion while enjoying exemptions from the federal government as well as from the state of Massachusetts.
Harvard, like other US universities, has become a theater of student mobilizations against the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip. The target of Donald Trump’s attack has just taken the White House “keys”.
“The harassment of Jewish students is unbearable,” said a statement by the US Department of Education. “It is time for elite universities to take the problem seriously and commit to making significant changes if they want to continue to enjoy taxpayers’ support.”
It is noted that the Trump government sent an e-mail to Harvard last Friday demanding the university to immediately notify the federal authorities the names of foreign students who exhibit inappropriate behavior and to refer to a third external factor to confirm that each school has a “variety”.
He also asked the richest University of the United States “control” the views of students and the body of teachers.
Harvard’s response
“Harvard is not ready to accept the demands that go beyond its legal power and any other government,” the university replied in a letter signed by its lawyers.
The government’s demands “contradict the first amendment” of the American Constitution that guarantees fundamental freedoms, especially freedom of expression.
In a letter addressed to students and teachers, Alan Garber University president assures that Harvard “will not dispel its independence or the Constitution guaranteed rights”.
“No government, whatever the party in power, should dictate to private universities what to teach, who can register or hire, nor what objects they can conduct,” writes Alan Garber.
At the same time, he argued that Harvard has already made significant changes to address anti -Semitism and improve climate on campus, including disciplinary penalties, investment in ideological polyphony and security enhancement. However, as he said, the government has chosen to ignore these actions and impose conditions that violate the independence of the academic community.
“The university will not deliver its independence nor will it disrupt its constitutional rights,” he wrote, among other things.
“Congratulations to Harvard who refused to dismiss his constitutional rights towards Trump’s authoritarianism,” said Senator Bernie Sanders.
Eliz Stefanik, a member of the House of Representatives, a man of Donald Trump and a graduate of Harvard, called for the discontinuation of university funding as “the incarnation of moral and academic decline in higher education”.
Federal grants account for 11% of Harvard’s revenue, whose annual budget amounts to $ 6.4 billion, according to published data from the University of Cambridge in the Boston region.