(New York) The Trump administration imposed additional restrictions on Harvard on Friday for access to certain federal funds, a new episode in its battle against the oldest and prestigious American university.
The Department of Education announced in a statement that it has placed Harvard under the status of “reinforced surveillance of funds” due to “increasing concerns concerning (SA) financial situation”.
According to the department, this status requires the University to now use its own funds to advance federal aid allocated to students before being able to recover these sums from the State.
“Students will continue to have access to federal funding, but Harvard will have to cover the initial payments in order to guarantee that the university spends public funds in a responsible manner,” explains the text.
The Department also requires that Harvard “provides an irrevocable letter of credit of $ 36 million or another financial guarantee deemed acceptable”.
This new offensive against the institution occurs some time after a first judicial victory of Harvard against the Trump administration, which accuses him of serving as a pool for the ideology “Woke” and of not having sufficiently protected his Jewish students during pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
On September 3, a Boston judge ordered the cancellation of the freezing of some 2.6 billion funding decided by the government. In her decision, she accuses the administration of having “used anti -Semitism as a smoke screen” to carry out an “ideologically motivated” attack.
Harvard, who did not react to the decision of the Department of Education, announced on Friday that it had started recovering part of the funds that had been frozen.
“We are delighted with the payment of $ 46 million in research by the Department of Health. This is a first step, and we hope to see our all our funding restored on the part of all the agencies of the State, ”wrote the institution in a press release.
