Trump vs Harvard University: Timeline of measures taken by US President after taking charge in January 2025

Harvard enrolls almost 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge and Massachusetts

In its escalating battle with the Ivy League school, the Trump administration has revoked Harvard University's ability to enrol international students.

The Department of Homeland Security announced the directive saying Harvard has created an unsafe campus environment by allowing “anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators” to assault Jewish students on campus. It also accused Harvard of coordinating with the Chinese communist party.

The decision is part of a larger campaign of the USA government. The administration earlier alleged that elite institutions have failed to comply with federal civil rights laws, especially in handling campus antisemitism and ideological bias.

According to AP, Harvard enrolls almost 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge and Massachusetts, accounting for more than a quarter of its student body. Most are graduate students, coming from more than 100 countries.

However, the US administration’s campaign’s roots trace back to the first Trump administration, which supported a lawsuit challenging Harvard’s use of race in admissions.

Here is a timeline of the Trump administration versus Harvard University.

January 2025: After Trump took office in January 2025, he vowed to crack down on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, and “woke ideology” on college campuses.

Trump also signed a series of executive orders calling for government agencies to take actions against DEI programmes at private institutions, including universities, and to increase government actions to combat anti-Semitism, particularly on campuses.

February 2025: The Department of Justice announced the creation of a multiagency Task Force to “root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses”.

The schools include Harvard, as well as Columbia University, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Northwestern University, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Southern California.

February 27: The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division wrote to Harvard President Alan Garber demanding a meeting within 30 days with “relevant administrators, faculty, staff members, and any on-campus Jewish stakeholder groups”.

February 28: The Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced it will visit 10 university campuses to “meet with university leadership, impacted students and staff, local law enforcement, and community members.” Harvard is among them.

March 10: Harvard was included in a list of 60 schools receiving letters from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, advising them they are under investigation for potential Civil Rights Act violations “relating to antisemitic harassment and discrimination”.

March 31: The General Services Administration notified Harvard that it is conducting an official review “of all Federal contracts and grants,” with “greater than $8.7 billion of multi-year grant commitments”, according to a memo and an email from an agency commissioner, Josh Gruenbaum.

April 15: Trump said in a Truth Social post: “Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’”

April 16: The Department of Homeland Security threatened to revoke Harvard’s certification to participate in the Student and Exchange Visa Program.

April 17: The Department of Education sent a records request to Harvard demanding information on all overseas gifts, plus information relating to “expelled foreign students,” effectively reviving a four-year investigation closed at the end of the Biden administration, with Harvard agreeing to update its financial disclosures.

April 21: Harvard sued the Trump administration, calling threats to its federal funding a violation of the First Amendment, as well as “arbitrary and capricious.”

April 23: Harvard asked a federal judge to fast-track its legal challenge to the funding freeze.

April 25: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission opened a civil rights investigation into Harvard, the Wall Street Journal reported.

April 28: Both sides appeared in court for the first time in Harvard’s suit as US District Court Judge Allison Burroughs, a Barack Obama appointee, sets oral arguments for July 21 in the case.

April 29: Two Harvard task forces released a pair of long-awaited internal reports: one on how antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias are handled on campus and another on anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias.

May 2: Trump said in an online post he will revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status

May 5: The Trump administration announced it is cutting off all new federal research grants to Harvard.

May 13: An additional freeze of about $450 million in federal funding pledged to Harvard was  announced by the government Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism.

May 15: The Department of Energy issued a notice to Harvard terminating about $89 million in grant funding from its Office of Science and Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy.

May 19: The US Department of Justice announced it will use the False Claims Act, typically used to punish federal funding recipients accused of corruption, to crack down on universities like Harvard over DEI policies.