Trump government freezes billions for elite university Harvard

In the dispute over the change of course at universities demanded by it, the US government of the private elite university Harvard supports funding money at a billion dollar height. The step was justified with alleged disregard for civil rights and inadequate commitment to anti -Semitism at the renowned university, which does not want to meet a number of government claims.

A total of US President Donald Trump had $ 2.2 billion (1.9 billion euros) on several years of grants and $ 60 million in government contracts with Harvard.

The government, based in Cambridge in the US state of Massachusetts, demanded several changes in a letter on Friday and asked them to receive various obligations. In the letter, the university asked to report foreign students to the federal authorities in violation of the rules of conduct, to have the diversity of opinion checked among university students and university staff, and to end the approval of students and to terminate employees according to diversity criteria.

The Harvard management had previously rejected the claims. « No government- regardless of which party is in power- should dictate what private universities can teach, who they can allow and hire and what study and research areas they can pursue, » says a letter from the university President Alan Garber. The university will not give up its independence and constitutional rights.

Universities in the sight of the government

Trump’s government is doing with hard bandages against critics and unpleasant opinions or values ​​that she locates in the left -liberal spectrum. Universities are also targeted – for example because of diversity programs that are supposed to counteract historically conditional discrimination against black, women and other disadvantaged groups.

The propalestinian protests at universities in the country, who were heaped in the course of the Gaza War last year, also caused the trump camp’s resentment.

According to threats from Washington, other elite universities such as the New York Columbia University have already made concessions-and also criticized it. Former US President Barack Obama recently asked that universities should rather use their foundation funds or save costs instead of preventing funding from fulfilling Trump’s demands.

In his replica, Harvard President Garber wrote on the government’s letter, the freedom of thinking and research as well as the long-term commitment of the government to respect and protect it, universities would have made it possible to contribute to a free society in a decisive way.

With a view to the supposedly inadequate commitment to anti -Semitism, Garber replied that the letter made it clear that there is no intention to work with the university in order to combat anti -Semitism « in cooperative and constructive ways ».