US terminates $60 million in Harvard grants over alleged antisemitism

May 20, 2025 , 03:15 PM

(May 19, 2025, REUTERS) – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said on Monday that it was terminating $60 million in federal grants to Harvard University saying the Ivy League institution failed to address antisemitic harassment and ethnic discrimination on campus.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has frozen or ended federal grants and contracts for the university worth nearly $3 billion in recent weeks.

Since taking office in January, the Republican president has sought to use federal research funding to overhaul U.S. academia, which he says has been gripped by anti-American, Marxist and “radical left” ideologies.

The administration has accused Harvard of continuing to consider ethnicity when reviewing student applications and of allowing discrimination against Jews as a result of the pro-Palestinian student protest movement that roiled American campuses last year.

New York’s Columbia University has also been targeted over alleged antisemitism.

“Due to Harvard University’s continued failure to address antisemitic harassment and race discrimination, HHS is terminating multiple multi-year grant awards … over their full duration,” the health department said in a post on X on Monday.

Harvard University did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based institution has previously said that it “cannot absorb the entire cost” of the frozen grants, and that it was working with researchers to help them find alternative funding. It is also suing the Trump administration over its decision to cut grants.

Earlier this month, the university settled a high-profile lawsuit by an Orthodox Jewish student who said Harvard was ignoring antisemitism on campus.

The settlement came four months after Harvard promised additional protections for Jewish students, as it resolved two lawsuits claiming it was a hotbed of antisemitism.

(Reporting by Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Kate Mayberry)

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