United States President Donald Trump called Harvard a \u201cjoke\u201d on Wednesday and said it should lose its government research contracts after the top US university refused to accept demands to come under outside political supervision.<\/p>\n
\u201cHarvard can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning, and should not be considered on any list of the world\u2019s great universities or colleges,\u201d Trump said on his Truth Social platform. \u201cHarvard is a joke, teaches hate and stupidity, and should no longer receive federal funds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump is furious at the storied university, which has produced 162 Nobel prize winners, for rejecting his demand to submit to government supervision on admissions, hiring and political slant.<\/p>\n
Other institutions, including Columbia University, have bowed to less far-ranging demands from the Trump administration, which claims that the educational elite is too left-wing.<\/p>\n
Harvard flatly rejected the pressure, with its president, Alan Garber, saying this week that the university refuses to \u201cnegotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights\u201d.<\/p>\n
Trump this week ordered the freezing of $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard, a global research powerhouse. He also threatened to strip the university of its tax-exempt status as a nonprofit educational institution.<\/p>\n
His campaign against the intellectual elite is echoed in similar, unprecedented pressure campaigns against top law firms and big media groups, including The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
Demonstrating the broadening resonance of the row, Golden State Warriors basketball coach Steve Kerr spoke out in support of Harvard after his team defeated the Memphis Grizzlies.<\/p>\n
Kerr, sporting a Harvard T-shirt, called the demands on the university the \u201cdumbest thing I\u2019ve ever heard\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe in academic freedom and I think it\u2019s crucial for all of our institutions to be able to handle their own business the way they want to, and they should not be shaken down and told what to teach and what to say by our government,\u201d Kerr said.<\/p>\n
Government seeks control
\nThe payments frozen to Harvard are for government contracts with its leading research programmes, mostly in the medical field, where the school\u2019s laboratories are critical players in the development of new medicines and treatments.<\/p>\n
Trump and his White House team have publicly justified their campaign against universities as a reaction to what they say is uncontrolled anti-Semitism and a need to reverse diversity programmes aimed at encouraging minorities.<\/p>\n
The anti-Semitism allegations are based on controversy over protests against Israel\u2019s conflict in Gaza that swept across US college campuses last year.<\/p>\n
Columbia University in New York \u2014 an epicentre of the protests \u2014 stood down last month and agreed to oversight of its Middle Eastern studies department after being threatened with a loss of $400 million in federal funds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United States President Donald Trump called Harvard a \u201cjoke\u201d on Wednesday and said it should lose its government research contracts after the top US university refused to accept demands to come under outside political supervision. \u201cHarvard can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning, and should not be considered on any list […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8241,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8242,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8240\/revisions\/8242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}