Harvard sues Trump over $2.2bn funding freeze

Harvard University is suing Donald Trump's administration after it rejected a list of demands from the White House and had $2.2bn (£1.6bn) of government funding frozen.

It is the first major hurdle the Trump administration faces in its crackdown on "inappropriate" ideologies on campuses. The Ivy League institution, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is accused of ideological bias and allowing antisemitism during campus protests last year against Israel's war in Gaza.

The Trump administration, which began a review of $9bn (£6.7bn) in federal grants for Harvard in March, had demanded the university screen international students for those "hostile to the American values" and the end of all diversity, equality and inclusion programmes. The university's president Alan Garber has remained defiant and rejected those and other reforms, prompting the US president to question whether the university should lose its tax-exempt status.

Mr Trump accused the institution of pushing what he called "political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting 'Sickness?'" in a post on Truth Social. Harvard has seen student-led protests in recent days calling on the institution to resist interference by the federal government.

Harvard's lawsuit, filed in Boston, described the research funding freeze as "arbitrary and capricious" and violating its First Amendment rights. "The government has not - and cannot - identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives, foster American success, preserve American security, and maintain America's position as a global leader in innovation," the court documents revealed.

On Monday, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields issued a defiant response to the lawsuit: "The gravy train of federal assistance to institutions like Harvard, which enrich their grossly overpaid bureaucrats with tax dollars from struggling American families is coming to an end. "Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege." The Trump administration has also paused some funding for universities including Columbia, Princeton, Cornell, Northwestern and Brown over the campus protests.

But protesters, including some Jewish groups, say their criticism of Israel's military actions in Gaza is wrongly associated with antisemitism. Mr Garber said the institution would continue to fight hate and fully comply with anti-discrimination laws.

Trump's college crackdown For the Trump administration, Harvard's pushback is the first major hurdle in its crackdown on colleges it says are hotbeds of liberalism and antisemitism. On the campaign trail last year, Mr Trump vowed to pursue federal cuts for schools that push "critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content".

Six of the seven universities impacted by the administration's cuts are Ivy League schools. Princeton University was recently hit with $4m (£3m) in cuts in part for promoting what Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick described as "climate anxiety" through a lab that develops atmospheric and oceanic models.

The university launched a lawsuit with three other institutions against the Department of Energy over the cuts. Read more from Sky News:Turkish student detained at universityIs Trump's deportation policy firm or cruel?Anti-Trump protests sweep America More than 100 university, college and scholarly society presidents published a joint statement on Tuesday opposing the Trump administration's treatment of higher education institutions after Harvard said the administration was threatening its independence.

The American Council on Education, a non-profit organisation with more than 1,600 member colleges and universities, supported the legal action by Harvard. "It has been clear for weeks that the administration's actions violated due process and the rule of law.

We applaud Harvard for taking this step.".