The administration of President Donald Trump has announced that he will carry out a “comprehensive review” of federal contracts with Harvard University, as part of his repression against anti -Semitism in the United States.
But critics fear that the prestigious Ivy League University will be the last objective in a purge of pro-palestinian voices.
On Monday, three departments under the control of Trump, the Department of Education, the General Services Administration and the Department of Human and Health Services, issued a press release saying that $ 255.6 million in Harvard contracts and $ 8.7 billion in subsidies of several years are scheduled to be under the microscope.
“Harvard has served as a symbol of the American dream for generations,” said Linda McMahon Secretary of Education in a statement.
“Harvard's failure to protect students on the anti -Semitic discrimination campus, all while promoting divisive ideologies on free research, has put his reputation seriously in danger.”
The announcement follows similar actions taken against another private campus of the Ivy League, the University of Columbia in New York, which saw millions in revoked contracts.
The Ivy League, and Columbia in particular, were an epicenter of pro-palestinian demonstrations in the United States, after Israel threw a war against Gaza in October 2023.
Student camps in the lawn of Columbia in April and May of 2024 inspired similar protests throughout the country, since campus activists denounced school ties with Israel and asked for the end of human rights abuses in Gaza.
United Nations Human Rights and Experts have accused Israel for using tactics consisting of genocide in the Palestinian territory.
The organizers behind the Campus protesters have largely rejected the accusations of anti -Semitism, arguing that being critical of the Israel government is not the same as spreading the hate Antijudío. They have compared attempts to stain their protests as a form of censorship, designed to cushion freedom of expression.
But critics have accused protesters of creating an insecure learning environment. There have also been isolated reports of Antijudío attacks, including the alleged assault of a 24-year-old Columbia student who was hanging in favor of Pro-Israel flyers in October 2023.
Even so, protests have been, in general, peaceful. And experts in freedom of expression have denounced the Trump administration as accusations of anti -Semitism out of proportion to exercise control over the best universities.
A list of demands
In the case of Columbia University, the Trump administration stripped the school of $ 400 million in subsidies and contracts on March 7, with immediate effect. He accused Columbia of allowing “relentless violence, intimidation and anti -Semitic harassment” on his campus.
A week later, on March 13, the Trump administration issued a list of demands that Columbia would need to comply to win the $ 400 million.
They included prohibiting facial masks, ensuring that the police could arrest the “agitators” on the campus and adopt a controversial definition of anti -Semitism that could include criticism of Israel.
The Trump administration also requested that the Department of Studies of Middle East, Asia del Sur and African be placed under the control of an external “judicial administration”.
Critics denounced measures as an attempt to corrode academic freedom. The basis for individual rights and expressions (fire) described the movement of the administration “a plan to overcome the censorship of the campus”.
“The letter goes far beyond what is appropriate for the government to order and cool the campus speech,” the organization wrote in a statement.
“Civil rights investigations should not be handled through ad hoc directives of the Government.”
But the United States has long been an ally of Israel since the country's foundation, and the Trump administration has supported the campaign of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza, even proposing that the United States “takes over” and “possesses” the Palestinian territory, making it a “Riviera del Middle East.”
Critics said Trump's proposal was equivalent to an ethnic cleaning campaign against the Palestinians who call Gaza home.
On March 22, Columbia University agreed to meet most of Trump's demands.
The Faculty of Law Speaks
The Trump administration promoted these concessions as a victory in its press release announcing the review of Federal Harvard contracts.
He also indicated that Harvard said he would cooperate with Trump's priorities.
“We are pleased that Harvard is willing to commit to us in these objectives,” said Sean Keveney, of the Department of Health and Human Services, in the statement.
But the announcement that Harvard was the next school to be indicated is produced immediately after an open letter of his Law Faculty, one of the oldest in the Nation.
More than 90 teachers signed the document, which denounces actions taken to “punish people for legally speaking about public concern matters.”
While the letter does not mention Trump or pro-palestinian protesters directly, their publication occurs after students have been arrested for deportation as a result of their activism.
However, the letter takes note of the attempts to “threaten the firms of lawyers and legal clinics” for their legal work or previous government services, a reference to the actions Trump has taken.
Trump, for example, has issued executive orders that punish companies such as Perkins Coie LLP of San Francisco, which represented his 2016 Electoral Rival Hillary Clinton, and has fired professional prosecutors in the Department of Justice.
Harvard's law professors warned that this violates constitutional right to freedom of expression, and creates an atmosphere of fear.
“Whatever we think about particular behavior under particular facts, we share a conviction that our Constitution, including its first amendment, was designed to make possible dissent and debate without fear of government punishment,” says the letter.
“Neither a law of law nor a society can function properly in the midst of that fear.”
Even so, the Trump administration promised a “fast action” if Harvard did not meet its demands.
“We refer to business,” McMahon Secretary published on social networks.
