After having cut more than 2 billion subsidies at school, Trump threatens to withdraw his tax advantages – Liberation

The Trump administration announced on Monday the freezing of $ 2.2 billion in subsidies at Harvard University, one of the most prestigious in the world, after its refusal to comply with the demands of the White House. Harvard, like other American universities, has been the scene of a student mobilization against the war waged by Israel in Gaza, and targeted by the White House since the return to power of Donald Trump. Which, in a second step this Tuesday, April 15, threatened the institution to withdraw its important tax advantages to it. « Perhaps Harvard should lose its tax exemption and be imposed as a political entity, if it continues to defend its political, ideological » madness « , inspired by/supporting terrorism »wrote the American president on his Truth Social network

« The joint Task force of fight against anti -Semitism announces the freezing of $ 2.2 billion in subsidies over several years »details a press release from the US Ministry of Education, as well as that of « Multi -year contracts worth $ 60 million ». “The disruption of learning that has struck campuses in recent years is unacceptable. The harassment of Jewish students is intolerable. (…) It is time for elite universities to take the problem seriously and undertake to make significant changes if they want to continue to benefit from the support of taxpayers ”, Can we read in the press release.

The US government had announced at the end of March that it was considering Deprive the prestigious university of around $ 9 billion federal subsidies after a « Full exam »accusing him of letting the prosper« Anti -Semitism » on his campus. At the beginning of April, he had transmitted several requirements to the management of the university, including the end of policies aimed at promoting diversity and changes in the programs that « Food anti -Semitic harassment »according to a letter published by The Washington Post.

In a letter addressed to students and the teaching staff, the president of the university, Alan Garber, assured earlier Monday than Harvard « Will not abdicate its independence or its rights guaranteed by the Constitution ». « No government, whatever the ruling party, should dictate to private universities what they must teach, which they can enlist and hire, or on what subjects they can conduct research »he wrote.

The Trump administration had notably called for Harvard a « audit » Opinions of students and the teaching staff, to which the institution had responded in a letter signed by its lawyers: « Harvard is not ready to accept requirements that go beyond the legitimate authority of this administration or any other. » According to them, the requirements the administration are « In contradiction with the first amendment » And « Emped on university freedoms guaranteed for a long time by the Supreme Court ». The first amendment of the American Constitution guarantees fundamental freedoms, in particular freedom of expression.

Federal subsidies represent 11 % of Harvard revenues, on an annual budget of $ 6.4 billion, according to data published by this private university installed in Cambridge, near Boston, in the northeast of the United States.

The government has already cut, for the same reasons, $ 400 million in grants to another prestigious university, that of Columbia in New York, Who, unlike Harvard, has hired drastic reforms requested by the administration in recent weeks to try to recover these funds. The New York institution said it was ready to completely review its management of Student protest movementsto formalize a definition of anti-Semitism or to reform the study departments on the Middle East, South Asia and Africa, which the Trump administration wanted to place « under academic supervision ».

Columbia also said that she was going to have a new order service, hiring « 36 special agents » under training which will have the possibility of« Stop » people or to expel them from the campus, which has become for more than a year the university epicenter of demonstrations in favor of Palestine, when it is judged « appropriate ».

Several students who demonstrated during pro-Palestinian mobilization and holders of a visa or « green card » permanent resident has recently been arrested in the United States. Latest arrest to date: that of Mohsen Mahdawi, student at the University of Columbia and born in a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank occupied by Israel, arrested Monday by immigration agents in an office where he had come to an interview for his naturalization.

He had co-founded a group of Palestinian students in Columbia with Mahmoud Khalil, a figure in the Pro-Palestinian student mobilization in the United States, which the Trump administration has been trying to expel since its arrest on March 8.

Update At 4:38 p.m. with Donald Trump’s threat to deprive Harvard of his tax advantages.