As demonstrators accuse Trump of undermining universities, he calls Harvard ‘a disgrace’

BERKELEY, California - Hundreds of students, faculty and community members on a California campus booed on April 17 as speakers accused the administration of US President Donald Trump of undermining American universities, as he questioned whether Harvard and others deserve tax-exempt status.

The protest on the University of California’s Berkeley campus was among events dubbed “Rally for the Right to Learn!” planned across the country.  

The administration has rebuked US universities over their handling of pro-Palestinian student protests that roiled campuses from Columbia in New York to Berkeley in 2024, following

the 2023 Hamas-led attack

inside Israel and the subsequent Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Mr Trump has called the protests anti-American and anti-Semitic and accused universities of peddling Marxism and “radical left” ideology.

On April 17, he called Harvard, an institution he criticised repeatedly this week, “a disgrace”, and also criticised others.

Asked about reports the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was planning to remove Harvard's tax-exempt status, Mr Trump told reporters at the White House he did not think a final ruling had been made, and indicated other schools were under scrutiny.

Mr Trump had said in a social media post on April 15 that he was mulling over whether to seek to end Harvard’s tax-exempt status if it continued pushing what he called “political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’”

“I’m not involved in it,” he said, saying the matter was being handled by lawyers. “I read about it just like you did, but tax-exempt status, I mean, it’s a privilege. It’s really a privilege, and it’s been abused by a lot more than Harvard.

“When you take a look whether it’s Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, I don’t know what’s going on, but when you see how badly they’ve acted and in other ways also. So we’ll, we’ll be looking at it very strongly.”

At Berkeley on April 17, protesters raised signs proclaiming “Education is a public good!” and “Hands off our free speech!”

Public policy professor Robert Reich compared the responses of Harvard and Columbia to demands from the administration that they take such steps as ending diversity, equity and inclusion programmes and putting academic departments under outside control.

Harvard president Alan Garber, in a letter on April 14, rejected such demands as unprecedented “assertions of power, unmoored from the law” that violated constitutional free speech and the Civil Rights Act.

Columbia had earlier agreed to negotiations after the Trump administration said in March that it had terminated grants and contracts worth US$400 million (S$525 million), mostly for medical and other scientific research.

After reading the Harvard president’s letter, Columbia’s interim president Claire Shipman said her university would continue “good faith discussions” with the administration, but “would reject any agreement in which the government dictates what we teach, research, or who we hire”.

Berkeley’s Prof Reich said on the steps of Sproul Hall at the heart of the university’s campus: “Columbia University tried to appease a tyrant. It didn’t work.”

“After Harvard stood up to the tyrant, Columbia, who had been surrendering, stood up and said no.”

After Harvard's Dr Garber released his letter on April 14, the Trump administration said it was freezing US$2.3 billion in funding to the university.

Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Kristi Noem announced on April 16 the termination of two DHS grants totalling more than US$2.7 million to Harvard and said the university would lose its ability to enrol foreign students if it does not meet demands to share information on some visa holders.

In response, a Harvard spokesperson said the university stood by its earlier statement to “not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights”, while saying it will comply with the law.

CNN was first to report on April 16 the IRS was making plans to rescind Harvard's tax-exempt status and that a final decision was expected soon.

Harvard said there was no legal basis to rescind it, saying such an action will be unprecedented, will diminish its financial aid for students and will lead to abandonment of some critical medical research programmes.

Mr Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said “any forthcoming actions by the IRS are conducted independently of the President, and investigations into any institution’s violations of their tax status were initiated prior to the President’s TRUTH”.

Under federal law the president cannot request that the IRS, which determines whether an organisation can have or maintain tax-exempt status, investigate organisations. REUTERS