President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the move by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to pull all grants for Harvard University was “good,” as “the students they have, the professors they have, the attitude they have is not American.”
“A grant is a grant. We don’t have to give grants. So we’ll pull back the grants,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting after Noem relayed the news.
Harvard earlier this month said it would defy the Trump administration’s demands to limit activism on campus. Hours later, the federal government said it was freezing more than $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to the Ivy League school.
In a letter to Harvard in mid-April, Trump’s administration had called for broad government and leadership reforms at the university as well as changes to its admissions policies. It also demanded the university audit views of diversity on campus and stop recognizing some student clubs.
The federal government said almost $9 billion in grants and contracts in total were at risk if Harvard did not comply.